Ricky Stanicky Stars Andrew Santino and Jermaine Fowler Reveal the Scene That Made Them Crack Up

In Ricky Stanicky, the new comedy from Airplane!‘s Peter Farrelly, a trio of childhood friends conspire with an actor to invent Ricky Stanicky, a long-lost friend they made up to have a built-in excuse to get away from their wives. The movie is one of those comedy-of-errors type films where there are a lot of big comedy set pieces, a lot of parties, and a lot of cool, creative settings from night clubs and parties to boardrooms and casinos.  And with a lot of talented comedians involved, production was bound to be kind of a riot.

Speaking with ComicBook.com about the movie, stars Andrew Santino and Jermaine Fowler chimed in on some of the scenes that were the hardest to get through without breaking and laughing onscreen. They said that there was a lot of that, because the movie was cast so well up and down the lineup — with Santino, in particular, calling out Jackson Tozer, who played a minor character but made a big impression with his catchphrase.

“We are at the casino, we meet Rock Hard Rod for the first time. Everyone killed that scene,” Fowler explained. “Zac [Efron]’s line reading for…’Hard-on Ronnie,’ that made me laugh. There was some improv in that scene that [Sanitno] killed me with. And then the Owen Wilson impression, and the s–t baby monologue. All that, it’s great.”

“Everything with William H Macy,” Santino said. “There was also — give a shout-out to a guest star that we had. There was a guy that plays a character where he used to work at a fast food restaurant. When he busted in on us, we were dying laughing because he kept killing it every single time.”

In Ricky Stanicky, when three childhood best friends pull a prank gone wrong, they invent the imaginary Ricky Stanicky to get them out of trouble! Twenty years after creating this ‘friend,’ Dean, JT, and Wes (Zac Efron, Andrew Santino, and Jermaine Fowler) still use the nonexistent Ricky as a handy alibi for their immature behavior. When their spouses and partners get suspicious and demand to finally meet the fabled Mr. Stanicky, the guilty trio decide to hire washed-up actor and raunchy celebrity impersonator “Rock Hard” Rod (John Cena) to bring him to life. But when Rod takes his role of a lifetime too far, they begin to wish they’d never invented Ricky in the first place.

Ricky Stanicky premiered globally on Prime Video March 7, 2024.