Popstar oral – A decade after “Popstar: Never Stop Stopping” debuted, Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone look back at the making of Conner4Real—how the jokes and songs were built, why Judd Apatow mattered, what it was like to film the big arena days, and how a b
For a little over a week. the world of Conner4Real felt less like a movie set and more like a touring pop universe. The Lonely Island trio—Andy Samberg. Akiva Schaffer. and Jorma Taccone—kept performing the songs over and over. all day. for a schedule that ran 11 days at a stretch at the Los Angeles Forum. By the end. Samberg remembers hitting a breaking point: lip-syncing a full performance of one song took a toll. and he “definitely got really sick. ” needing an IV just to power through.
A decade has passed since Conner4Real first exploded onto the scene in “Popstar: Never Stop. Never Stopping. ” and the film that didn’t quite land in 2016 has somehow aged into something else entirely—fans now quote it constantly. and the comedy is widely treated as a modern classic. The trio’s new oral history takes readers inside that transformation. starting with the ambition that drove the project in the first place: to build a big-screen vehicle that could carry their comedy music without feeling forced.
Created by “Saturday Night Live” stars and life-long pals Andy Samberg. Akiva Schaffer. and Jorma Taccone—collectively known as gag-rappers The Lonely Island—the project came together as what they called their most ambitious outing to date. At its center was Conner (Samberg). an out-of-touch pop megastar who crashes back down to earth when his career takes a stumble. forcing him to reconnect with his Beastie Boys-like former bestie bandmates Owen (Taccone) and Lawrence (Schaffer).
Working under the guidance of producer and comedy mensch Judd Apatow, the trio aimed to throw everything at the wall. Samberg described a specific creative intent early on: they wanted “as much creative control as possible. ” and Apatow’s presence helped shape the work without sanding down the weird. The plan. Samberg said. was a film vehicle that would let them do the comedy music they loved—music that had already made them stand out through digital shorts on “SNL”—and make it feel like it belonged in a movie.
If the origin story had a theme, it was pressure—creative, emotional, and practical. Schaffer called the movie the culmination of “a lot of the skills we’d been honing throughout our careers. ” and he also captured the constant nerve behind that culmination: you’re happiest when you feel like you’re where you’re supposed to be. but you’re also terrified the whole thing might land wrong. Taccone added another kind of anxiety: being the three of them and their friendship was a risk. and Apatow kept redirecting their focus toward what the movie “should be” about.
That redirecting came with creative fuel. Schaffer described weekly writing like a cycle of building blocks: “four good new scenes” would show up. and they wouldn’t know where they were going until Apatow reviewed them. By Friday, the reassurance was immediate—“These are excellent, keep going”—which Schaffer said “really refilled our gas tank.”.
The oral history turns most vivid when it moves from themes to craft: songs written before there was a script, jokes built to fit scenes, and the way they tried to keep the movie “current” in the middle of a satire of modern pop.
Samberg said the writing started almost immediately. Before there was a script. he and Taccone were already writing songs; he pointed to “I’m a Weirdo” as what he says was the very first song he and Akiva wrote—one that didn’t end up in the movie. When they got bored of writing. they’d go into the studio and generate songs they didn’t yet know where to place. like “Equal Rights.” As Schaffer put it. the method freed them to “collect funny stuff” and then select what fit once the real story started taking shape.
Some of the musical ideas became anchors. Schaffer said “Mona Lisa” came fairly early, and “Finest Girl,” the Bin Laden one, showed up as well. They didn’t want Conner to just rap; singing mattered. Schaffer said the biggest rappers of the moment sang and rapped, so they decided Conner had to sing too. Schaffer downloaded Auto-Tune because “we’re not great singers. ” and for songs like “Mona Lisa” and “Finest Girl. ” they sat and figured it out.
Taccone described the catchphrase verse from “Turn Up The Beef. ” admitting they went through so many iterations that three of his original lines made it in—“Turn up the Meds!” among them. Their guiding rule. Taccone said. was writing visually: you do the joke in the audio. but when the visual hits. you hope it’s even funnier.
For the ending. Samberg said they knew they wanted “Incredible Thoughts.” He also listed songs that felt like singles they could “hang set pieces on”: “Finest Girl. ” “Mona Lisa. ” and “I’m So Humble.” That studio-by-studio accumulation wasn’t just a creative indulgence—it was structured. Taccone said they wrote an entire album before they made a movie. including a shared Google Doc where they added material as the script was fleshed out. He described a normal 155-page shooting script and then a separate additional 300-page version. calling it a “bible” containing all the other stuff.
