Filmmaker Bobby Farrelly, who is one half of the Farrelly brothers, discusses ‘Driver’s Ed’ as a return to high school comedy rooted in the spirit of John Hughes films.
“This one felt different,” Farrelly says of directing ‘Driver’s Ed.’ “I thought this would be great to make this kind of story because I haven’t seen it in a while.”
Farrelly explains that Thomas Moffett’s script stood out for its fast pace and mix of emotional stakes and escalating chaos, from a stolen driver’s ed car to police chases and misadventures. He emphasizes grounding the story in realism through his young cast while allowing adults to play slightly broader for contrast. He also reflects on balancing action and comedy in a low-budget production and argues that comedy works best in communal theatrical settings where audience energy amplifies laughter.
In ‘Driver’s Ed’, a teenager’s panic over a failing relationship sparks a reckless decision: stealing a driver’s ed car and hitting the road with three reluctant classmates. Their overnight journey to reconnect with his college girlfriend turns into a fast-moving chain of misadventures involving authorities, criminals, and escalating chaos, all unfolding in a 24-hour stretch.
Directed by Farrelly from a script written by Thomas Moffett, ‘Driver’s Ed’ stars Sam Nivola, Sophie Telegadis, Mohana Krishnan, Aidan Laprete, with Molly Shannon, and Kumail Nanjiani.
Vertical releases ‘Driver’s Ed’ in select theaters and on demand beginning on May 15, 2026.
Awards Focus: It’s so nice to meet you today. How are you doing?
Bobby Farrelly: I’m doing great. How are you today?
AF: I’m doing well.
Bobby Farrelly: All right.
AF: How did you come across Thomas Moffett’s script and how did you come to the decision that you had to direct ‘Driver’s Ed’?
Bobby Farrelly: Yeah. Most of the time, Danielle, that I make a movie, or my brother Peter and I, we’ve usually worked on the script or wrote the script. But this was a different case. This was someone else. Thomas Moffett had written the script and a friend of mine had read it and said, “You should read this script.” And so he sent it to me. I started reading it and all of a sudden, I was at the end of it. That’s a good sign for a script when you read it quickly because some of them take a while.
I just thought, what a great idea. This is a great story. It’s a high school comedy. It’s very fun. There’s an adventure involved. But it feels to me more like the movies that John Hughes used to make back in the day, the ‘Ferris Bueller’ and ‘Breakfast Club’ and ‘Ridgemont High’ and these stories where being in high school was more about fun and funny rather than today’s movies are they’re pretty dark and they’re kind of gloomy in my opinion.
This one felt different. I thought this would be great to make this kind of story because I haven’t seen it in a while.
AF: ‘Driver’s Ed’ has police chases, criminals, and a stolen driver’s ed car, but it still feels emotionally grounded. How difficult was it to balance heightened comedy with sincerity?
Bobby Farrelly: Well, it’s always difficult to balance comedy with sincerity. But look, in our story, Jeremy, the lead guy played by Sam Nivola, he makes a really stupid decision. His girlfriend’s off at college, she’s just been there a couple of weeks, he can tell she’s about to break up with him, so he panics and steals his driver’s ed car. He and three other kids are taking driver’s ed, and he has to go to the college to try to win her back before she dumps him. It’s a stupid decision that a high school kid might make and the other three go along with him reluctantly.
It turns into a big adventure. They all get to know each other and a lot of different fun things happen. The cops are chasing them and they come across some criminals. There’s all sorts of funny and fun things that happen. But look, it’s just a matter of keeping it real, like what would happen in real life.
I don’t like to get too broad where something happens in a movie and I think that’s silly. That doesn’t make sense. I tried to keep it as real as I could to make it fun and funny.
AF: Was it set in North Carolina when you read the script or was this something that changed later on?
Bobby Farrelly: No, it was as in the Thomas Moffett script. He lives down in Wilmington, North Carolina. In the story, the girl went to University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. That was all in the original script.
I like it. I like shooting in North Carolina. We shot one of our previous movies, Shallow Hal, down there. I just like working down there. There’s nice people, there’s good crews, and you get good weather. I was just thinking, this would be great. I’d love to go back to the Carolinas. I didn’t want to change it or make—there was no need to change anything that was written as far as where it was and the geography of it all.
AF: There have been great high school comedies throughout the years. How do you make a contemporary teen comedy without simply recreating the rhythms of an ’80s or ’90s movie?
Bobby Farrelly: Okay, well, that’s a good question. The main concern with making a high school comedy right now is that it’s been a lot of years since I was in high school. I’m sure there’s similarities to when I was there, but there’s also been a lot of changes and all that.
What I did was I took our four actors—Sam Nivola, Aidan, Sophie and Mohana—and each one of them, I said, “Hey, do you know this character from high school?” They said, “Yes.” They all kind of did had someone in mind who they were playing. I said, “Make sure there’s nothing in here that if you feel like I wouldn’t say that, or kids don’t say that, or whatever, you need to tell me because I’m counting on you. You know high school better than I do. I’ll just guide you with the heart and the comedy and all that.”
But I relied on them, and they helped me out quite a bit. They really did. They kept it very real, which was important for this story.
AF: In terms of the adult cast, we’ve got Molly Shannon, we’ve got Kumail Nanjiani, and then I came up through the Chicago improv scene, so the big surprise for me when I say the film in Toronto was seeing Tim Baltz on screen.
