Immoral Compass stars Bill Burr as an aging man offering life lessons to an unseen character through a darkly comedic and worn-down lens. Each bit of guidance raised by Burr's character is then tied to a collection of sketches featuring an ensemble roster of guest stars, some of whom include Vince Vaughn, Bobby Lee, Nick Swardson, Al Madrigal, and Mary Lynn Rajskub.

Related: Top 10 Bill Burr Roles, Ranked By IMDb

Ahead of the show's premiere on Roku, Screen Rant spoke exclusively with Burr and Immoral Compass creator/director Tyler Falbo to discuss the comedy series, the shift from Quibi to Roku following the folding of the former streaming platform, and more.

Screen Rant: This show is quite the ride, it's funny, it's insightful, it goes some paths I was not expecting. How did the concept come to life?

Tyler Falbo: So, like, five years ago, I graduated film school, was working in the film industry, and just started making a bunch of shorts with my friends. Then on the weekends, we all took our real jobs and just went, "Oh, let's just go make our own stuff on the weekends." We made a bunch of them and some of them came out really nice and we ended up using those as a proof of concept for the show. If you want to know emotionally where they came from, I don't know if I'm prepared to admit that. [Laughs]

But yeah, that's what really ended up happening and they all have a similar style of comedy and point of view of this dark comedic type of thing. I don't know, I'm trying to analyze it now and I realized I cannot, so I'll just pass it along and say that then we showed it to Bill and somehow packaged this show that was kind of based on that.

Bill Burr: I was blown away by the originality, the writing, just the whole execution of it. It's one of the easiest shows that I've had to pitch. So I just became immediately a huge fan of Tyler.

This was originally packaged with Quibi, and then Quibi shut down. Then it was Roku and then the pandemic came along. So what was it like for both of you taking this long road to bring this show to life?

Bill Burr: We pitched it around town and we ended up at Quibi and I was very excited. They were a new platform, so I was kind of thinking, "I wish we got on something that was a little more mainstream that people knew about", but I just so believed in the show. This is so good, people are gonna find it. Plus, they're the only ones who offered us a deal.

Tyler Falbo: Yeah, I was like, "Oh, this is the future. Like duh, they put $2 billion into this stuff on your phone, young people." It was a huge thing that I was like "this is of course gonna work." I was like, "I'm working with one of my favorite comedians and one of the biggest comedians in the world, and we have all these people, and it's gonna be great." Then right when it was announced, or right when it launched, it did poorly immediately and we were in pre-production and I was like, "Oh, I can see where this is going, but I really hope they let us finish it."

Bill Burr: I didn't realize they weren't doing that well from the jump; I thought it was the pandemic was the overhand that just took them out. Then we had to just sit there in limbo, because they somehow had rights to the show, even though they didn't exist anymore. So yeah, to be sitting on something this good, was a very frustrating thing, because I just knew people were going to love it. So I'm so happy that we came out the other side, we're gonna be on Roku and I just think the the word of mouth on this thing is gonna be insane.

You said you filmed during the pandemic, what was it like navigating through all of those hurdles during this crazy time where productions were struggling to get off the ground?

Tyler Falbo: It was kind of a nightmare. I mean obviously, we did all the COVID protocols, we had testing like four days a week in the morning and that took two hours all for our shoot day. And I had the face masks and the face shield, I don't think any of the actors on set ever saw my face during the shoot days. [Laughs] Communication was already more difficult. Vince Vaughn's on the show, I swear to God if I saw him in public, he'd have no idea who I am and I talked to him for like eight hours straight.

It was just like that barrier, but yeah, it was really tough. Also, we had gotten shut down in March because COVID got too bad and then came back in September, and it was tough, but I honestly think it all came out exactly how we wanted. I think that's just credit to the crew and everybody that got it done.

We luckily didn't have anyone test positive, that was absolutely crucial on that day and I think that it was a miracle really. Also in post is when Quibi actually announced they're going down, but then they also let us finish editing the show, which is a credit to them, so I think it's a miracle of life, I don't know how it happened.

Did you use that downtime to revisit every script and make sure that everything felt proper in terms of tone and pacing before getting back to production?

Tyler Falbo: Actually, for the most part, the scripts that were locked we felt really good about, but Quibi ordered a couple more episodes. We ended up getting another writers' room together and adding a handful more sketches. So I think that was also a blessing in disguise. Now that I think about it, I think a couple of the scripts had some tweaks, but they're so short. We were like four days away from production when we got shut down the first time for COVID, so if they weren't really ironclad at that point, we had screwed up so. [Chuckles]

Bill, I want to start with the look of your character. That is such an interesting look from the hairstyle to the facial hair and the jumpsuit. What was it like finding that that look?

