The director, co-writer and co-star of Super Troopers 3 sits down and smokes up at the Woods WeHo for an enlightened sesh touching on stoner comedies, the challenges of legal weed and pullover pranks in the era of TikTok.
In advance of the August 7 release of Super Troopers 3, the long-awaited third installment of the rural cops-and-cannabis-caper franchise written by and starring the Broken Lizard boys (Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske), High Times invited director, co-writer and co-star Jay Chandrasekhar to sit down, smoke up and talk all things Super Troopers. And he enthusiastically accepted.
Over the course of an hour-long sesh in the Woods West Hollywood’s treehouse cabana fueled by a Talking Trees Farms Blue Certz preroll, our conversation was fun, fast-paced and surprisingly frank. Touching on everything from the challenges facing legal weed to what makes something a stoner movie, the excerpts below have been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
HT: So you’ve been working with these characters for almost a quarter of a century now. Does it change how you guys write them or how you direct them?
Jay Chandrasekhar: No, what changes is based on each movie’s story. In this one, for example, Mac wants to be young again so that’s what he’s about in every scene; he’s trying to hook up with the young [event-planner] girl, he’s trying to jump the creek. It’s all what he’s focused on. So it’s the story first. And then the character work is built through that.
If you look at TikTok now, you’ll see all sorts of pranks and gags that we would have had in the first and even the second movie. But if you really want to watch that stuff [now], it’s all over the internet. In the third one, if we did another big pullover, we’d just really be parallel parking next to the TikTok videos. So, instead of doing that, we do a couple little nods to it. Sort of “Oh they’re pulling some prank,” but not a full-blown thing because it would just be better-produced TikTok.
How and where does smoking weed come into the creative process when you guys are working on a movie script?
We often smoke in the beginning of the process. When we’re like: “We’re gonna make another Super Troopers movie,” we’d smoke for that. Then we’ll get a draft, and it’ll be pretty uneven, so we’ll kind of discuss it sober, say “We like this tone, not that tone,” … Then, after we’ve figured out the scenes and the tone and if we’re trying to break a joke or break a moment, we’ll get high again.
So there are several points where we’re getting high in the process. And there are several sober points as well. This movie took 36 drafts and a couple of years.
Weed-wise, was there something that was a go-to for you guys? Or a particularly memorable cultivar that might have inspired a particular scene?
It’s really whatever’s around — but it’s always sativa! … Look, we are not the next generation of Cheech & Chong, right? But we are in the neighborhood. Because of that, we get given a lot of weed. So there’s a lot of weed around. Because everybody has weed.
How often do people give you weed?
A lot. I mean, a lot. And same with the other guys. So we’re not even really picking out [what we’re smoking].
You told me you’re a sativa guy but which smoking method do you prefer: bongs or joints?
I like joints first, and then bongs. And we used to smoke hash back in college by putting it on a pin.
What about dabs?
I watched Steve Lemme do one, and he had to be removed and, uh, escorted home. So no, I have not done dabs. And after watching Lemme, I don’t know that I need that. That’s sort of not why I get high. I don’t get high to lose my fucking skull.
I have a philosophical question for you: What makes a movie a “stoner movie”? Because this film, for example, has drugs in it, but I don’t think I saw even one character actually smoke herb on screen. Can it technically be called a “stoner movie”?
Look, Super Troopers 3 is a stoner comedy because we wrote a good deal of it high. It’s a stoner comedy because it was written by stoners. Just like Beerfest is a stoner comedy — it’s a stoner’s take on what the whole chugging-alcohol thing looks like. And Fletch didn’t have any weed-smoking in it either.
Wait, so you consider Fletch a stoner movie?
I’ve watched it high maybe 75 times. Oh, and Foul Play. The bottom line is, movies are better when you’re high. So in a way, they’re all stoner movies, every single one of them.
Since you mentioned Beerfest, I feel obliged to ask the age-old question: Is the “Potfest” sequel ever going to happen?
We meet about it every four to six weeks. At the moment we’re at an impasse as to what story to tell, and so much so that I’m a little worried that we’ll never come to an agreement. And if we don’t, we won’t make the movie. So that’s all there is to it.
You know, the way to make movies is to start saying you’re making the movie, and then other people are like “Sounds like they’re making that movie,” and then you go, ”Oh, who wants to finance it?” And you kind of create its reality a little bit before you actually go get them.
So is it too early to ask if there’s gas in Broken Lizard’s tank for Super Troopers 4? I realize the movie hasn’t even opened yet.
I will say this, Police Academy made 11 movies and they remake Spider-Man every two years. … I could see it happen. But really it’s almost entirely a matter of how this next movie is received. If it’s received well, and we want to make [ST4] and they want to make it. Yeah, I could see it happening.
Has anyone approached you guys about doing any product tie-ins – cannabis or otherwise – with this movie?
There were a number of companies that were like “How do we get involved in Super Troopers? They’re probably fun-loving people.” But no. We have a few various [pre-existing] alcohol deals, but that’s it.
So there’s no Broken Lizard-branded weed or a Super Troopers 3 sativa on the horizon?
No. At one point we had a weed brand called Smokin’ Lizard for a couple of years. It’s not available anymore. It included prerolls, bongs and pipes and all that. But ultimately, the legal weed business required more time than we ended up having when we were really trying to make and sell movies.
I noticed that the current-day challenges to the legal weed market aren’t just mentioned in this movie, they’re actually part of the plot.
