How Much of ‘Bad Trip’ Is Real? How Eric Andre Pulled Off Those Epic Pranks

Believe it: Eric Andre‘s Netflix movie Bad Trip is about as real as prank movies get. Those who watch The Eric André Show already know that the absurdist comedian has no qualms about wreaking havoc on the unsuspecting general public. But for Bad Trip, André teamed up with producer Jeff Tremaine—best known as the director of the Jackass franchise—to create an actual story connected to his wild pranks.

In the film, André stars as a car wash employee named Chris who has a chance encounter with his crush from high school, Maria (played by Bones actor Michaela Conlin). Maria tells Chris to visit her in New York, so Chris enlists his best friend Bud (comedian Lil Rel Howery) to embark on a road trip. The two friends borrow a car from Chris’s sister, Trina (played by Tiffany Haddish), not knowing that she has recently broken out of prison.

That story is fictional, but the absurd things these characters do on their “road trip” are real things that the Bad Trip production did to real people.

How much of Bad Trip is real?

Every reaction to a prank you see in Bad Trip is real. In an interview with Decider, Andre explained that while there are actors who work with the production to help pull off his pranks on real people, you never see their reactions on screen. “Our whole thing is that there’s not a single fake reaction in the movie,” André said. “We never had people pretend they were in shock or anything. We had like an ethos about it. Because even if there’s one fake reaction in the movie, it jeopardizes all the rest of them.”

That said, André did not really cut off his hand in a blender or get into a horrific car accident, as you see his character experience in the film. Those are carefully planned pranks intended to fool the public involving professional stunt performers, fake blood, and gorilla suits. Read more about how André pulled off the stunts below.

Are the people in Bad Trip actors?

Very few of the people you see on screen—besides Andre, Howery, Tiffany Haddish as Trina, and Michaela Conlin as Maria—are actors. As the end-credits scene reveals, that Army guy who gave André solid life advice and then took a hit of his vape was real. The worker who thought he was helping Tiffany Haddish escape from prison was real. The bisexual waitress who doled out love advice was real. The guy with the dreadlocks and tie-dye shirt who helped André with the car crash was real, too—though Andre told Decider that he fooled Iron Man director Jon Favreau with that one.

“Even the guy in that scene—the guy with the dreadlocks and the peace sign that was really helping us out? I showed the movie to Jon Favreau, an early cut of it and he goes, ‘Dude, I thought even that guy was an actor until the end credits, where you show all the reveals!'” André said. “So that’s what I want to stress and reiterate: We go to these great lengths because we want every single reaction to be authentic. You feel the authenticity and the reactions.”

Eric André and Lil Rel Howery really got chased out of a barbershop in Bad Trip:

Yes. Andre explained to Decider how that prank went down:

It was one of the first days we were filming and crews were still getting on their feet. [We got sent to] the wrong barbershop. So our hidden camera ops were in another barbershop a few doors down. We got sent to the wrong place! That’s why there’s only the exterior shot, unfortunately.

But you caught the tail end of it—basically, we went in there, Rel and I, and our penises are stuck in the Chinese finger trap. We entered this like, really hood barbershop, we went to the guy and I said, “Hey sir, sorry to bother you…” And he’s like giving a guy a haircut! He’s giving the guy a fade! [Laughs.] “Excuse me sir, we got our dick caught in a Chinese finger trap. Can we borrow those scissors and you can cut us out of this thing?” And the guy was just like, “Aw, hell no!” And he had like murder rage in his eyes and he looked for a gun. He told us later that he left his gun at home and he usually doesn’t. Thank God. Looked for the gun, grabbed his knife, and then chased us out. Then you can kind of see the rest. And I was stuck in this dick trap contraption, so I can’t run! So I’m like, “Ahh!” Me and Rel are like going in opposite directions. It was like Laurel and Hardy.

The “dick trap contraption,” however, was not André and Howery’s real penises, but prosthetics. That didn’t make the fear any less real, however. In an interview for the press notes, producer Jeff Tremaine said, “You know, this guy ran out with a knife, and it’s not very easy to run away when you’re connected by prosthetic penises.”

Tiffany Haddish really fooled a city worker into helping her escape from prison:

Obviously, Tiffany Haddish did not really escape from prison, but the Bad Trip production really did trick that city worker into thinking that she had.

