‘Confess, Fletch’ Stars Roy Wood Jr and Ayden Mayeri Talk ‘Lethal Weapon’ Influences and Jon Hamm’s ‘Twiddling Toes’ Amid Showtime Debut (Exclusive)

Confess, Fletch is one of 2022’s most standout comedy movies, and now it’s available to watch on Showtime. Ahead of the film’s original release, PopCulture.com had a chance to chat with the stars, including Roy Wood Jr. and Ayden Mayeri, who play police detectives Monroe and Griz, respectively. During the conversation, the pair shared their approach to playing investigators, how the original Lethal Weapon movie had an influence, and what it was like to do a scene while Jon Hamm (Fletch) twiddled his toes.

When asked about prepping for his character, who is much drier than the comedian-turned-actor is in real life, Wood revealed that he watched Danny Glover’s performance in Lethal Weapon to help capture the “tone” he needed. “My character is very much Lethal Weapon 1, Danny Glover, Sergeant Murtaugh. ‘I’m too old. I’m too tired. What do you want? What is it now? I just want to sleep.’ And I think from that is where the comedy comes from. And so when you look at comedy, to some degree, comedy can be, oh, the crazy joke or the crazy gag and you fall.”

Wood continued, “But it also can be knowing that this character just wants a thing, and every time he tries to get it, here comes Fletch or his annoying-ass rookie partner throwing a wrench in his day. That becomes the joke. That’s a nod to the writing. Now, you get into Zev Borow who co-wrote with our director Greg Mottola. So now, as an actor, I can just trust the words, man. We can source material off a book. We’re not picking something up from scratch. Why am I working so hard? So it just became something where I was a little bit more chill.”

When it came to her prep work, Mayeri admitted, “I tried to stay away from watching any cop stuff just because I felt like I hadn’t seen my character represented really in cop media, and I really wanted to tap into that kind of nervous energy of just trying to prove yourself, trying to get validation, wanting to do something that’s good for the world, and maybe having a little naivete about how things really work. And that’s also not hard for me to tap into. It is ever-present.”

While the film’s humor is a tad subdued, the pair revealed that there were definitely times it was tough to keep a straight face while filming, for example: when Hamm kicked his shoes off and went full bare foot while sitting across from Wood. “The first time I saw Jon Hamm’s feet,” he joked, “I was like, ‘All right… How long his feet got to be out?’” Wood then quipped, “I’m like, is this covered under the intimacy coordinator nudity thing? Do I feel comfortable…? His feet, he’s just got his feet out and he’s putting them on the desk…”

Wood then shared how in one scene where he is holding a baby, Hamm put his feet on the desk, as was called for. “You read the script and it’s just ‘feet on desk.’ Okay, cool. Do my line, feet on the desk.” Then came a wildly unexpected moment…”He’s twiddling his toes!” Wood exclaimed, to which Mayeri laughingly replied, “The toe twiddling!”

“You’re trying to do your line and it’s just… Big toe. Just one toe. He would just do one toe,” Wood continued. Mayeri added, “Also, watching Roy be mad at Jon and his feet while a baby is sleeping on Roy, it’s impossible to keep a straight face.” 

Wood responded, “But that’s the little quirk and nuance that’s comedic improv, that’s not in the script, that Jon Hamm brilliantly finds and that Ayden and I have to challenge ourselves to not laugh at and ruin the shot. So it really is just the subtlety of that. You don’t need a big gag in that moment. You just need, ‘We’re trying to have a serious conversation about a murder. Why is your big toe twitching?’” Confess, Fletch is now on Showtime, as well as the Showtime Anytime app and the Showtime add-on available through Paramount+.