Carmen Christopher, Jo Firestone, and Gary Richardson Talk “Never Change!” Finding Truth in Absurdity, and Stealing From “The Brutalist” (INTERVIEW)

In Never Change!, the fictional class of 2008 has their senior year violently cut short by a disastrous tornado. Now in their mid-thirties, these former classmates are legally forced to return to their hometown and finish high school once and for all. Following its world premiere at the Tribeca Festival, the American High ensemble comedy premiered June 17, 2026, on Hulu.

We at FandomWire sat down with stars Carmen Christopher, Jo Firestone, and Gary Richardson to discuss the chaos of shooting a massive ensemble comedy, the trauma of returning to high school, and finding the right comedic rhythm without a straight man.

Never Change! Interview

Gary Richardson and Jo Firestone in Never Change!, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 9, 2026.

FandomWire: This movie has so much chaos, and normally, there is a straight man in every scene to keep it grounded. Here, there isn’t too much of that. What is it like for you guys as comedic actors, and how do you keep it somewhat contained so it doesn’t get too insane?

Jo Firestone: Marty and John wrote a great script, and Marty really likes you to play to the truth of the moment. You just try to be as truthful to the character and to the script as possible. If it comes off as unhinged, that’s the editor’s problem.

FW: The film forces these characters back into the class of 2008. Did being on that set transport you back to your own high school days, or how did you find your unique personifications of these people as they went back to their past?

Gary Richardson: It didn’t really send me back to high school. It was really weird to be in a school just hanging out, because I am of the school of thought that school sucks. I was never just hanging out at school, so doing that was jarring in general. John and Marty did such a good job making it easy and making as many decisions before you got there as they could.

Carmen Christopher: The idea is that we are 36 and back in high school. I had a good time in high school, but I didn’t like classes, and you couldn’t just hang out there, so that was annoying. My process is very complicated. I really put in the physical work to memorize my lines, and then some strong imagination and backstory to get into my character.

I had to go through my own struggles and nightmares. Could you imagine a tornado? That is traumatic. I am thinking about the tornado and how we could have died, and that gave me some terrors. Then being like, my life is Loserville, imagine having five kids and owning a bar. That is traumatic. I couldn’t sleep leading up to this. Then all of a sudden it’s like, I need to go back to school, and I have a family and a bar. I could not sleep.

Firestone: I absolutely echo what these two said. It felt very separate from going back to high school. I no longer had to wear a medical brace, so things are different now, and my body was just so much more free. These characters are not really based on our biographical lives, so it does help. Like Carmen said, you do have to use some imagination. It helps that I am not playing Jo in my high school. That gives you some distance and it is a little bit less traumatizing.

Christopher: I think people forget that we are actors sometimes because we come off as so real and relatable, and it is like I am playing a character. I was playing a dumb character. In real life, I am a genius. I have read three audiobooks this year.

FW: There is a wealth of comedic energy in this cast. How do you set your own boundaries to make sure you aren’t stepping over each other, but also play off of each other in your unique comedic rhythms?

Richardson: I think for me, you kind of just have to try to go get it. Luckily, we are all friends who have known each other for a good amount of years. It is like, okay, I’m just going to go hard and trust that if something isn’t working, Marty and John will step in and tell you to ease up. We were just trying to make this as much fun as possible and trusting that everybody else is doing the same thing.

Firestone: Due to the nature of the filming, there isn’t that much time to riff up a storm. You take the script and you know that you have to give them at least one take of what the script is. It is also fun when if someone else is going really hard, it can inspire you to understand that maybe you can go in the opposite direction. All those improv dollars pay off.

Christopher: When you are sitting back and looking around at all the talent around you, you just say, wow. You just watch and enjoy it. You say, I am literally surrounded by 25 Rodney Dangerfields in their prime right now, and you just let 25 Rodney Dangerfields do their thing.

Richardson: And sometimes you are in a similar situation and you look around and say, I am definitely the funniest person here, and I have to make sure everybody knows it. You just step up. They say action and you go to work.

Christopher: Being the funniest person comes with responsibility because everybody is looking towards you to behave and do something, and then they all fall in line. When you are given that gift from God as the funniest person in the room, you use it because it is going to elevate everybody. There are going to be some haters and they can shut up, but you can go out there and dominate.

FW: Was there a particular scene in the final product that you watched that was completely unexpected, or maybe a scene you didn’t get to be in and you thought it was great?

Richardson: Nothing was super surprising because I feel like I had been so close to the project for so long, but I was shocked at how good it looked. The graphics are fun and it moves in an interesting way. That was what I was the most shocked by.

Christopher: I think for me, I was really shocked that we lifted the intermission from The Brutalist and put that right into our film. I didn’t see that coming. I wasn’t particularly happy that we just stole something from another film, but I thought that it was kind of interesting.

Firestone: I was glad for the scenes I wasn’t in because I am going to enjoy myself and laugh, and sometimes that is not really necessary on camera. There are full scenes that I know I am laughing straight through. I guess that does some world-building, but I don’t need to be in every scene cracking up.

Never Change! is now streaming on Hulu.