‘Rough Night’ Star Ryan Cooper Helped Kate McKinnon With Her Australian Accent

Australian native Ryan Cooper will be acting as an American when he appears on the big screen in “Rough Night,” but Kate McKinnon will be doing her best Aussie accent in the comedy. Naturally, she asked her co-star for some notes.

“Actually, Kate came up to me before the first table read, and she goes, ‘How was it? Let me know what I need to work on,’” Cooper revealed to International Business Times. “So I’d taken a few little notes and let her know, but she is so fantastically —in Australia, we say ‘ocker,’ which means like very bogan or like whatever you would use as a very overt slang for Australian. And she was that. [McKinnon uses] the kind of Australian accent that we would also poke fun at, so it makes it even more fun.”

In “Rough Night,” McKinnon plays a member of a bridal party, along with Scarlett Johansson, Ilana Glazer, Zoë Kravitz and Jillian Bell, at a wild bachelorette party. They hire a stripper, Jay (Cooper), but the night takes a wrong turn when they accidentally kill him.

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“There’s a twist,” Cooper teased. “Obviously, you’re going to have to watch the movie to find out that twist, and then there’s the fun of trying to cover up that and hide the body and get rid of it. It’s a modern ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ kind of story meets ‘The Hangover.’”

To prepare for the role, the actor actually took some hip-hop dance classes, but he said that didn’t really help when they were actually shooting “Rough Night.” For the most part, he’s a dead body. For Cooper, it allowed him to see comedy veterans in action.

“It was so much fun because I had front row seats to watch the girls perform and work at the same time as being able to just be available for them to use and play with,” Cooper said. “So it was just like being these wonderful, talented women’s big Barbie doll—or Ken doll, I guess, for a few months, which was fantastic.”

Cooper noted that he was a fan of all the cast prior to starting “Rough Night,” so he was a little nervous. However, he relished the opportunity to learn more about the lighter side of acting. Previously, the actor had mostly been in dramas.

“Being front row with these talented comedic actors was like a master class in what to do and how to work, how to play, how to just be in the moment and if something is funnier and you feel it’s going to be funnier a different way, then go for it,” Cooper explained. “They were just great at improvising and making that moment and the scene even more special.”

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Of course, a good movie starts with a well-written script. The Australian actor praised the screenplay. “The writing is funny and sad and beautiful,” he told IBT. “I remember when I was flying back to New York and reading a new draft, I was laughing out loud, I was crying and I just had a blast. So I think that’s what the audience is going to feel and see and experience.”

Cooper’s next projects aren’t quite as hilarious. He recently starred in the romantic drama “Confess,” a go90 series based on Colleen Hoover’s novel, and his next project is “Day 5,” a Rooster Teeth drama that is set in a dystopia.

“It’s kind of a post-apocalyptic world where people who sleep go into an unending sleep,” he said. “Basically, you die, and so these survivors are trying to find this oasis where you can sleep and try to discover if it’s true or false. What are the reasons? There’s all sorts of fun experiments, drugs, medical research to try and stay awake. It’s a really fun story, and I get to play an Australian in that series.”

His projects this year are all vastly different, and it sounds like Cooper appreciates that. “I’m getting a large range of experience getting to play villains, heroes, romantic partners,” Cooper noted. “I think it’s just been a fantastic journey. I’ve loved every minute of it.”

“Rough Night” hits theaters June 16.