Rob Reiner applauds Paul McCartney’s improv in ‘Spinal Tap II’ first look (exclusive)

There’s a fine line between clever and stupid, but when it came to breaking his longtime, self-imposed “no sequels” rule with Spinal Tap 2, Rob Reiner is confident he made a wise decision.

“It’s a high bar, and I’m not here to say that we surpassed that,” Reiner admits to Entertainment Weekly. “There’s a reason why Timeout Magazine and all [these other outlets] rated it as the number one comedy of all time. So you can’t do better than that. But this one does…The purists are going to say, ‘Hey, shut your mouth. Get out of here.’ But it works. It does work.”

And according to the director, it doesn’t only work for those who know and love the original. 

“We screened the second film, and it’s 41 years later. Half the audience had seen the first film, the other half had not seen it. And we thought, ‘Oh, the people who haven’t seen it, they’re not going to get this.’ And they were a younger crowd, obviously.”

But to his surprise, Reiner says the youthful audience members were equally enamored. “I was stunned. I thought, ‘How could that be?’ Now, obviously, if you’ve seen the first one, you’ll get some more of the references that we do in the second one. But the people who hadn’t seen it loved it.”

Even the uninitiated will likely recognize some of Spinal Tap’s most famous lines. Not only is it one of the most quotable movies of all time, but it also continued to have a life after its release. In one of the great examples of life imitating art, the clueless hair metal band — Harry Shearer’s Derek Smalls, Michael McKean’s David St. Hubbins, and Christopher Guest’s Nigel Tufnel — became a real-life outfit, playing in character as Spinal Tap, headlining shows, and going on tour. 

“All of a sudden, it becomes this thing that sort of folds into the real world,” says Reiner, who also starred in the original (and returns for the sequel) as a hapless documentarian filming the band. “It’s like a Möbius strip that just folds into itself. They played the Royal Albert Hall, they played Glastonbury, and they played Wembley. And so you’ve got this weird kind of hybrid thing where they’re now in the real world.”

The Tap has even performed classics, like “Stonehenge” and “Big Bottom,” alongside actual rock stars and big-name bands, such as Metallica, whose drummer, Lars Ulrich, is one of many cameos in the sequel. Other stars confirmed to pop up include Elton John (seen in EW’s exclusive first look, above), Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Questlove, Paul McCartney, and more. 

Despite spoofing rockers and their industry, Reiner says musicians are some of the film’s most vocal fans. 

“The real world of rockers loves the movie. They’ve come to embrace it. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been approached by rockers who said, ‘It’s a staple on the tour bus. We watch it over and over again,'” the director explains. “The first time I met Sting, he said, ‘I’ve watched this thing so many times. Every time I watch it, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.’ Because it’s so close to the reality of their lives.”

Still, Reiner insists the film’s rock star cameos aren’t just an excuse for the musicians to hang out with the actors, and vice versa. 

“We try to figure out what the idea is before we ask,” he explains. “In other words, we wouldn’t just ask people to do it just for the sake of it. Paul McCartney comes out of a very real thing that happened with him. The guys were rehearsing at this facility out in the Valley here in L.A. It was a big rehearsal facility. They had a number of bands, and the guys were rehearsing for a tour. They were about to go on, and Paul McCartney was in another studio rehearsing for his tour, and at one point, he just dropped in on them. He came in and said, ‘Hey fellas, sing us a song.’ And they wound up singing the worst version of ‘Start Me Up’ that ever lived. But the point is, we took that from reality. That’s something that actually happened.”

In the film, the Beatle walks in on the Tap rehearsing a song, one of a few new numbers that will be featured on an accompanying album. “McCartney comes, he listens, and then he gives a suggestion of what to do, how to fix it,” Reiner says. “And then they get into singing together…. And then that one is in the album.”

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In addition to lending his musical talents, McCartney was also one of the funniest improvisers among the artists featured in the film. “They were all great. Paul McCartney is really funny. I mean, really funny,” Reiner says. “And Elton was spot on. He knew exactly what he wanted to say, and either you can do it or you can’t do it. But these guys are used to being asked questions. They’ve been asked a million questions over their careers by reporters, and so they were totally comfortable, and you’ll see what they say. It is good.”

Speaking of improv, like its predecessor, The End Continues was made entirely without a script. Fortunately for Reiner, technological advances over the last few decades have made it easier to sift through the hours of improvised footage and cobble together the best parts. 

“In those days, it wasn’t done digitally,” he says of the original. “It was all literally physically cutting and pasting the pieces of film and sticking them together. That took forever. And I also shot with two cameras this time, whereas last time I only had one camera, and so it was quicker.”

Still, Reiner says, “You wind up writing with the pieces of film. That’s the way you do it. I mean, it’s completely improvised, so you don’t know what’s [coming], and you do it in two or three takes. So sometimes there’s a great joke from one and one from another, and they don’t stitch together. So you have to find a way of essentially writing a screenplay with the pieces of film.”

While he’s happy with the finished product, Reiner says making The End Continues has not changed his overall stance on sequels. “To be honest with you, no. The only reason we did this sequel is because we got the rights back, and we had an idea of how to do it, which was different from what we did the first time,” he says. “I did it. And there it is.”

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues turns up to 11 in theaters on Sept. 12.