Kyle Mooney on Running From Explosions in the “Brigsby Bear” Suit (and Being Made Fun of by President Trump)

Sometimes, fans can get a little wild, but self-obsessed nostalgic and VHS collector Kyle Mooney reckons he has things under control.

"If you were to come into my apartment in New York, you’d see an Alf poster, a Mickey Mouse poster, Happy Meal toys from McDonald’s when I was a child," the Saturday Night Live star tells Student Edge.

"And I feel like I’m doing okay."

"I have friends. I have a social life. I make some money," he laughs.

He also has a movie: Brigsby Bear, the strange yet endearing tale of a young man who was abducted as a baby and raised in an underground bunker by a couple of weirdos (Mark Hamill, Jane Adams). Mooney plays James, the captive-in-question, whose only form of entertainment is an in-house TV show called "Brigsby Bear", in which Hamill’s character, dressed as a bear, battles sun-demons and does maths equations.

Like I said, it’s strange.

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"I don’t know specifically where [the idea] came from," says Mooney, who co-wrote the script.

"I was just interested in the notion of a kid who’s obsessed with a TV show and he’s the only person who’d ever seen it.

"I’m really into ‘80s and ‘90s children’s television and videos. I’ve got a pretty big VHS collection at my house. In terms of the TV show inside the movie, Brigsby Bear, that was certainly a source of inspiration, because I love kids shows like that."

Still, Mooney says a little bit of fandom isn’t so bad.

"I’m sure that there are dangerous ways to get lost in your childhood and the repetition of surrounding yourself with stuff like that, but I think as long as it’s in good fun and it makes you happy and it’s not hurting anybody, why not, you know? Why not enjoy the things that you enjoy?"

In the film, James is rescued and brought into the real world, where he becomes fixated on making his very own “Brigsby Bear” movie, with a little help from his new family and friends.

The real Brigsby Bear was made in a similar spirit. But making the movie meant actually getting inside the Brigsby suit, during the summer, in Salt Lake City, Utah.

"It’s very, very hot and, as you could assume, a bear costume is not an item that keeps you cool, by any means," Mooney says.

"The most difficult thing was you couldn’t really see through it. A lot of the time, I was just walking around blind. And one point, I ran into a truck."

He also remembers the “very scary” experience of having to run from a practical special effect of an actual, honest-to-goodness explosion, all while dressed as a bear.

"The concerns were, yeah, just don’t get lit on fire by this explosion," he says.

"But I mean, we had a fireperson on set. It just kind of felt like a very indie filmmaking moment, if that makes any sense?

"[Director Dave McCary and I have] known each other since we were kids, but we’ve been making videos since college. And it felt like that. It was like, basically, ‘Alright, just run away from this fireball. We have two chances to get it. Go, go, go.’ It was pretty raw."

So, how’d they convince a legend like Mark Hamill to leave behind the world of Star Wars for their weird little indie flick?

"He definitely, at first, was a little cautious about, ‘Man I don’t even know how I can relate to this character, because he’s truly done the worst thing to James.’ He’s a father and that was his struggle with doing it," Mooney says.

"We were able to talk him into it. The cool thing about having him on board is that because this movie has to do with fandom and nostalgia, it works on such a fun level, because obviously he’s Luke Skywalker and he’s somebody that we grew up watching and loving and being obsessed with."

The presence of a Skywalker aside, Brigsby Bear was still a small, inexpensive project, and that meant not filming as much of the movie-within-a-movie as Mooney would have liked.

"In a perfect world, we would have done a ton of Brigsby Bear TV show episodes," he says.

"We would have certainly made James’ Brigsby movie. But we were working with a limited budget and limited time, so we didn’t really get to do that. Maybe over time people will come to love this movie and there will be a demand for us to finish James’ Brigbsy movie and [the] TV episodes."

We suggested viewers might want to follow in James’ footsteps and film more “Brigsby” themselves.

"Yeah, I support that. Do the work for me."

Until then, Mooney goes back to his day (or is it late-night?) job on Saturday Night Live, which just enjoyed its biggest season in decades thanks to its ongoing feud with U.S. President Donald Trump.

"I mean, it’s crazy," Mooney says of the experience.

"Every week, you never know what’s going to happen. I think one of the most insane things is just that, we write a bunch of sketches on Tuesday, and then Wednesday we read them, and by Wednesday night we have a pretty good idea of what’s going to be in the show. And this last year, come Friday night, something monumental or really crazy will happen in the news; we’d have to shift the whole show and rewrite it overnight. And the show felt like it had a duty to address what was going on around it."

The question is, what does Trump think of Mooney’s own, idiosyncratic sketches, like "Inside SoCal"?

"I imagine he’s not seen any of that," he says.

"If he has, I’m sure he thinks it’s boring."

Still, can you imagine the President of the United States publicly criticising your work? Mooney doesn’t have to.

"He tweeted about the show early last year and he said something referring to it as unfunny or boring, I don’t really remember," Mooney says.

"That was definitely surreal,” he continues, "… to find out that the President of the United States was making fun of the job that I work at."

"That was weird and something that I’ve never experienced before. And I don’t know that I ever will experience again.”

Brigsby Bear is now in cinemas.

Photo: Sony Pictures