Breaking Bad actor Aaron Paul was supposed to make a cameo in Eric Appel’s Weird Al Yankovic biopic, but life happened.
In 2010, Paul appeared in a Funny or Die sketch directed by Eric Appel called Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. In the sketch, Paul plays Yankovic and also stars Olivia Wilde, and Patton Oswalt.
Things have come full circle as now Appel is co-writer (with Al Yankovic), and director of the new biopic coming out. In an interview with CinemaBlend, Paul mentions how he loves the fact that Daniel Radcliffe is lead in the film.
“It’s so great. I loved doing that. I love Al [Yankovic], I love Eric Appel, who wrote the skit for Funny Or Die and directed it. And he wrote the film with Al, and he’s directing the feature as well. I read that script years ago and it was just so over the top beautiful. It was just when they were kind of poking around seeing if they could get this thing made, and I was really excited to see it finally kind of come together, and obviously Daniel [Radcliffe] is amazing. And so I think he’s absolutely going to crush it.”
Why didn’t the cameo happen? That can be blamed on Covid. Right before he was due to step on set, the actor tested positive for Covid-19. “I go, ‘Oh, no!’ So I couldn’t do it, and then I was just out for like 10 solid days,” Paul said. “I have never felt more sick in my life. And so we couldn’t do the cameo, which I just absolutely was crushed about.”
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story production kicked off in Los Angeles earlier this month. Yankovic is also producing alongside Mike Farah, Joe Farrell and Whitney Hodack for Funny Or Die, and Tim Headington, Lia Buman and Max Silva for Tango. Appel is exec producing with Funny Or Die’s Henry Muñoz III and Tango’s Neil Shah.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story will be available for streaming exclusively on The Roku Channel.