Jake Johnson and D'Arcy Carden share hilarious fake stories from the set of Ride The Eagle
Comedic co-stars Jake Johnson and D'arcy Carden discuss their sizzling phone chemistry and play a round of Stock Photo Cinema
Image: Screenshot: DECAL Releasing
Jake Johnson and D’Arcy Carden have never talked in person. Well, they were introduced in passing at an awards show a few years back, but they didn’t get to have much of a conversation, and they certainly hadn’t collaborated prior to starring in the new indie comedy Ride The Eagle, which was co-written by Johnson alongside director Trent O’Donnell. Despite literally sharing the screen in the film, the two still haven’t met face to face, only via texts, emails, and Zoom windows. That’s because Ride The Eagle, like many productions since March 2020, was shot under strict COVID safety guidelines, and their characters’ relationship—one of a possibly rekindled romance—plays out entirely over the phone. That Johnson and Carden’s winning chemistry is as technology-reliant as their movie counterpoints’ chemistry gives Ride The Eagle a charming naturalism and a meta-textual level of profundity.
For Jake Johnson, Ride The Eagle was initially about rekindling his love for acting. In the thick of the pandemic, he and his frequent New Girl director Trent O’Donnell began kicking around ideas for a small movie they could make, just the two of them. As the ball started rolling, their movie grew to something a bit more expansive, though no less personal: After the death of his mother, Leif (Johnson) is left with a conditional inheritance, in which he must complete her peculiar to-do list in order to move into her gorgeous cabin near the Yosemite valley. One such “to-do,” was for Leif to call and apologize to “the one that got away,” and it’s a role Johnson knew would be crucial to the story. But, once The Good Place’s D’arcy Carden signed on for the part, the filmmakers were certain they had nothing to worry about: “There was a lot of anxiety,” says Johnson, “and after all those rehearsals and talking [we did]—once D’arcy was in—we knew, ‘alright, this thing’s going to work.’ And [even] if nothing else works, we now had this, the heart of it.”