“One of the best reactions in the whole thing is when Tiffany escapes off the prison bus,” producer Jeff Tremaine said in an interview for the press notes. “A guy is cleaning graffiti off a wall as this prison bus pulls up. The guard gets out, walks past him, and all of a sudden Tiffany drops out of the bottom of the bus and starts talking to the guy. And the guy, looking out for her, tells her ‘You gotta go. You gotta get out of here.’ I had no idea that she would be so good at the hidden camera game. She’s just a natural at taking people for a ride.”

Eric André lured real people to a new zoo opening for the gorilla prank:

Andre pulled back the curtain on how he pulled off the bit where he was attacked and violated by a gorilla for Decider. He said:

We would do stuff like put stuff on Craigslist, like, “New zoo just opened up, free admission, bring a friend and you’ll get free food!” We would entice people like that. When you film in a location, you have to get permission for the location because it’s a private place of business. But we’re not pranking anybody that’s in on it. Nobody that’s in on it is in the frame. We’re not cutting to a reaction of a zoo worker like “Oh my god!” So, we had the Zoo master who worked there corralling the people we were pranking into the “prank cage,” as it was in that zoo. When you’re shooting in a private location, six hours out of that 12 hour day is the art department and the camera department setting up their hides and their cameras—robo-cams, little backpack cameras, little tiny GoPros hidden in fake bushes. It’s like a CIA operation. You have the art department building fake trees and fake animal cages. The camera department is rigging these like hidden cameras. So, to be able to do that you need to get permission from whatever location you’re pranking. However, you don’t show the people. Anybody that’s in on it is not featured in the image.

Bad Trip used a stunt driver to stage a real car crash:

Andre also walked Decider through how he faked the car crash, which involved tricking a group of people in Atlanta who thought they were on an Art Walk. He said:

Our stunt coordinator, who’s a precision driver, did the car stunt: drove the car, flipped the car—I think it’s called the sidewinder—flipped it, boom! The car crashed. He got out, we made sure he was safe. Then as makeup is putting fake blood and scratches all over Rel and I, we ran into the flipped car, got in position.

That group of people that we were pranking, they thought they were on an “Art Walk of Atlanta,” like a graffiti Street Art Walk. So one of my producers is pretending they’re a street art curator, like a block and a half, two blocks away. He has his earphones in like an iPhone earbud, but that’s really his communication. So the other producers are right, like, “Alright, Charlie flipped the car. Alright, Rel and Eric are in place. Cue the art group.” So then he’s like, “Ah, that brings me to my next part. Here’s a piece of graffiti that blah blah blah… Oh, my God, a horrible car accident!” [Laughs.] “Oh my god, that car just crashed!” Then he ran over, then everybody else in the group is like, “What?” Then they ran over. And then, you know, Rel and I start crawling out of like, shattered glass all in a daze.

The Bad Trip musical number took weeks of rehearsal, and two separate shoots:

In an interview for the Bad Trip press notes, Andre and director Kitao Sakurai explained that the film’s musical number was filmed in two public locations: Once in Atlanta, and once at a mall in Los Angeles.

“The first time it was too much of a ‘guerilla style’ thing,” Andre said, “and we realized we needed to shoot it really beautifully and cinematically — as cinematic as a hidden camera movie can be, and make it feel like Singing in the Rain. The version that made it into the movie is the cannibalized version of both the old shoot and the new shoot.”

André even took dancing lessons.  “I was rehearsing at the mall weeks before we shot, going over the location, and even secretly going to dance studios,” says Andre. “All that work paid off because, by the time we filmed, I felt actually good about my dancing which is typically very embarrassing for me.”

Eric André really did dangle from a roof for the Bad Trip finale… with an added precaution:

In an interview for the film’s press notes, director Kitao Sakurai explained that Haddish was secretly holding a camouflaged safety cable that was secured to the rooftop, in order to make sure André didn’t really fall. “We didn’t fake it or cheat it,” Sakurai said. “Everything you’re seeing is legitimately real. The fact that people fully believed that this crazy dangerous thing was happening and that they decided to get involved, that they decided to take it upon themselves to try and get Tiffany to pull Eric up onto the roof, was incredible.”

André added that the production did have a few of their own people in the crowd to encourage the reactions. “The people on the street were so engaged with what she was doing that they didn’t really notice that we had a guy down there, passing them a megaphone to help them negotiate.”

So there you have it! Hearing all the work that goes into making a movie like Bad Trip, it’s no wonder that it took five years to make. And be sure to stick around for the Bad Trip credits, which features footage of the moment that André and his team revealed to the people they were pranking that they’re on a hidden camera show. It’s all in good fun.

Watch Bad Trip on Netflix