Free Guy: Ninja and Pokimane Explain How the Streamers Got Involved in Ryan Reynolds’ Movie

Free Guy is officially set to release in theaters tomorrow, August 13th, and ahead of the theatrical release, ComicBook.com had the opportunity to speak with several members of the cast and crew — and that includes the likes of popular video game streamers Tyler “Ninja” Blevins and Imane “Pokimane” Anys. It’s been known for some time that Free Guy, which is essentially all about a video game NPC played by Ryan Reynolds that gains awareness of the fact that he’s in a video game, would feature the popular streamers, and it sounds like the way that the two got involved was pretty simple, actually.

You can watch the full interview embedded above, or read on to read just the snippet about how the two came to be involved, how they decided to participate, and what it was like working with Shawn Levy.

ComicBook.com: I’d love to hear how you guys came to be involved in Free Guy. I imagine they just looked who is at the top of the game for this and said, “We want to include them.” But when it first came to you guys are going to be part of this Ryan Reynolds movie, was there like a, “oh, can I do this? Should I do this?” What was that reaction and what was it like to be directed by Shawn Levy playing yourself?

Pokimane: Well, for starters, I’m not sure what their process was like for finding talent, all I know is that I was really, really glad they chose me. And it’s definitely one of those opportunities that comes to you and you’re like, no matter how nervous I am for this, there’s no way I can say no. You got to do it. As for being directed by Shawn, it was great. He was pretty easygoing. And it was nice because I got to do it at my setup, so kind of like on home turf, I was pretty comfortable in that sense. So yeah, amazing opportunity. So glad I did it. And I’m excited for people to see it as well.

Ninja: Yeah. It’s pretty much the same thing on my end. It was one of the things, Jess just got the email, she was like, “Tyler, you have to see this cast. You have to see who the director is.” And it was a no-brainer. We looked at a little bit of the script and it was like, “this is going to be incredible.” So it was a 100% yes almost instantly, no conversation really needed. And yeah, the authenticity of streaming and just being ourselves, it was really genuine. Shawn, one of the things that I remember Shawn saying, he was like — obviously there was a script. We had things that we wanted to say for our lines, but he was just like, “Say it how you will say it.” Say how you would say it like this, the whole point of this, getting people like Poki and myself was like, “we want you guys to be you. So say how you would say. Don’t mix up your language and stuff like that.” So that made it even easier.

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As noted above, Free Guy is set to release in theaters tomorrow, August 13th. It stars Ryan Reynolds as Guy, Jodie Comer as Millie, Taika Waititi as Antwan, and more. You can check out all of our previous coverage of the video game-themed movie right here.

What do you think of how Ninja and Pokimane got involved in Free Guy? Are you looking forward to the movie’s release? Let us know in the comments, or feel free to reach out and hit me up directly over on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk about all things gaming!