On the film's resemblance to the real-life incident that loosely inspired it.
Jesse Eisenberg: When I got the script, I thought the premise gave us this incredible opportunity for my character and Aziz's character to be forced to rob a bank. So it seemed like all the comedy in the script came out of out of how these guys have to realistically rob a bank and the bomb was the best device for that storyline.
Nick Swardson: When I first read the script, I was like, "How is this going to work?" But I trusted the people behind the film. And as far as the actual incident, it was so different. It's not like we're following verbatim what happened. It's so far from it that it didn't rub any of us the wrong way.

On Danny McBride's foul mouth in movies.
Danny McBride: I just like low-brow, dirty, juvenile humor. Some of the projects I take on tend to have that flavor, but it's not really a flavor I practice in my own life. I don't call my mom and say, "Hey, what the fuck's happening?"

On the movie's numerous references to other action movies, including Lethal Weapon and Beverly Hills Cop.
Ruben Fleischer: The way I learn about movies and get inspired to think about ideas for movies is by watching existing movies. Hopefully it doesn't come across as derivative and more as a filtering process. For this one, I watched every bank robbery movie there was and made clips of the robbery from Heat and the robbery from Point Break. I created a file with 20 of them and shared it with Jesse and Aziz a little bit before we went and shot our robbery. As far as the pop-culture references within the movie, I don't prefer them. In both this film and Zombieland, it was already built into the script or came out of the improv. I'm not opposed to them, but the next film I'm doing is a period film set in 1949, so hopefully it'll have no pop-culture references at all.

On the movie's racial humor.
Fleischer: I have this Lenny Bruce approach to that, where if you insult everybody, than you're not singling anyone out. There were a couple Indian jokes, but that's because we cast Aziz.
Aziz Ansari: Yeah, it would have been awkward if you had a white character saying that. Good thing you went with me. Otherwise those lines would not have made sense. Ruben would tell me sometimes, "Aziz, you're not Korean don't say that!" And I was like, "I just thought that was the best joke to go for."

On Eisenberg's stunt-driving skills.
Eisenberg: I had to unlearn all things I was taught in driver's ed. Here we were told to just drive recklessly and we were surrounded by stunt drivers that had to react to anything we did. The way Reuben wanted to shoot it was in the spirit of the movies our character liked, such as The French Connection.
Fleischer: I purposely wanted the movie to feel retro, so we didn't do anything tricky with the car chases. We used the same mounts and angles that they would have used in the era of Beverly Hills Cop and Lethal Weapon. That really is Jesse driving -- he's a phenomenal driver and did most of the car chase himself. He would scare me on a daily basis, because I really thought he'd put the car through a giant piece of metal.
Ansari: Yeah, it is Jesse in the car, but in the passenger's seat, it's not me. It's actually Jamie Foxx and they CGI'd my face over him.

On their favorite heist movies and car chases.
Swardson: I love Point Break. It's one of my favorite movies of all time. And I love the car stuff in Ronin. There's some great car action there. Also: Fried Green Tomatoes.
McBride: Dog Day Afternoon is one of my favorite bank heist films and Bullitt has some of my favorite car chases.
Eisenberg: I also like Dog Day Afternoon and I watched Lethal Weapon because our characters reference it and I had never seen it. I feel like our characters think of ourselves as Danny Glover and Mel Gibson when we run into the bank, but in that movie they don't actually like each other.
Ansari: The day we filmed the bank robbery, I kept watching the scene from Heat over and over. I also like the one from Point Break and one movie that I watched that I hadn't seen before was The Killing by Stanley Kubrick. Oh, and the car chases in Steel Magnolias are amazing.
Fleischer: My favorite car chase is from The Blues Brothers because I think it's the best version of a comedy car chase. The scale of it is incredible. A movie I had never seen before that the producer introduced me to is Straight Time with Dustin Hoffman. I tried to get a line from that film into this one, but Aziz wouldn't say it.
Ansari: I was like, "Three people are going to say 'Oh, that's from Straight Time!'"

On the worst jobs they've ever had.
McBride: I've had a ton of them. I worked at an amusement park candy store and it was a 30 minute drive from my house. I used to pray on the way to work, "Please let me get into a car accident, one where I don't get hurt, but where I don't have to go to work anymore."
Swadson: I had a lot of shitty jobs. The last one I had before doing comedy was as a busboy at Planet Hollywood.
Eisenberg: I started doing musical theater when I was 10 years old and I did a lot of it so cumulatively it was a terrible job but individually they were fine.
Ansari: I manage a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. right now. So I didn't film anything during my Parks and Recreation hiatus in order to keep funds flowing in.
Fleischer: I actually worked as a pizza delivery guy twice. Sadly that was not my worst job. My worst job was working at a standardized testing company where I would go through all the bubble sheets and fill them in if they weren't dark enough. And if they had gone outside the lines, I would clean up the bubbles.