Jackpot Interview: Paul Feig & Awkwafina Talk Prime Video Action Comedy

ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to Jackpot director Paul Feig and star Awkwafina about the action comedy movie. It will be released globally on Prime Video on August 15.

“In the near future, a ‘Grand Lottery’ has been newly established in California – the catch: kill the winner before sundown to legally claim their multi-billion dollar jackpot. When Katie Kim (Awkwafina) moves to Los Angeles, she mistakenly finds herself with the winning ticket. Desperate to survive the hordes of jackpot hunters, she reluctantly joins forces with amateur lottery protection agent Noel Cassidy (John Cena), who will do everything in his power to get her to sundown in exchange for a piece of her prize. However, Noel must face off with his slick rival Louis Lewis (Simu Liu), who also seeks to collect Katie’s commission at all costs,” says the synopsis.

Tyler Treese: Paul, there’s a little prologue that plays before the film really kicks off with Sean William Scott. I love seeing you two working together. How was it working with him and really setting up this world that the movie takes place in?

Paul Feig: Well, I mean, I love Sean. I mean, we had a show called Welcome to Flatch that was on Fox for a couple of seasons. Sean’s like the nicest guy in the world. I mean, literally, he’s so sweet. But then he plays these badass characters. I don’t know if you’ve seen The Wrath of Becky, but he’s really scary in that movie. It was fun in this to just have him be this tough guy. He’s super tough, and then you cut, and he’s like, “Oh, was that okay?” He’s sweet. So it’s just really fun and we just have the best time doing that.

Awkwafina, I was so impressed with all the action scenes here because you’re getting into these spectacular fights, but you really take a character-first approach to everything. You’re not a martial arts expert in the film. You’re making mistakes, you’re getting in over your head. So how was it really combining these amazing choreography, but also throwing in some mistakes there? It was really great.

Awkwafina: Oh, thank you. I mean, also, like thank God that I wasn’t supposed to know what I was doing. I think that made everything so much easier. If you’re reacting to something, it really is like how I would’ve normally reacted if I was on a movie set and this started happening to me. So there’s an element of actual danger, but then also an element of like, we’ve rehearsed this choreography for weeks, and the stunt team was amazing, but It’s fun, it’s thrilling, I’d say.

Paul, one other aspect about the action I love is that people are just grabbing any objects they can and trying to murder poor Awkwafina here with it. How was it coming up with those scenes? Because it just adds so much character to these side characters, too.

Feig: Yeah. It was really fun. Rob Yescombe wrote this great script that had a lot of that stuff in there. Then when I brought on James Young and his stunt team to stunt coordinate this, we bonded over the fact that we both love Jackie Chan movies. We love old silent films, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, and all that stuff. So we wanted that feel of like a Warner Brothers cartoon where things are coming out of nowhere, but it all feels very real at the same time. It’s why I love the fact that there are no guns in the movie because it just makes it much more fun of like, “How resourceful are people gonna be when they’re trying to kill somebody who just walked into a room?” So it all is part and parcel with just how much we were able to play with the comedy and make it fun.

Awkwafina, I love the opening. You’re helping this girl out, this child actor, from her abusive dad. That was such a great introduction to your character. Can you just speak about what you liked about that scene?

Awkwafina: Oh man, I loved that scene. The scene is kind of sad because I think that she has one fleeting moment of like, “Oh, I did that well.” You know what I mean? That was it. It’s all downhill from there. All of her efforts are kind of not as successful. But I mean, the scenes like that you wanna do. They feel good when you’re helping people.

Feig: And I love that scene just because that’s the moment you go like, “Oh, I really like this person.” In movies, you have to make people like the lead character so quickly, and sometimes it’s hard. This time it was easy because she’s so great.

Thanks to Paul Feig and Awkwafina for taking the time to talk about Prime Video‘s Jackpot.

Tyler Treese

Tyler Treese is ComingSoon and SuperHeroHype's Editor-in-Chief. An experienced entertainment journalist, his work can be seen at Sherdog, Fanbyte, Rock Paper Shotgun, and more. When not watching the latest movies, Treese enjoys mixed martial arts and playing with his Shiba Inu, Kota.