Bill Burr: Well, I mean, it's based on my age and going to see some hair metal bands from the 80s and just seeing what our tattoos look like now and what the hairline looks like. I was just saying that you could see grunge changed this guy's life, that was the day he became old, which for me in a lot of ways was a true thing. Because, you know, Generation X is the metal side and there's the grunge side and it is a hard line. I know this comedian, Keith Robinson, back in the 90s would say there's two types of Black guys, there's Earth, Wind, and Fire guys and there's Run-DMC guys when hip-hop came in and took over.

So I wanted to capture that guy that, he went to Monster of Rock, he did all of that stuff, his dream car was like a Thunderbird Turbo Coupe or a Montecarlo SS or something with the T-tops and just wanted to kind of see what that guy looked like in the future and coming out the other side of divorce or whatever. You have a lot of big ideas when you're young and then life comes along; which is another thing that I like about this show is that your life comes down to a few big decisions, and whatever decision you make really spins off in a good or a bad way.

I also think this thing is really current. It's so bizarre, there's so many truly crazy things happening right now, as we sit here getting all worked up about stand up comedian specials and that's what we're going to talk about, but it's okay for the oil companies to somehow take over the narrative of climate change. For some reason that gets no press or anything.

Tyler Falbo: To jump off the look of him, I think that we wanted to have the narrator be the least reliable, beaten down by life person as possible. Someone mentioned our Rod Serling is a guy that you should not be listening to at all or that his perspective is clearly influenced by a bunch of terrible things that have happened to him. Which is great, because that's what the show is kind of about within the sketches and shorts. So I think that we really leaned into giving this guy the most character description in maybe not the most positive way. [Laughs]

Bill Burr: Yeah, he's the kind of guy you say, "Hey, how's it going?" and then he just corners you in a room and punishes you with his entire life story, I think. [Laughs]

One of the things I loved about the show is even if you don't want to necessarily listen to this guy, he makes the occasional good point. What was that like for both of you walking that fine line of unsympathetic and sympathetic for him?

Tyler Falbo: I was gonna say that Bill's rants were mostly him and I think that I only really talked to him to kind of make sure the points were in line.

For me, it was just lovely to watch him on set, but I think that was the whole point of it is that each rant does have a real point. It's just coming from a really specific perspective, he's clearly taking it very personally on a different level, but I think that each point definitely comes from a real place.

They're not just saying stuff just to be ridiculous, it's clearly something happened to him that makes him believe this and if you watch the whole show, in the end, it makes a little more sense too.

On set, I mentioned this earlier, I just felt like I was watching, I wasn't directing, I was just watching Bill. It was really fun.

Bill Burr: It was a fun guy to be. I wouldn't want to be him, but it was fun to be in that garage. He was a guy that life had beaten down and he thought maybe he was turning the corner, only to find that he was going to have to start over again or whatever. That's the kind of person that back in the day, I remember coming into a third show Saturday night before the show even started, you're like, "That guy's gonna be a problem." [Laughs]

With this character, for me, it's hard not to find similarities with Frank from F is for Family, so Bill what was it like ensuring the two characters were separated, and what about these guys do you find so interesting to bring to life?

Bill Burr: I don't know, I think that's a tough one. I think when you're younger, you just sort of go, "That guy's a d**k, that guy's cool, she's hot," you know? I think as you get older, you start to realize how complex people are. I don't know when this happened, the last few years, I tried to use a little empathy and try to see where somebody is coming from. You can kind of see the hurt kid in them, how they ended up this way. It's also a way to try to figure out how do you go from being that cute little kid who just wanted to look at football cards to bleeding in and how do you avoid that?

I would say Frank was a different kind of guy where he was married and had kids and all this type of stuff, but I feel like this guy never latched on. I think he's one of those guys that's in the mainstream, but never seems to get sucked into it, you know what I mean? Didn't get married, didn't have the kids or whatever, had ideas but didn't know how to execute them.

He'd be one of those guys you run into at your high school reunion and you think you were walking up to the guy you last saw at graduation and then it's like, "Oh, wow" and then you just were like, "How do I get out of this?" [Laughs] Hoping your wife texts you to pull you out of the conversation.

I feel like Frank always had hoped that he was going to turn this thing around, with this guy it's like the cops are going to be coming to the house more, he's much more on edge I would say.

Alongside Bill, you two have found this great cast for all the sketches. What was it like finding everybody and getting them to be involved in the show?

Tyler Falbo: Well Bill's company, All Things Comedy, they've worked with so many people that we had basically an idea of, "Oh, you know, who'd be really good for this, you guys know this guy he's gonna be perfect." Bill had the ability to call that person and be like, 'Hey, are you interested in this?'" and a lot of the times it worked out and it was honestly a dream for me. I felt like we got so lucky.

Bill Burr: Well it's because of what you wrote. I mean, I can get these people on the phone, but if they're looking at a turd on a piece of paper, they're gonna be like, "Yeah, I'm busy. I can't, I'm locked down." Because they were friends of mine, they would read it and once they read it, they were chomping at the bit to get down there, so it was an easy sell.

