Pickle chips or salt and vinnies? Ketchup chips or all-dressed? Welcome to Letterkenny, population 5,000, where questions like these stir up the biggest debates between the residents belonging to one of three groups: the Hicks, the Skids, and the Hockey Players. Originally starting on YouTube before being picked up by Crave Canada and now exclusively streaming on Hulu for audiences in the U.S., Letterkenny has become a cult hit Canadian comedy series, and season 11 proves why.
In an exclusive interview with MovieWeb, Letterkenny stars Tyler Johnston and Evan Stern (who play the infamous "Skids" Stewart and Roald) take us through some of their iconic moments in season 11. From personal chip combo revelations and quirky dance breaks to their scene-stealing performance in episode 4, we recommend you catch their hilarious antics in our full video interview.
'The Skids' Share Their Personal Favorite Chip Combos
Nicki Sun: This is Nicki with MovieWeb. I'm so excited to be sitting with The Skids of Letterkenny. Season 11, so many moments between you two. So first of all, we have to settle the greatest debate in season 11, which are chips. I am a sour cream and cheddar girl myself, but I also am team vinny, salt and vinnies. I was wondering what is your personal favorite chip combo? Evan, we can start with you.
Evan Stern: Oh my God. I feel like even admitting this, we're gonna get in trouble. Um, my personal favorite? I love a jalapeno chip, and we'll try kettle cooked—anything spicy. A spicy chip is my favorite.
Tyler Johnston: I gotta say, I'm a good Canadian kid when I say this, but I like ketchup chips.
Stern: Ah, I thought you were going to say “all-dressed.” I'm actually supportive of that. I support the ketchup.
Johnston: I'm sorry. I like ketchup chips—classic, Lays ketchup chips.
Sun: Oh my gosh. All right, great. Now that we’ve settled the great chip debate—
Stern: Interview over (laughs).
What Sound Would Come Out of Evan Stern and Tyler Johnston's Boombox?
Sun: In episode two, that boom box. Okay, so what sound ideally would come out of a boombox every time you pause for dramatic effect? Tyler, we'll go with you first this time.
Johnston: Probably like the clown horn, uh, the clown car horn (makes sound). It's a dramatic moment.
Sun: Yeah, you wanna make everybody laugh, I understand.
Johnston: Oh, exactly. I would definitely get the attention on me, I think, with a sound like that. So mission accomplished.
Stern: Yeah. I really like the one that we put in the episode. We actually didn't have that sound in the episode when I pressed the play button, per usual. Right? Like they added it in afterwards. So every time we did that scene, it was just me going
Johnston: click
Stern: and then everyone just sits there and just feels the electricity in the room. But it would be nice to have some actual electricity to have a lightning bolt sound.
Sun: Wait, you both didn't know what sound it was beforehand?
Stern: We had an idea that there was going to be some sort of dramatic noise, I think?
Sun: What did that sound like to you before knowing?
Stern: I thought it was gonna be a bit more like, uh, Frankenstein lightning, you know, they're like (imitates noise) but uh, they did a pretty good job. You know, I'm supportive of the sound team over at Letterkenny. They're pretty good.
'The Skids' Chat Scene-Stealing Performance in Episode 4 of Letterkenny
Sun: Obviously we cannot talk about Season 11 without your scene-stealing performance in episode four, Nudes. I think you know the scene. You're on the couch back at Skid Headquarters. Evan, your physicality around that couch—brilliant. And Tyler, your ability not to break during that just blows my mind. Can you both describe the process of filming that scene, if there's any outtakes, how many times it took for you to actually film that scene? Give us some insight cause that was just an iconic scene.
Stern: I'm loving that this is becoming a thing. I don't think we were aware how wild the scene was at the time. Um, but the first time I did it to Tyler, he didn't know that I was going to be caressing his body and like whispering in his ear.
Johnston: I don’t think you even knew. Did you even know?
Stern: I don't think I did. The scene started though, and I was like, oh, I'm getting quieter, so I guess I have to get closer. Oh, I'm getting even quieter. So I think that there was just, it started happening and the first take we did, Tyler did break, which is so rare for Tyler. This never happens for us.
Sun: Well, you sprung it on him, right? I imagine.
Stern: I sprung it on him
Johnston: “Sprung” being the operative word. He was sprung all over me.
Stern: Sprung everywhere.
Johnston: And Nicki, he went up and down my arm. He started at my shoulder. He went down to my fingertips. He went around my lap, started at my other fingertip. Back up to my shoulder. Into my ear.
Stern: You really remember it a lot for a guy who seemed to have a problem with it.
Johnston: I could smell what he had for lunch through my ear.
Sun: Obviously it was very memorable. It was a very, dramatic, uh, experience. Probably not traumatic? Dramatic versus traumatic.
Johnston: Seriously, that's nothing Nicki, that's just an appetizer.
Stern: We trust each other so much. So there is like an element of like, I know he's comfortable with whatever I'm going to do. It's whether or not we're gonna be able to get through the scene the first time. But you know what? We know all the words. We're gonna get it the second, we're gonna get it the third.
Johnston: Exactly.
Stern: We’ll be fine.
How Much Are These Scenes Improvised?
Sun: Is there any improvisation in that as well, or how close do you stick to the script, and is the goal to try to make each other break during these scenes? Because I can imagine takes like this can take a while because you guys are just so hilarious. And the beats between you all is just symbiotic.
Stern: For other people, it's hard. I think for you and I, it's easy. We know our lines.
Johnston: We enter scenes Nicki with like, usually something that we've thought of, or improvised, in some cases we'd like to end the scene with like a weird exit or something like that. So we usually improvise at the beginning or the end of the scenes. I'd say that's probably when we do most of our improvisation. What was the second part of your question, Nicki?
