The gloriously ludicrous comedy, “The Brothers Sims,” tracks two estranged brothers as they come to terms with their father’s death (creator of “The Sims”), and one another. We asked co-writers and stars, Zach Dunn and Jon Millstein, and director Corey Sherman, how the project began, how they achieve such perfectly corny characterizations, and what’s next for them…

1) Can you talk briefly about your background(s), and how you first got interested in film/video making and comedy?

JON: I started writing comedy in high school and did UCB once I moved to LA. Then I worked at Funny Or Die where I learned the art of content creation.

ZACH: I was obsessed with comedy since I was a little kid. My brother is a lot older than me and would send me DVDs and stuff. There was no film stuff or anything going on in my high school, but I was able to do a few film camp summer programs where I made shorts that I’m sure hold up really well.

JON: Zach one-upping me by saying he started as a ‘little kid’ versus high school is a good indicator of our dynamic and how the seeds were sowed for this feature film. He appears to want to project the image he has some sort of comedy disease. I don’t understand it.

ZACH: I’m very very sick.

COREY: I went to film school out here in LA and have been working freelance as a director and editor ever since. I first got started making sketches with my friends when I got a camcorder for Hanukkah in second grade. Guess Zach and I really hit the ground running. Don’t know if Jon will ever make up for that lost time. Sad…

2) How did this project start - what was the earliest idea that came to you, and how did you go about building from that?

JON: The project started because Zach and I look alike. We met a few years ago when we were both PA’s on the set of Birthday Boys Season 2. I was doing UCB at that point but Zach was busy doing a different kind of U: USC. Now that we’re both grown-ups, we decided we needed to take advantage of our similar looks to make a short film where we played brothers. Corey gave us the push we needed to make it happen. 

COREY: I had worked with Zach a couple times throughout college and helped Jon with a few of his videos after we met each other at UCB. Their senses of humor seemed like a perfect match and so I knew having the two of them on screen together was a good enough reason to make this short.  

ZACH: I think among the first things we discussed were: Jon and I being estranged brothers, our dad having invented The Sims, and our family home being the Griffith Observatory.

JON: We also knew we wanted this to be fun and not insanely stressful, so we wanted to do the thing in a low-key, run-and-gun style. This allowed us to film in one of the biggest and most successful cemetery chains in Southern California, F*r*st L*wn Cemetery.

ZACH: Yes we had a somewhat stressful but ultimately successful experience shooting at this location, which I’m sure you’ve now figured out was the iconic Farist Lewn Cemetery.

3) I’m a big fan of this ultra awkward style with these corny characterizations and easy lessons learned. Can you talk a bit about how you came to this style, and how you go about achieving it? Like what’s the writing process look like?

ZACH: Should I answer one first?

JON: Putting this in the interview.

ZACH: I’m fine with that. Transparency is very important to me. So, to answer first, I think that at the beginning it came out of my admiration for Jon’s tonal commitment in his work and videos. Jon being very serious makes me laugh really hard, and as we were first discussing this video I knew I wanted us to make something that was in this self-serious mode.

JON: Wow, very kind words, Zach. And let’s just say: I’m glad I let you start this one off. 

ZACH: See!

JON: As far as my fondness for this style, I’ll just say that it definitely does not come from me being afraid of being genuine and-or sharing my true thoughts with the world. Our writing process was pretty simple: Corey, Zach, and I got together and wrote an outline, and then Zach and I went back on forth writing different large sections of it. Zach wrote some absolutely terrific jokes such as ‘Zachy’s gotta get his steppies.’

ZACH: Jon, you don’t have to compliment me now just because I complimented you earlier. I mean yeah it’s nice and yeah I did write that joke (along with several others) but I just want you to know you don’t have to say that in the interview if you don’t want to.

COREY: Oh boys...can’t you see you love each other? I will say that it was really fun and challenging trying to condense the entire emotional arc of an indie-siblings-dramedy into a short film. I think it helped to saturate the story with that awkward, forced feeling since all we really had time for were the “big emotional moments”. 

Also, the level of bad acting is really impressive. It must be difficult to maintain. Do you ever accidentally act too well, and you can’t use it because it’s not bad enough?

ZACH: Thank… you... All I will say is we did not explicitly set out to act poorly. Our goal was to give as genuine a performance as possible of the very dumb lines we had written. 

JON: I agree. To give ourselves some credit, though, there is some kind of a tricky balance with these tonal things and I think it helps a lot when the writer is the actor. You don’t wanna ‘sell out’ the line by delivering it like it’s a joke and I think as writers we have a good sense of that. 

ZACH: Yeah if anything in the edit we were trying to steer clear of takes that felt too jokey, for the most part. The flatter the better!

COREY: Those takes were also a way of steering the audience clear from taking the short too seriously. It’s such a silly premise but by parodying a dramedy, we sometimes ran the risk of appearing like a real dramedy that was asking the audience to care about these characters’ pain. I think using takes that felt like actors reading from a script as opposed to expressing genuine emotion helped to keep the tone focused and the comedy on track. 

4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?

COREY: I recently saw this documentary called “Close-Up” about a man who impersonates a famous director to get close to a wealthy family. They show both the real trial that took place after he was caught as well as recreations of moments that happened between him and the family starring him and the family! It was hilarious and very touching—highly recommend! 

JON: I recently watched one of my girlfriend’s favorite movies “Moonstruck” and it was funny as all hell. I loved it. Cher is a vision and Nic Cage is also a vision.

ZACH: I had a really great experience seeing the new Matthew McConaughey movie “Serenity” this year. It isn’t what some would classify as a “good” “movie,” but it is insane and, without giving too much away, shares a lot of themes with our short. A feature length version of “The Brothers Sims” would end up a lot like “Serenity,” I think. 

JON: Haven’t seen it! Have you seen “Moonstruck?”

ZACH: Yes but not since I was little. As mentioned earlier I was passionate about comedy from a very young age.

JON: Right, which is actually kind of embarrassing because here you and I are making a short film together and I didn’t even start being mentally insane about comedy until I was 18. 

ZACH: You’re right. That is kind of embarrassing.

5) What’s next for you?

JON: For me: more shorts, more scripts, and more online vids! Watch out, Internet! 

ZACH: I’m currently writing for the upcoming second season of “What We Do In The Shadows” on FX with my writing partner Jake Bender. I’m also planning on sending out some tweets over the next few months so keep your eyes peeled.

COREY: I’m finishing up a few different projects right now—another comedy short, a doc, and an animated mockumentary. What can I say? I like to dabble! 

JON: Hell yes. Thank you Kentucker for doing this interview with us, which I’m not even sure if you’re going to print as-is or synthesize into something else. The truth is, this is not an interview in the traditional sense but we had a fun time pretending that it was. 

Contact Info:

Corey Sherman: IG: @corinsherman

Zach Dunn: IG: @zachbdunn | Twitter: @ZachBDunn

Jon Millstein IG: @jmillstein1 | Twitter: @jmillstein