Tyler Falbo: To fight that point, there are also some people that weren't friends of yours that were big fans. Like David Dastmalchian, who has a bunch of stuff this year like The Suicide Squad and Dune. I've always just been a big fan of his character work and some of the stuff that he's even produced over the years. He got the script and he was like, "Well I love Bill and this is pretty good, so I'll do it." It was kind of a dream in that sense too.

Bill Burr: They were saying a little more than, "This is pretty good."

Tyler Falbo: There's also one day of work for each person, you have one scene only anyway. It was really awesome to get all those guys and they all delivered, too, it was not a phone-in scenario because most of them had to do some really weird stuff and they really committed.

Bill Burr: What I get out of this is I want to see a Vince Vaughn-Bobby Lee buddy movie. Seeing Bobby standing next to six-foot-five Vince Vaughn, just that right there I'm like, "Oh my God, this right here, in the tradition of Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, I'm seeing like a great [pairing].

When I saw that they were in that sketch I was like, "I've never thought of them being together and now I need more."

Bill Burr: They both play off each other in what I liked from their place of reality. Because they're both so funny, they don't have to go for funny, so they can actually live in the emotion of whatever Tyler wrote and it was just subtle looks and it was just amazing. They are both geniuses, I love those guys.

Tyler, was there anybody on your dream casting list that you weren't able to bring into the show?

Tyler Falbo: Yeah, there's some people and there's also sketches that we ended up not being able to make because of either budget or timing or whatever. One guy that we really wanted was Rory Scovel, who was great for a sketch that ended up not getting made. I mean if we're talking dream casting, there were like, "Oh, Sam Rockwell, of course, he'd be good for this." But that would be a very specific scenario, so I don't know, that list goes too long.

Bill Burr: Rory Scovel would have been insane. That guy, he's so original, too, he's a really good actor. I don't think people realize how amazing he is, not enough people I should say.

Tyler Falbo: No, yeah, I'm a huge fan. Al Madrigal, also, killed his sketch. I was super happy to have him, but he went above and beyond what I thought he was even going to bring to the table.

Bill Burr: I knew Al was gonna do that because I've seen him in other stuff that he did, like that basketball movie with Ben Affleck. He's a really really natural actor. This is great, man, seeing all these comedians coming in and crushing it because forever they were saying we didn't know how to act, so it's nice to see these guys hitting home runs.

Tyler Falbo: I felt good about your bits when I saw that second episode you did of The Mandalorian. I think texted you, too, I was like, "Oh, this is gonna be a breeze because that was intense."

Bill Burr: Well, you know, I just say what they write, Tyler. Just step on the piece of tape, say what they write, they put music underneath it, and all of a sudden you look like you know what you're doing.

Tyler Falbo: [Chuckles] Yeah just pretend to be like a soldier with PTSD facing an old captain or whatever. Yeah, that's real easy, real easy.

Bill Burr: My motivation was just thinking about all those nights I spent in comedy condos. For those not in stand-up comedy, they are the most disgusting places you could ever stay. The club bought it as an investment and they don't do anything. So many of them still had wall-to-wall carpeting, I never took my shoes off, it was disgusting.

Mayfeld smirking in The Mandalorian Season 2

Since Tyler did bring it up, I was hoping to ask you, Bill, if there's any thoughts about a Mandalorian return in the future?

Bill Burr: Oh, I hope so. To be a small part of something that big, that is that good, that means so much to so many people...

I will tell you this, Star Wars fans, they're cool, man. They actually have a chill respectful way they approach you, which was really nice. I come from the sports fan world, they'd say, "Hey Billy, go f**k yourself" and I'm just like, "Hey, how's it going?" [Laughs] So I was used to that, but then they were coming up like, "Hey, Mr. Burr. I really liked your performance" and It's like, "Oh wow, these are like fully formed adults." [Laughs] I actually had to learn how to converse with them.

I'm obviously not allowed to say anything other than I just absolutely love being on that show and I hope it continues and if it doesn't, I've had a blast.

I have one more question for Tyler: the sketches have so many different looks, there's the found footage, there's bright lighting, there are dark colors. What was it like for you finding the appropriate look for each sketch when filming?

Tyler Falbo: We didn't want it to feel like a sketch. But even that being said, over the last few years Key & Peele did a really good job of that. But we definitely wanted each to feel like its own intense movie and just this terrible, hilarious stuff happened.

Our DP, Neil O’Donoghue, who I've known since college, really made it clear that these all have different tasks - like you see one, you want to feel like it's something completely different.With our schedule, it was kind of crazy, but I think that whatever is the funniest thing for each one is what we went for. I don't know if you saw the audition one, but we shot it like a found footage audition. We wanted it to look terrible because that's what audition tapes look like. But then the autopsy one, we want this to be really intense for her, so super top-down lighting, make it look like you're watching some weird foreign film or something.

So I think that it's all appropriate for what the idea in the script was, but yeah, we spent way too much time doing that, just so you know, so I appreciate you bringing it up.

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Immoral Compass is now streaming on Roku.