Green Day's Movie 'Nimrods': Kylr Coffman on His One-Week Crash Course

Kylr Coffman, who plays band member Fred in the Green Day-driven coming-of-age comedy Nimrods, has given an interview to Far Out Magazine detailing how he switched from a drumming audition to learning guitar and bass from scratch, with only about a week of pre-production time — all while Billie Joe Armstrong refused to let the cast fake their playing on camera. This is Green Day's first major involvement in a scripted feature film, which Far Out describes as tonally close to Dazed and Confused, built around a DIY punk scene.

Plot and cast

The film centers on a fictional band called Analog Dogs, effectively a stand-in for Green Day. Mason Thames plays frontman Tommy, Ryan Foust plays drummer Chad, and Coffman plays Fred — a role mirroring Green Day's Mike Dirnt, and the film's main comic-relief part. The story follows a band trying to get their demo tape into the hands of their favorite band and land an opening slot at that band's New Year's Eve show. Comedians Bobby Lee and Fred Armisen also appear in the cast.

One week of prep: Armstrong wouldn't accept fake playing

Coffman said Armstrong had no interest in a group of young actors merely impersonating Green Day, and wouldn't allow the actors to mime or fake their playing — so early shooting involved a lot of time simply jamming together as a three-piece. Coffman described his own path to Far Out: pre-production was only about a week, he came up as a drummer and originally auditioned for the drummer role, but ended up cast as Fred and had to learn guitar and bass on the fly. "After they dyed my hair green and told me I was playing guitar, I just played every day," he said. Far Out noted that for a trio with only a week to prepare, the on-screen chemistry sounds remarkably tight, with Foust's drumming appearing as if he'd played with the band for years.

Coffman's punk roots

Coffman grew up in Oklahoma's punk scene and told Far Out that he'd "been doing homework for this movie his whole life without knowing it" — having grown up listening to this music and loving Green Day, with the film serving as a love letter to that scene, to Green Day, and to its fans. He also noted that the haircut seen in the promotional trailer was a style he'd worn back in middle school, so returning to that look wasn't difficult. He additionally spoke about his mindset working alongside veteran actors, emphasizing that what audiences don't see is everything that happens "between action and cut."