Danny McBride on the high-stakes challenge of reinventing horror classics like 'Halloween' and being the surprise star of Downy's Super Bowl commercial (2024)

The Super Bowl spot revealed it was, in fact, McBride, who is now calling himself "Downy McBride." In the commercial, he rides around a neighborhood in a golf cart shooting canisters of the product to people with a T-shirt gun while the DMX song "What's My Name?" plays.

Insider chatted with "The Righteous Gemstones" star about the not-so-shocking reveal in the Super Bowl ad and how he and his producing partner, director David Gordon Green, are moving from rebooting the "Halloween" franchise to now taking on "The Exorcist."

This is probably the silliest reveal in Super Bowl ad history.

[Laughs.]

Just because your voice is so recognizable.

I had a feeling. My parents instantly recognized that it was me. So I was like, well, the jig is up.

You have done many ad campaigns, including a Super Bowl ad a few years back. What does a campaign need to motivate you to agree to do it?

It just needs to look like it would be funny. I feel with commercials there's such a fine art to it. Getting people's attention in 30-45 seconds and try to make an impression. When they came to me with this, it just made me laugh.

So is the pitch for this basically: "Downy McBride, yes or no?"

[Laughs.] That's basically what it was. I said I was down. Robert Downey Jr. must have said no.

Do you suggest comic bits, or do you just run with what the ad team comes up with?

I met with them. And on the day of, shooting was loose. I was able to improv.

Did you know there would be a DMX track?

I did not suggest it but when I heard it it made a lot of sense.

What's your all-time favorite Super Bowl ad?

You know I was thinking about this as I walked through the sacred halls of Super Bowl ads. My brain always goes back to when I was a kid and there was the "Where's the beef?" ads and Spuds MacKenzie. At the time I didn't know it was Ridley Scott who did that "1984"-inspired Apple ad, but when I got older I was like, that was a ballsy commercial.

For me, it's the Bud Bowl.

Oh, yeah. That was a big deal.

So I haven't really heard you talk much about your involvement in the Blumhouse "Halloween" trilogy, in which you produced and cowrote the screenplay for 2018's "Halloween," 2021's "Halloween Kills," and last year's "Halloween Ends."

Were you surprised by how much you guys flipped it on everyone in "Halloween Ends?" I mean, at the time the movie came out I told David Gordon Green I thought you all were going to go as far as introducing the Corey character as the new Michael Myers.

I put all the credit on David Green. All three of these movies, he was the tip at the end of that spear of the creative spirit.

He came to me early on and said, "I want to throw people a curveball in the third one, I want to set it around someone who's not Michael." And I thought about it and it just felt that would be pretty cool.

It's unexpected and give us new territory so the third one doesn't feel repetitive. That was his idea. It was an interesting way to go with it.

David Gordon Green is now moving to "The Exorcist" reboot. You are an executive producer on that. What's the challenge of bringing that to new audiences compared to what you guys did with "Halloween?"

Green is leading the charge. He's a glutton for staying in these dark, dismal, horrific places. But I think with this one too, he has a cool take. He and I developed the story for it and he's passionate about it.

I've known him since I was 18 and what I admire a lot is his work ethic, he needs to feel like he's making something he hasn't made before to go to work.

He's in this phase of his career where he's focusing on these horror films that have a massive fan base so the stakes are really high for cracking it creatively and delivering for people who are already expecting something. I admire him for wanting to take that challenge on. It's harder than cracking something that's brand new.

The pressure can play into the development of it and he doesn't really let that happen.

You and David have the Rough House Pictures production shingle where you develop these projects. Going forward, are there other IPs you want to take on?

We always look at things a year or two out. I've been focused on "Gemstones" and David is focused on "Exorcist," but we do have stuff that's preexisting and brand new.

David and I are developing "Garbage Pail Kids" for HBO as a cartoon series. So that's some dope existing IP.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.