Mason Thames recently revealed that he and McKenna Grace had already completed the Green Day-inspired film Nimrods before the two began shooting the Colleen Hoover romance Regretting You, meaning the real-life couple filmed two movies together in rapid succession without audiences knowing it at the time.
"So we did Green Day first. Green Day movie first, and then we did Regretting You right after," Thames explained to People. "But it was just so wild. The coincidence of two back-to-back is awesome and we love it."
Nimrods is now playing in theaters. In the film, Thames plays Tommy, a musician whose band, the Analog Dogs, receives a call inviting them to open for Green Day on New Year's Eve in Los Angeles. Tommy does not realize the call is a prank set up by his older brother Wayne, played by Keen Ruffalo. He steals Wayne's car and heads out on a cross-country road trip from Kansas City with his bandmates Fred and Chad. Along the way, Tommy meets Grace's character Olivia, a fellow punk musician, and the two develop a connection after he sees her perform live.
Both Thames and Grace appear on the film's soundtrack. The songs recorded by Thames were written by Jakob Armstrong, son of Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong. Director Lee Kirk spoke about both actors to Deadline. "I mean, those kids are fantastic. They can do anything," Kirk said. "And they're the nicest kids, creative kids, very eager. They were up for whatever we wanted to do. I was so lucky that McKenna wanted to do it and she wanted to put her song in the movie. I just felt like it gave it some authenticity to it, and Mason with his singing, he rehearsed, he worked on those songs, which were written by Billie Joe [Armstrong's] son, by the way. Yeah, Jakob wrote those songs for the Analog Dogs."
Thames said he had been sitting on the experience for a long time before the film's release. "I'm so happy that we can finally release it to everybody, because it's felt like my little secret and my little experience, but I really hope people go to see it and feel the love that was used to make this movie, because I'm really happy with it," he said.
After appearing onscreen together twice now, the couple said they are open to a third project, but only under the right circumstances. "If we were ever going to do another job together, we'd want it to be so special and so awesome, so whenever that moment arises, we're going to snatch it up," Thames said.