Sun: Well, this might get a little dark, but I was also wondering—
Stern and Johnston: Well, we like dark. YES! Go on, Nicki.
Sun: (laughs) I was wondering because the cast is just hilarious, but is there anything that you think about when you're trying not to break?
Stern: I find it very hard to break because Roald’s physicality is just so tight. It's so uncomfortable to like clench my butt and pinch my voice and hunch over and and hang on to Tyler. Like, it's not a funny position for me to be in. It's so intense and it's so heightened, and Tyler is so focused on his lines. He has to remember a billion words. So we actually don't have to think about it. I, I think I'm so in, do you know what I mean? Like, I feel like I never break.
Johnston: Yeah. We are ready. Nicki, we don't have very much time on our set. We move very quickly. We shoot a lot of pages in a day. So we have to show up very prepared and Evan and I usually have a big, big dialogue-driven scene, so we show up prepared. We have lots of laughs in rehearsals, but when it comes down to camera time, we know we only have a few takes, and we can't really mess around too, too, too much. That being said, we still have fun. We still make sure to laugh. We can improvise a moment or two. It's not like it's super high-stressful, but we don't have like hours and hours to do a scene.
Stern: Yeah, it's not like a regular TV set at all. You shoot like 15 pages in a day, no problem.
Sun: Does this also apply to your dance breaks? Like do you choreograph them yourselves or is there a choreographer on set? How do you improvise your dance breaks?
Stern: We, we don't have anyone, um, truly professional supervising our dances. Um, I sometimes will be like, you stand over there, you stand over there. If somebody needs a little bit of inspiration, I might give them one move to do if they need a little sum sum (dances), but like generally—
Johnston: He’s got a whole different attitude when he starts choreographing.
Stern: I do change. I start snapping a lot. Um, Tyler though, on the other hand, Tyler brought a lot of his own very specific weird movements. Like there's that skiing one he does where he kind of like goes from side to side. Very specific Tyler movement that I could never have come up with on my own.
Sun: I can't wait for the folks on TikTok to, uh, kind of duet that and have that go viral so more people know about Letterkenny.
Stern: Oh God. (laughs) Is this a video recording? Oops.
Johnston: That'd be good.
Tyler Johnston and Evan Stern Share Their Favorite Part of Working on Letterkenny
Sun: Yeah. Oops. Let's make it go viral so it's not just Canadian, right? So everybody is popping off, learning more about Letterkenny, just becoming immediate fans. But Evan, what has been your favorite part about playing Roald?
Stern: Uh, my favorite part is honestly getting to work with Tyler all the time. I know it sounds, I know, I know. I know he is just here and, and I have to say it or else he's gonna send me a mean text later. But the truth is, getting to work with Tyler has been like one of the greatest joys of my life because he's very talented and it's very rare you get to come across someone like that in this profession so often.
Johnston: Why does it take you eight years to say something nice like that to me?
Sun: You know, it comes with the right prompt, but you know—
Stern: It’s true. It’s Nicki. It's all Nicki. You're fine, Tyler. I take it back.
Sun: How about you, Tyler? What has been your favorite part about playing Stewart?
Stern: You don't have to say me.
Johnston: Working with the entire cast.
Sun: We're extending it now.
Johnston: This has been an amazing experience, Nicki. Um, You know, being a Canadian actor who's worked in the industry since I was like 14, 15 years old. So 20 years, we've, uh, you know, we always impersonate America. Vancouver is Seattle, Toronto is New York, and we always have to hide our boots and our “ehs” and these things, uh, um, to be able to be a part of a Canadian show that has been received by America and the world for just being kind of the weirdos that we are has been an amazing experience. And like Evan said earlier, this partnership that we've established—
Stern: You don't have to—
Johnston: is very, very special.
Sun: I love this bromance!
Johnston: He's such a good performer and a great dancer (pulls out pretend notes) and a great kisser.
Sun: Yeah? Is that all in your notes, Tyler?
Stern: Yeah, it is. I wrote those notes. I FedExed them last night.
Johnston: That’s his handwriting. My blood.
Stern: Oh God.
Sun: Well, my last question to you both is when you first joined Letterkenny, did you ever think you'd be filming season 11?
Stern: Not even.
Johnston: I'm waiting for season 20 personally.
Stern: Yeah, exactly. Tyler's always a hopeful. He would do this every day for the rest of his life.
Johnston: No, no. The answer is no way.
Stern: No way. It's, it's honestly, I was like, this is a web series. Like I don't think I even really understood the scope of it and to be honest, nothing ever changed, shooting it. Like we never ended up with bigger sets really. Or like more crew or anything. Like, nothing really ever changed over the last—
Johnston: We didn't get trailers.
Stern: Yeah. Okay. So yeah, season one, technically we were all sitting in the same room during our green room breaks. But then again, like I was saying, in the chip episode, we were sitting under like a staircase eating snacks off the floor. Like it's not like things changed that much over the course of the season. So it felt the same the whole time. But I never expected it to reach this scope of an audience or to be international in this capacity. Like it felt small. It felt intimate.
Johnston: When I did the first episode, I was like, you know who's gonna be a huge fan of this show?
Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.
Stern: Yeah, that was your first thought.
Johnston: As soon as this comes out, man, those guys are gonna love this.
Sun: Well, thank you both so much. Congratulations on season 11, and here's to 20+ seasons. It's been a pleasure speaking with you both. Thank you so much for your time today. Congratulations on a job well done. Hilarious.
Season 11 of Letterkenny is now available to binge on Hulu.