Bobby Farrelly: Yeah. Tim is great. Molly Shannon, Kumail Nanjiani, and Tim Baltz, and they’re all playing the adults. In our world here, I kind of did a little flip on it, just me seeing it as the director. I wanted the adults to be almost like the adults in—it’s not quite like this, but a little bit like the adults are in the old ‘Charlie Brown’ cartoons where you kind of don’t even hear them. They’re like goofier than the kids.
The kids are real grounded. They’re real kids. They have real problems and all that. In our story, the three adults are a little bit broader than the kids. What it did for us in storytelling is it allowed the comedy to free up.
If every time you saw the adults, it was very serious and all that, which it probably would be in real life if some kid stole a driver’s ed car, the comedy wouldn’t work as well. Having Kumail, Tim Baltz, and Molly, they’re all so comedic that I had to let them just be a little bit slightly goofy.
AF: How much room was there for improv set?
Bobby Farrelly: Like any movie we ever make, I responded to the script. I want to make sure that when we get there, let’s get that script, let’s get there because it makes sense. That’s why we’re shooting this scene today is because there could be information in here that’s going to come back and play later. You always want to get what’s on the page, but you want to do it in a way where you got that and let’s try different things, too. It’s always a balancing act between, I got to get what’s on the page for sure, but let’s try different things, too. Let’s try to improv if we can.
Someone comes up with an idea or someone says a line and almost every day, it brings itself to your footsteps. You’ll see a different way to do it that you didn’t see before and so you got to be able to go with that. It really you have to free up the actors to be able to try anything.
AF: What was the most difficult scene or sequence to get tonally right?
Bobby Farrelly: That’s a good one. Them in the car and the high school stuff and the romance and first love and all that was easier than them getting chased by the cops and the action scenes and all that. Maybe because I’m not an action movie director, I wanted to make sure that it was all moving along at a good clip and it had that high stakes feeling to it.
But at the same time, I didn’t want it to get too serious where then you lose the comedy. That was the balancing act, I think, is doing the more action movie type elements. The bad guys, the robbery at the hot dog shack and that stuff. I wanted to make sure that that was real, but also it didn’t get too far away from things being funny.
AF: I find that comedies play way better when watching with an audience. Having seen the film in an IMAX size theater during a P&I screening in Toronto, I appreciated that I got to take the film in a shared communal experience rather than watching for the first time by myself. But to that point, you said in your director’s statement that comedies have been “on hiatus.” What changed in the industry, in your view?
Bobby Farrelly: I think the world changed. I think there was a lot of you can’t laugh at this. People didn’t know what to joke about over the last five years. It was easier to just say, let’s not joke about that or let’s not joke about anything.
Look, you can understand why this came about, but comedy is important to society. It’s important to laugh. Laughter has a way of healing. Okay. I think that comedies serve a purpose to everyone. And yes, comedies work a lot better in a theater because you’re all laughing together. When you hear someone else laugh, it makes you laugh. It’s a little like that yawning effect. Laughter is contagious.
People will watch it at home. This movie is in select theaters, but it’s on demand. People will watch it at home. I know that they’ll enjoy it and there’ll be laughter and all that. But it’s not the same as watching it in a packed house like we did in Toronto at the film festival, where the place is—it played really great.
Comedy and horror movies play great in a crowd. It’s just something about it. It’s a communal thing. You feed off the other people’s energy too. I wish that comedies would make a bigger return to the movie theaters. But listen, I’m just happy that we’re still able to make them and that people can watch them at home.
AF: It’s been a while since you co-directed a film with your brother. Are the days of co-directing films with your brother finished for good or is this a case of never say never?
Bobby Farrelly: It’s definitely more never say never. Yeah, I think we definitely will at some point. Right now, the movies haven’t—it’s harder to get a big budget comedy going.
This was an independently made movie. It was a very small budget movie and all that. I think we got a lot of bang for the buck, but we didn’t have many days to shoot it and all that. It’s more guerrilla filmmaking.
And with that, it’s easier, I think, to do it on your own. It’s easier for me to do it. It’s easier for Pete to do it. And so right now, we’re just making smaller movies, I think. But when the time comes around, we’ll make another big, big movie together.
AF: On a personal note, when I saw your name attached to Lez Bomb as an executive producer in 2018, I knew immediately—aside from some of the cast—that I had to watch the film. I’ve since watched it several times since.
Bobby Farrelly: Well, that was my friend Jenna Laurenzo. That was her story, and she wrote it and directed it. I was introduced to her actually during that movie. She’s a very talented young lady. That was a little bit autobiographical for her. She’s a delight and a talented filmmaker so I was happy to be associated in any way.
AF: What do you hope people take away from watching ‘Driver’s Ed’?
Bobby Farrelly: Just forget the problems of the world for an hour and a half.
I think that anybody who watches it who went to high school, which is almost everyone, is going to remember just things about their own high school and the feelings that you had and maybe risky, dumb decisions that you can make in high school. That’s it. Just to harken back to a different time in your life and also the times when you watched these high school comedies that were such a part of me growing up and the John Hughes movies. They were just so awesome. They were just really good and they hold up.
I mean, you can watch ‘Ferris Bueller’ now and ‘Breakfast Club.’ They’re very good movies and they’re still worth watching.
AF: It’s been a pleasure getting to chat with you this afternoon.
Bobby Farrelly: Thanks, Danielle. Great talking to you.