Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins Interview: Free Guy

While not technically a video game movie, Free Guy is a movie about video games and does its best to represent the world accurately. This includes having real-life streamers cameo in the film, including Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins, Lannan ‘LazarBeam’ Eacott, Pokimane, Seán ‘Jacksepticeye’ McLoughlin, and Daniel ‘DanTDM’ Middleton. Free Guy is now available on digital, 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD.

To celebrate the home release of Free Guy, Ninja sat down with Screen Rant to talk about working with Ryan Reynolds and director Shawn Levy, the scene he wishes made it into the film, and his future projects.

Screen Rant: When you were approached for the idea of Free Guy what did you think it was going to be and were you at any point apprehensive to do it?

Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins: I wasn’t apprehensive at all to do it. Just in general, the idea of this gaming movie – you know they sent us a script that looked great. I really had to have a talk with Ryan and Shawn to get an actual idea [of the movie]. Once they sent me clips of some of the stuff they’ve already recorded, the banter, I was like, “This is a no-brainer.”

The one clip that I was watching and the script just had the lingo down – little gamer lingo – and nothing sounded cringe at all, which is like, instantly those are two green flags right there. Because not a lot of people can get gamer lingo and gamer talk right. And just the general solid vibes of the industry, they really nailed it.

What do you think Free Guy gets right about the world of gaming that other movies haven’t necessarily nailed?

Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins: First of all, the art team…when the boss of the studio comes in, and he’s talking to the art team, and there’s this massive art team and he’s like, “You, guys, get me some skins.” And skins are a huge part of all games. So it’s just so hilarious that there’s just this art team that’s constantly ready to just make a skin whenever that Anton [Taika Waititi] wants for the game he’s creating.

And then the glitches when he’s not fully coded correctly and he can’t complete sentences. I’ve played games before where there’s terrible glitches. There’s just so many cool little clues, little easter eggs, and it’s just amazing.

What was the filming process like for you? Are you filming in your studio or do they bring you somewhere?

Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins: No, they brought me out to where they filmed. They flew me out for it. I think everyone else filmed remote. But they flew me and my wife out and I showed up on set [and] they had the entire city like two, three-block radius completely blocked off. Never seen that before. It was the coolest thing in the world to walk down. Like walk downtown anywhere and just it was literal ghost town besides everyone that was on set. Super unique.

I had a scene that didn’t make it into the movie that was actually me with Ryan walking down the street in the downtown area. It was super dope. I actually really loved filming it even though they didn’t use it. And then that was the reason [why] they didn’t just record me at home. 

I probably could have done this right here [a video] and it would have been fine, but they had a little studio built for me in this warehouse, and they literally rebuilt my stream setup. I felt really special with my stream setup. I’ve literally done three or four films or recordings of a commercial or a TV show or whatever in a studio built out by the company. I’m like, “How’d you guys nail this so easily? You guys built this in like an hour.” They worked out of my room for like four days.

The only thing they don’t have right was the exact little trophies that I have everywhere.

What was it like playing yourself? I know you’ve done it a few times, but does it come naturally or is it more challenging than you thought?

Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins: It’s super easy. Shawn was just like, “Here’s the script, if it’s not something you would normally say, don’t say it. Just say how you would normally say it.”  Very easy. It’s just the easiest thing in the world.

You show up and they’re like, “Play yourself.” It wasn’t complicated at all.

Are we ever going to get the deleted scene of you?

Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins: I hope so. Maybe now that it’s out on DVD and they have a deleted scene section. 

I thought did well. I mean, everyone was telling me I did well. I’m not sure if that’s the Hollywood thing that everyone does where they’re like, “You’re doing great.” Ryan was saying that the scene was great, Shawn was saying the scene was great. I thought I was gonna make it in.

I was obviously still just ecstatic to be in three or four different scenes. And I’m still, to this day, getting people that are coming into my stream [saying], “Yo, man, just saw Free Guy, great movie, loved you in it.” So it still makes me smile to be part of it.

Ryan Reynolds tweeted out that Disney wants to do Free Guy 2. Would you want to come back and reprise your role, maybe a larger role?

Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins: In my head, how I see the second one going is I think that every single person that was in Free Guy 1 is probably going to have a slightly deeper role in Free Guy 2 – I would imagine. I’m assuming that obviously is going to take place in a video game.

I don’t really know Shawn, but I know that he wants to be super authentic to the movie and obviously, the people that he had in the first one. So if they can, I think that they would probably want to do something really cool where a lot of the streaming content creators that they have in the first one are somewhat involved even for just one scene with Ryan in the second one.

I would absolutely love to do it again; I would take it up in a heartbeat. I loved working with them. They were awesome. They’re texting me ideas and stuff in the middle of the night. Like, “Does this sound right? Does this sound good?” Like yeah, this definitely gamer-friendly. He nailed it. They really didn’t need too much guidance. They had it down.

If you had to live in a video game world which game would you want to live in?

Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins: I’ve been asked this a lot and I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. And the answer is Animal Crossing 100% of the time. It’s the easiest, most laid back – it’s retirement. You just sit on the beach, there’s fishing in the ocean, making money just gardening, sleeping – it’s awesome.

Is there a game you’d love to see adapted into a movie that hasn’t been done yet or maybe hasn’t been done in the right way?

 Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins: There’s this game on the PlayStation 1 called Legend of Legaia and it would be an incredible movie. It’s about this – I mean crazy spoilers – but basically, there’s this mist that takes over the world and infects everything and there are some towns that are built up where the mist is outside so the towns are safe, but they’re trapped inside. And there’s monsters in the mist and things like that.

There are these three heroes in the video game and they don’t start out together right away so you have to travel around the world and find them. And you have to band together to revive these trees to push back the mist. You find out like there’s this crazy insane plot twist at the end that you never would expect.

It’s a great video game and it would be an even more incredible movie.

Do you have bigger Hollywood-related plans? Did you know stepping into the Free Guy world would scratch you didn’t know you had?

 Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins: I definitely have a lot of stuff that I have already filmed and things that I definitely am working on. Nothing super crazy to where I’m producing a movie or anything like that.

I love acting. I’ve done a couple of things already [with voice acting] coming out but it’s so natural and fun to me to just give the lines seven, eight different times to directors and they’re loving it. It’s a really cool feeling.

I’ve been doing voices my entire life. I’ve been doing them for my family; we would come out of a movie like Shrek and I could literally quote 90% of the movie in the voices of what I watched and I was like 12 years old or 9 years old when that movie came out.

So yeah, I think definitely not an itch I didn’t know I had because I got into it knowing it was something that I liked and always wanted to do.

So more stuff coming for sure.

Is there anything you can say?

Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins: Nothing I can say, unfortunately. I wish I could be like, “Listen, I got this, this, and this all coming out. Look forward to it.” This isn’t like the Free Guy press that we did before the movie came out, I can’t tell you what it is, you’re just going to have to wait.

So big things are coming.

Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins: For the first time in a long time I’m on this really great, driven path where I have a lot of balance in my life with gaming and things outside of gaming that we’re working on. I feel really good.

It’s very exciting. A lot of my friends have been announcing massive things and it’s just so cool to see everyone really getting back out there and doing real-life things. That’s fun.

Free Guy is out now on digital, 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD.

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