The making of Conner’s world didn’t stay on paper. Once shooting began. their colorful entourage became real. their songs came to life. and their fans filled arenas—an effect Schaffer says they built intentionally. They even rented the Forum in Los Angeles for 11 days in a row because it was new. Schaffer said. explaining that arenas around the world look the same and no one would notice. So the single arena became “our whole world tour. ” dressed in different motifs to make it feel like backstage in Europe. “We used every nook and cranny,” Schaffer said.
Samberg remembered the relentless performance rhythm. A week and a half straight of performing songs all day felt cool at first, then not tenable. He got sick and needed an IV, while Schaffer and Taccone kept going.
Then there were the cameos and the improvisers that widened the movie’s universe. Schaffer singled out Sarah Silverman, who played Paula, Conner’s publicist, and Tim Meadows, who played Harry, Conner’s manager. Schaffer said he didn’t know Tim would bring “this kind of wounded heart” to the character. and felt they “saw a different shade of him” than in other roles—elevating depth in what’s otherwise a goofy comedy.
Taccone described Meadows in a way that landed somewhere between admiration and pure chaos. He compared Tim’s speech to Christopher Walken or Nic Cage. then recalled a set moment even the trio hadn’t fully controlled: Meadows kept saying “The kids love it!” even though the line had been written—Taccone said it came out “weirder” when he said it. and they felt “gifted” to be around those people.
Some performances didn’t survive the cut. Schaffer loved working with James Buckley. who played Sponge. and Eddie Blackmon. who played Eddie. but said they got “cut down the most. ” largely due to the momentum of the movie. A specific example: the kind of time they spent loving something that still had to be trimmed. even for a favorite song moment like “Mona Lisa. ” reduced to 10 seconds in the film.
Even the behind-the-scenes details carried the movie’s sense of absurd commitment. Taccone said their buddy DJ Nu-Mark from Jurassic 5 was their DJ, a nod to Beastie Boys and Mix Master Mike. Taccone said Nu-Mark came down for like $0. and in the edit they made him hunt dolphins “like a dickhead.” Nu-Mark saw the finished work and was reportedly upset that his “favor” had turned into dolphin-hunting comedy.
The trio also built the crowd energy through film tricks. Schaffer said they loved Morgan Spurlock’s “One Direction” documentary. so Judd Apatow asked Sony if they had footage of its crowds. Sony sent a folder full of crowds holding signs. and all they had to do. Schaffer said. was add VFX so the signs read “Conner” instead of One Direction. Even the crowd shots outside hotel rooms were One Direction footage.
And then came the mockumentary rhythm of celebrity accumulation: hours of talking heads. famous faces. and personal excitement bleeding into the work. Samberg said they had about 25 talking heads of some of the most famous people in the world—part personal relationships. part the undeniable draw of Apatow’s involvement: “Whoa. it’s Judd Apatow?. Fuck yeah. I’ll come do it!” Taccone said Mariah Carey sat across from him. someone he called his biggest crush since he was 12. while Nas had them giggling about whether Nas could say they influenced him.
The shooting logistics mattered too. Schaffer said they shot in LA because the cameos depended on schedules. Some cameos were shot during prep when someone was free, and others during filming at the Forum. “We’d have a full shooting day,” he said, then go shoot Ringo Star at lunch and come back.
Their web of musical and celebrity moments included major names that didn’t always survive for the obvious reason—editing decisions—but still shaped the experience. Taccone said Norah Jones came through. and he made Ed Sheeran play Conner4Real songs. though they didn’t put it in. Samberg said he hadn’t even seen that footage. and Taccone replied that it “sucks. ” with Samberg responding “Ed Sheeran. that sucks. I love you.”.
Even the movie’s world-building props came from pop culture logic. Schaffer said Conner’s pet turtle Maxiumus was a trope taken from Michael Jackson’s pet Bubbles the Chimp and the pop stars who get attached to odd pets. Samberg said it was also from childhood: he’d had a turtle growing up he loved.
Underneath all the spectacle was an editing fight—hundreds of hours of usable material. mockumentary-style flexibility. and decisions that whittled down chaos into a final cut. Schaffer said by the edit. they couldn’t even watch all the footage: between what they shot. concert footage. and talking heads. they had about 300 hours. Samberg said they recut the movie “a thousand times” because mockumentary style allowed “infinite ways to cut it. ” and a glut of usable. funny stuff made the whittling down far more complicated than on another movie.
