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This past Friday on WZ Daily The Bet director Chris Jay was a special guest. During his appearance of the the thing he spoke about was how he was able to get Roddy Piper, Jake Roberts and Diamond Dallas Page to appear in the film.
You can listen to Chris’ appearance starting at the 22:30 minute mark in the embedded audio player above. You can find the trailer for the film as well as some of Chris’ comments transcribed below.
New Movie Starring DDP, Jake Roberts and Roddy Piper in His Final Film Appearance Now Available
On how he was able to get Roddy Piper, Jake Roberts and DDP to appear in The Bet:
CJ: When the script was written, me being a wrestling fan, the two Dads in it I wanted to be two professional wrestlers. I just thought it would be a great gag for someone like yourself watching it to be like, “Oh look! It’s so and so…” They’re rivals in the movie, you know? Initially I wrote it for Mick Foley and Roddy Piper. They are two of my favorite wrestlers ever. Those are the two guys that I thought of in these roles as I was writing it. I basically stalked Mick Foley at a book signing once and we became friends. He was interested in potentially doing the movie. He had some stuff going on when we were shooting so he wasn’t able to do it. I went for Roddy and this is where things really pick up. I emailed the guy and he was actually familiar with my band because I come from the music industry. Roddy emailed me back immediately and he said, “This sounds really fun. I’ll give you a call and we’ll talk about it.” I’m freaking out. I’m a mark. I’m losing my mind. “Rowdy” Roddy Piper is going to call me! Calls me and is the sweetest guy ever. He says, “The next time I’m in LA we’ll have lunch and you can tell me about the movie.” True to his word he gives me a call. I meet up with him on Santa Monica Blvd. in LA and we just hit it off like that. I know it says so much about the guy but he was one of the sweetest human beings you could ever want to meet. He had a quality about him that instantly he could tell if you were a good person. If you were he became a friend. Even tho the movie was small and it was ridiculous that we were trying to make this it was probably unlikely that it would ever occur. He signed on and said he wanted to do it. He was the one that led to getting Dallas Page. What really gets crazy about this story is this. We get ready to film two years ago. I’m on cloud nine. I just got “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. He connected me with Dallas. I got my two Dads. Life is good. Right? Ready for this? I get screwed by Vince McMahon! Like many people do. Roddy gets called to do an appearance. It was right around the 25th anniversary of Mania. He gets called to do some promotion for Mania and he can’t do the movie. Here’s the problem… we’re shooting in forty-eight hours. FORTY-EIGHT HOURS before this movie starts filming and I just lost one of the main characters. I’m devastated. I’m freaking out. He was so apologetic. He was so sad. Now I’m terrified we are going to lose Dallas because the only reason Dallas was doing it was because I’m friends with Roddy and Roddy told him I was a good dude. Everything is falling apart but check this out. Roddy to his everlasting credit called Dallas and says, “Don’t bail on this dude. He’s a good guy. He’s good people. He’s an underdog here. You gotta still do the movie.” Dallas, to his credit, agreed and then he says, “So who are we going to get to play the second Dad?” Then he mentions, “What if we get Jake?” You have to understand that the time period of this was like two and a half years ago. The Resurrection had not come out yet if you will. Even tho I knew Jake was doing well the vision I had of Jake was much more “Behind The Mat Jake” and not “New School Resurrection Jake.” I’m terrified. I’m like, “Jake? Can he remember lines? Is he ok? Is he going to show up?” I’m thinking something like that scene from The Resurrection where he shows up at the airport with no shoes. I’m just like, “Oh my God! What have we gotten ourselves in to?” We had to do it. We had no time left. Jake took the role on forty-eight hours. He flew out to California. Was a consummate professional. Completely cool and we had a great experience with him. To continue the story, like I told you, Roddy was gone. Vince took him to WWE. I’m screwed. Whatever. I felt like an old promoter in Portland in the early-80s. Like I just got ripped off and my territory was closed. Roddy calls. He gives me a call and we had twelve days to shoot. He calls me on day six and says, “Chris, I just want to let you know I’m so sorry I couldn’t do it. I just wanted to give you my blessing. I hope it’s going great.” I said, “Roddy, are you going to be in LA?” He said, “I’m actually going to be there in two days.” I said, “Call me and we’ll get you in the movie. I don’t care if it’s two seconds. I don’t care if you just pop your head in and say something wacky and shut the door. I just need you in the movie.” He agrees to do it. Two days later I’m driving down to shoot the movie and pick up Piper. He comes up to my house in Ventura, CA and he films a scene here straight up. The guy was so incredible. So wonderful. It was just this amazing experience. I basically got to hang out with one of my favorite people in the world for a full day. Stuck in traffic both ways and we actually bonded and became really good friends. One of the sad things is he was really excited about the movie even tho he was barely in it. He was going to be my secret weapon. He’d say, “I really think this is funny. I really think this can be a cult movie.” We had all these wonderful plans but unfortunately he passed and it’s just an honor to say that I was involved in this movie. That was the genesis of how we got all the wrestlers in the movie.
