Growing up on the New South Wales South Coast, best mates Jack Steele and Matt ‘Falcon’ Ford always dreamt of a life beyond the 9-to-5 routine.
After posting a series of fun-filled videos of their adventures around New Zealand for their family back in Australia, the duo’s signature style of lighthearted larrikin comedy began to garner an audience bigger than they could have ever imagined.
What began as a creative outlet for the two former tradies to express themselves soon transformed into The Inspired Unemployed, which has since amassed nearly two million followers on Instagram.
Now, joined by their high school mates Dom Littrich and Liam Dowling, The Inspired Unemployed have launched their first TV show, The Inspired Unemployed (Impractical) Jokers, which follows the group on their quest to embarrass one another through a series of hidden camera challenges.
WHO sat down with Dom, Matt, and Liam to get the inside scoop on all their hilarious on-set antics; including the pranks that didn’t go to plan.
Congratulations on the new show! How does it feel to be TV stars?
M: Thank you very much! It’s pretty surreal. It’s pretty cool.
D: Very bizarre. It didn’t really hit home until we actually watched the premiere, and we were all sitting around the room and the energy was very high. Once it actually came on, it was so strange seeing all the ads. It’s like you’re just watching TV when you’re young and then all of a sudden, you’re on there. Even just getting around the airport, there are a lot of people coming up and saying, ‘We’re watching the show,’ and it feels cool because it’s something that we’re extremely proud of. Sometimes I put up a dumb skit on Instagram and people are like, ‘Oh, that was funny,’ but it’s also stupid.
You’re all housemates, so you know each other really well, but fans have only really seen Jack and Matt regularly. Dom and Liam, what inspired you both to get involved with this project on a larger scale?
D: I guess when the boys took off on Instagram, it inspired me to do a bit of my own content and just get a bit more creative and leave the job that I wasn’t a massive fan of. Being able to do creative stuff has just been really cool. Getting the call up from Matt and Jack saying, ‘Do you want to be a part of this?’ I was really honoured and so stoked. I feel like a TV show seems like such a crazy thing, but it’s always been a personal goal. Being able to further that creativity of what I’ve been doing just felt amazing.
L: For me, it was when I got back from travelling a couple of years ago and got back to the house, the boys tried to work towards somewhere else. Since being home, I wanted to spend enough time at home to put myself out of my comfort zone and try new things. I’m still back working as a tradesman, but just going on the road with Dom and doing Big Twisty and just doing more videos with the boys and just getting more involved, I’ve been trying to challenge myself to grow. When the TV show came along, I was very excited for it and ready to jump in.
The transition from social media to traditional TV can be a big step, especially when you’re introducing yourselves to new audiences that maybe didn’t know you before – did you face any challenges translating your comedy for a new audience?
M: They’re such different concepts for TV compared to our skits. We don’t really do pranks [on social media] so it’s very different. I feel like it’s two different styles of comedy. We love the TV show because we’re not acting. We’re just being ourselves. Sure, we’re acting when we pretend [that] we’re massage therapists, but for the most part, we’re just being ourselves, so that’s what we love about it. It wasn’t hard [because] it was just us being us.
L: I feel like it’s been great being able to be ourselves on [Impractical Jokers]. I feel like people have got to know Matt and Jack through the Instagram page, and then there’s them just being themselves again on the screen. I feel like that’s helped move some of that audience over.
M: It definitely was scary. We were nervous to release this, especially since it’s our first TV show and it’s a bigger production. You don’t really get to do it twice. You get one shot at it to release it, and we just really hope everyone loved it as much as we loved filming it.
Did you all have any predetermined rules before filming? Were there any no-go zones that you decided on with your pranks?
L: We did have one rule. It was from Jack, and it was that we couldn’t shave his head. That was pretty much it.
Impractical Jokers is well known for featuring hilarious reactions from people caught off guard. Did you have any reactions that genuinely surprised you while you were filming?
M: The weird thing for me was how much of a social experiment it actually was. You walk into a room and as long as you’re wearing a shirt, people just automatically give you their trust. You feel a bit bad because you’re taking their trust, but you learn how to manipulate the room and then when you feel like they’re cracking on to your joke, you go back to trying to be as normal as you can.
There was one on our first day of filming and it was the first prank we ever did. Jack had a guy [when he was playing] a golf instructor and he was meant to be a golf pro. He was teaching this guy that had never played before, and we were being a little bit too brutal and told Jack to say every time he hit it, ‘Oh that was s***,’ and then he stormed out. Jack told him it was all a joke, and he took quite a while to calm down. He ended up getting on the show, but I think we learned from that to not make the joke on them, but more on us, which is what we always wanted to do with the show.
You’ve also worked with some major celebs like Daniel Ricciardo and Margot Robbie – if you could pick any celeb to join you on Impractical Jokers, who would you pick?
M: I’m going to say, Chris Hemsworth
L: What’s Mr Bean’s name? Rowan Atkinson, I want him.
D: Jim Carrey. That would be wild!
M: Paul Rudd as well. He’s so funny.
The aim of comedy is to entertain, but is there any underlying message or feeling that you hope your fans will be able to take away from your content?
L: Don’t take things so seriously. Not everything has to be so uptight. I feel like, in the world we live in, there’s so much bad news and everyone is so uptight, but there’s still a lot of laughter in the world.
M: Don’t be afraid to try things. Maybe don’t go into IGA dressed as a worker and try to fit in but in life, always try new things that are going to challenge you and make you have fun.
D: And get your prostate checked!
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