Let’s Be Cops was featured as part of the Comic Con 2014 20^th Century Fox Film preview. The action comedy film covers the adventures of two struggling pals who become neighborhood sensations after dressing as police officers for a costume party. This soon leads to trouble as they must put their fake badges on the line when they become entangled in a real life web of mobsters and dirty detectives!

The pals are played by Damon Wayans Jr. and Jake Johnson, while Keegan-Michael Key, Nina Dobrev, and Rob Riggle round up the cast. They were all quick to make it clear their film doesn’t follow the recent trend of cop-centered comedies.

Let’s be Cops stars Damon Wayans Jr., Jake Johnson, Keegan-Michael Key, Nina Dobrev, and Rob Riggle.

Wayans Jr. got specific: “What actually drew Jake and I to the project was the fact that it is different. It’s really a buddy comedy actually; it’s really not a buddy cop comedy. It’s really two guys who are dressing up as cops so the whole movie is like a different premise compared to all of those because we’re not cops. We suck at being cops; everything we’re doing is kind of illegal…it’s clearly illegal.”

Dobrev pointed out the only thing Let’s Be Cops shares with other comedies that have cops at their core is having Rob in the cast. That brought about a great deal of laughter from the room as her acting colleagues wholeheartedly agreed, most likely due to his role in 21 Jump Street.

“Our bad guy is a bad guy. Ours is more of a throwback of those 80s movies where the danger is like real danger,” Wayans Jr. commented. “The jokes are funny but there’s definitely that kind of like ‘are they going to survive this?’”

In Let’s Be Cops, Johnson and Wayans Jr. replicate their great chemistry from New Girl although their fans can expect a totally different dynamics than the actors have in their hit TV show on Fox.

Wayans explained, “It’s almost flip-flopped. My character in this movie is a little more reserved. I consider myself a realist but I’m more of a coward in the movie and he’s kind of gung-ho. He doesn’t really think things through. It was kind of cool to see what Jake does since he’s been doing “New Girl” for a long time playing that character. It was cool to see him step out of that character for a little bit.”

Wayans Jr. shared the cast “fun off screen, screwing around, improvising, keeping each other entertained!”

I asked them to share some of the fun moments when Johnson and Wayans Jr. put their fake badges on the line.

“I think when you made that arrest in the hardware store,” Riggle reminded Wayans Jr. “That’s putting it on the line.”

“Throughout the movie, we kind of do citizens arrests technically, right?” Wayans Jr. asked Riggle, who agreed. “His character is an actual cop in the movie that we befriend, and he thinks that we’re cops. That’s a lot more of the fun.”

“Now that I think about it, I’m a terrible cop,” Riddle admitted to plenty of laughter in the room. “I’m never going to make detective!”

Since most of the cast has worked together (with the exception of Riggle and Dobrev), they’re very comfortable with one another. “It was great because when we were not on screen, we were having fun off screen, screwing around, improvising, keeping each other entertained,” Wayans Jr. revealed.

The cast readily admitted life on the set, which involved going off the rails on a regular basis, was fun while they were improvising.

“That’s every scene!” Dobrev exclaimed.

Her cast mates fully agreed. “We did scenes with Nina and we talked about doing something maybe in between takes, and she would just do it and it made it into the movie,” Wayans Jr. commented.

Dobrev gasped in laughter. “I remember one thing! Remember when you were doing the dance outside, in front of the diner and there was an accident? Did that make it into the movie?”

Wayans Jr. jumped right in. “I hope not! I did a dance in one scene and my pants completely rips [sic] off my ass. It ripped right open.”

The cast ultimately described the film as a laugh out loud movie. Wayans Jr. added, “It’s one of those fun summer movies that you want to see with a lot of people in the theater; it’s one of those. It has a great story; it has a great message also. The message is it’s never too late to follow your dreams.”

“And it really is funny!” Dobrev added.

The film debuts Wednesday, August 13, 2014.

For more on Let’s Be Cops, visit the film’s website at http://www.letsbecops.com/. LIKE the movie on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LetsBeCopsor follow on Twitter @LetsBeCops. 

Photos © 2014 Elle Lutz/Your Entertainment Corner. All Rights Reserved.