That whittling wasn’t only internal. Taccone said their friends Phil Lord and Chris Miller—who produced their first thing. “Awesometown”—were among the most meticulous filmmakers he’d met. and during conversation about the first act. Phil pitched 10 reorders. The trio felt they’d already tried every one of those, so they concluded, “I think we’re good.”.
Schaffer summed up the moment they knew they had the final cut with blunt simplicity: when the money ran out.
The interviews return again and again to the idea that the film became what it was because of steering—by Apatow. by their own instincts. and by boundaries set when legal and logistical reality showed up. Taccone recalled their lawyers asking to clarify whether they wanted to ask Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg if they could use his tripod sound from “War of the Worlds.” Taccone said they agreed. and two days later they got an email back: “Yeah. it’s cool.”.
There were also decisions around what not to include. Samberg said some disguise make-up alternatives looked funny and ended up making Conner look “terrifying in a very subtle way.” Taccone described how they approached the flaccid penis joke on a limousine window as a tentpole moment and said Apatow wanted to see a middle-of-the-movie scene of the three of them going badly. They wrote the limousine scene, described as the most discussed and liked. They also mentioned a more extreme version where the scene became like a “Night of the Living Dead” of dicks. with everything ending with one slowly lowering through the sunroof. Samberg said what they used was “plenty for audiences. ” with a simple scaling-down rule: “Sometimes you’ve got to scale it down to just one dick.”.
They cut a chunk of the movie involving Conner’s downfall. Taccone said the girlfriend breaks up with him, and she’s having orgies with Ryan Phillippe and Lily Collins. Natasha Lyonne was pegging Conner at a party—yet in the edit. Taccone and Akiva looked at each other and felt the moment they left meant the friendship arc was over. Schaffer said they had a system before shooting: they asked an assistant to organize every joke they’d written. and during shooting they had about 50 jokes from different drafts that didn’t make it into the final script.
Outside the legal and editing decisions, there’s a more personal thread running through the oral history: what it meant to make something together, and what happened when it didn’t instantly connect with audiences.
“Popstar” failed to connect with fans upon its 2016 release. It recouped less than half of its budget at the box office, even though it had positive reviews. And yet. in the decade since its debut. it’s become embraced by fans who consider it a modern comedy classic. The film’s jokes have also slipped into day-to-day vocabulary.
Schaffer said part of the frustration came from marketing. They got sad when the marketing made it feel like a Justin Bieber thing. “Never Stop. Never Stopping” is a funny title. Schaffer said. and they didn’t say no to it. but they added that it wasn’t their title. Their original title was “Conner4Real. ” and Schaffer said there were also two outfits in the movie very similar to ones Bieber once wore. They hoped Bieber would see it and not feel attacked, and said they remain fans.
Taccone felt the movie’s cult path was inevitable if they protected “a purity of tone.” He said they’d had enough things become cult-status-y. and he knew the people who liked it would find it. Samberg spoke from a different angle: the title endurance and music endurance. He said being remembered and still discussed 10 years later is something they dreamed of.
Samberg also tied the movie’s meaning to friendship. On a personal level, he called it incredibly special—something he made with his two best friends. It’s about how much they love each other. how important they are to each other. and how much harder being in the business would be without each other.
Taccone framed it as a love letter to their friendship. and said he thinks he’ll look back on it “more and more fondly” as he ages into a “decrepit old man.” Schaffer said it was also a relief when it got good reviews; he thought that meant they’d done their job. He said the fact it didn’t make money wasn’t a surprise, but it was still sad. He added that they still do things together and make their podcast. while imagining the alternate timeline: if it had been a hit. Judd would’ve likely pushed them to brainstorm their next movie idea.
What’s striking in this oral history is how the story of “Popstar” reads less like a simple behind-the-scenes victory lap and more like a record of commitment—toward comedy music. toward friendship. and toward the risky choice to make the movie about them even as they feared it wouldn’t work. Now, 10 years later, Conner4Real’s world has outlasted its box-office expectations. The jokes kept moving. The music kept resonating. And the trio’s work—built in songs. edited from 300 hours. performed for 11 days straight at the Forum. shaped by Apatow’s straight talk—has finally found its full audience.
Popstar: Never Stop Stopping The Lonely Island Andy Samberg Akiva Schaffer Jorma Taccone Conner4Real Judd Apatow oral history cult classic Justin Timberlake cameo Sarah Silverman Tim Meadows Ed Sheeran Ringo Starr Nas Mariah Carey mockumentary comedy