Years after first telling his Russian mob story onstage, Bert Kreischer's most infamous stand-up bit is getting turned into a movie.
Speaking last week with Q104.3 New York's Jim Kerr and Shelli Sonstein from Serbia, where the movie is being shot, Kreischer said he never thought that "The Machine" would have a life beyond his stand-up act.
"It's mind-blowing. It really is," Kreischer said of the project, which has been described as The Hangover meets Midnight Run. "At times it kind of overwhelms me. They're spending $24 million on this movie, and you see the sets and you see the amount of people working. The other day I listened to Jimmy Tatro ... an amazing actor who is playing a young version of me. So in flashback scenes you see the young Bert and I got teary-eyed — this is the dumbest thing to get teary-eyed but he introduced himself in the movie. He goes, 'My name is Bert. I don't go to class very much.' [Laughs] And I got teary-eyed. I was like, 'That is exactly who I am! That is exactly what I said, and I'm seeing someone act it out on screen!'"
As Kreischer tells it in his 2016 stand-up act, he unwittingly got involved with the Russian mafia while on a study-abroad trip in college. The premise of the film is that the story catches up with him 20 years later and he and his father, Hamill, get kidnapped by the mob in retribution.
Ironically, Kreischer's reservations about telling the story at all are exactly why the movie caught the attention of Netflix.
"I sold the movie because I went into a room and I was talking to this guy and he said, 'What movie would you want to make?'" Kreischer recalled. "I said, 'Obviously, if I could make one movie, it's 'The Machine.' ... I go, 'I don't know the premise. I'm afraid to make the movie 'cause I'm afraid if I made the movie, the Russian mob wouldn't like it and they'd kidnap me.'
"He goes, 'That's the movie. Sold.' I went, 'What?' He goes, 'You get kidnapped by the mafia. Sold. Let's do it!' I went, 'Oh my god.' ...And that's the movie we're making. Me and my dad get kidnapped by the Russian mafia."
Watch the full interview via the player at the top of this page!
Watch Kreischer tell "The Machine" via the player above!
Kreischer will be doing stand-up again on tour starting this July. Get all of his tour dates here.
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