From what I’ve recently read, California grows eight times the amount [of weed] than it can smoke and, since you can’t legally export California weed out of the state, that means seven-eighths of the weed is going on the black market. So it seems to me that the black market must be pretty fucking big.
In fact, I started down the road of making a pilot about that exact concept — about the whole legal weed / illegal weed thing that’s going on. And I wrote a pilot and it didn’t go anywhere. But it’s interesting, right?
Oh, and one of my favorite stoner movies of all time is Pineapple Express. It’s funny as shit. I like a stoner movie with a crime plot.
Speaking of plots, how did the Indian-wedding story arc for ST3 come about?
The core of the story was: what would it be like if Farva was going to marry your sister? What a nightmare that would be. That was the beginning of the idea. And then, because he and [my character] have had a little bit of rivalry in the other movies, we decided to make it Thorny’s sister. And then we were like “OK, does that mean there’s going to be an Indian wedding?” So that meant putting the parents in there. So we ended up with Super Troopers meets Meet the Parents.
In the movie, Iqbal Theba plays your father, Sakina Jaffrey plays your mother and your sister is played by Hannah Simone who told me she first worked with you when you directed a couple episodes of “New Girl,” right?
I kind of knew all along that [Hannah] was going to be the person I wanted to get to play the part because she was trained in the temple of “New Girl.” That show, it’s lightning fast, the rhythm is often created by the actors, everyone’s going 100 miles an hour but somehow your brain is still ahead of them. And that’s the pace of a certain kind of comedy that we’re also practicing: a very high-paced kind of flying, flying, flying. And I knew she knew how to do that.
Do you purposefully hide Easter eggs — weed-specific or otherwise — in your movies? Because I clearly remember Thorny wearing a Blue Dream T-shirt in the second movie, and in this one he’s wearing a T-shirt with a photo of Willie Nelson on it.
That’s his mugshot! And what was distressing to me is that a friend of mine saw it and was like: “Are you a Charles Manson fan? Why would you wear that shirt?” … I’m friends with Willie and I love him with all my heart, and I think he is everything I really stand for. So, if we have an opportunity to put him in the movie — even if it’s on a T-shirt — we’re going to do that.
But there were also a handful of sly references to The Dukes of Hazzard, the 2005 movie version of which you directed. Do you include Easter eggs like that to reward people who pay attention?
We don’t care about Easter eggs — at all. In fact, the reason we did the Dukes of Hazzard stuff is because I believe the reason [the TV show and movie were] so popular is because, at a primal level, the American movie-going public likes rebellion. And I think they like cops chasing guys who aren’t necessarily the worst criminals in the world, and they’re having a fun time doing it. And they love flying cars. So I figured let’s just give them what they want at a primal level and integrate it into the story.
So yeah, basically it’s because I love flying cars – and so do the other guys. That’s why we put [those references] in: we love flying cars
How are you feeling about bringing the Super Troopers crew back to the movie theater after 8 years?
What we’re trying to do now is something that is not a sure thing, right? The movie business has recovered, for superheroes, obviously, and some of these PG-13 movies like Project Hail Mary and The Devil Wears Prada 2, but what we’re hoping to do this summer is bring back the R-rated American comedy. That’s the mission.
Whether we succeed or not, we’ll find out on August 7th. The goal here is “Hey, remember when you used to get high with your buddies outside the movie theater, roll in and laugh your fucking asses off, get a little bit of rebellion, a little bit of drug use, a little bit of rock ‘n’ roll and a little bit of nudity?” It’s a good, old-fashioned American R-rated comedy. That’s what we’re trying to do. It’s a big lift.
We showed this movie to a crowd of about 350 people in Orange County and it tested the highest of any film in Searchlight’s history. When we listened to people talk about it afterward, they were saying things like “I’d forgotten what it was like to sit in a room with 300 people and laugh at the same thing.”
Are you referencing the fact that when the last Super Troopers movie came out in 2018, we were not anywhere near as fractured and angry a country as we are now?
The point of our kind of entertainment is to, is to really say “OK, we need some things that we’re all cool with, that we all agree on. And our brand of R-rated comedy can be one of those things. … All you’ve got to do is go to the theater. Call your buddies, meet them there, smoke a joint and go inside. That’s all you’ve got to do. And, I guarantee you, you will have a good time.
What’s it like as the release date approaches? Are you nervous at all?
It’s a ton of fun as we barrel toward August 7; we start to see the television ads and trailers and posters, and there’s a whole campaign going on and a strategy and we’re doing all this stuff. And then the 7th will come and we’ll be on the phone to L.A. asking “How did we do?” And that determines the next two years of your life; whether you’ll have an easy time making the next one or a very difficult time making it. Or somewhere in between. So the pressure is immense, but it’s something we keep doing anyway.
After the movie comes out, then what? Do you all just punch out and take some time off?
I’ve never taken time off in my life. I don’t shoot consistently, but you’re always angling for the next thing.
So what’s the “next thing” for you?
I’m going to try to make the second funniest golf movie of all time.
Behind …?
That’s up to you. There are two great ones [out there]. Kate Angelo and I have written a Scottish golf trip movie that we’re trying to get it going. Obviously Super Troopers 3 is about to be out there so we’ll see what happens. We’ll figure it out. The people who get movies made are schemers, and they’re working strategy. Every one of us work in strategy, and [work in] people and [work in] money and scheming.
It’s a hard fucking thing to pull off — making a studio movie — but it’s possible. And I hope to get it made. And be sitting with you here next year talking about a golf [movie].
“Super Troopers 3” (Searchlight Pictures) hits theaters on August 7, 2026. See it meow.
All photos courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.
