It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia Season 13 Gave Uncle Jack A New Challenge On Set
There are some pretty controversial characters and moments on the long-running FX comedy series "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," but none are as tricky to represent than Jack Kelly (Andrew Friedman), better known as "Uncle Jack." The character is a rather inept lawyer obsessed with the size of his hands who also seems to have some much darker tendencies. Over the past 16 seasons, it's been made pretty clear that Uncle Jack is a pedophile and that he probably molested his nephew Charlie (Charlie Day) in childhood, which is pretty horrible. One might think that portraying such a monstrous character would be the hardest part of filming as Uncle Jack, but in a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread, Friedman revealed that it was actually some technical difficulties that really caused him some trouble.
The gang behind "It's Always Sunny" have played around with different filming formats a little bit over the years, including filming some of "The Gang Wins the Big Game" on their cellphones while their characters were at the Super Bowl. (Heck, there's even cellphone footage of star and creator Rob McElhenney, who plays Mac, celebrating the Philadelphia Eagles' big Super Bowl win at the actual game at the end of the episode!) But for Friedman, recording himself while also being recorded turned out to be a bit trickier than he expected.
Maybe if he had bigger hands...
In the AMA, someone asked what scene was the hardest for Friedman to film, and he revealed that it was a deleted moment from the Super Bowl two-parter at the end of season 13:
"I'll tell you what — the hardest scene to film was a scene cut from 'The Gang Wins the Big Game.' I was sitting 'pal-ing around with some kids' on a stairwell at the Super Bowl. The crew shot AND I had to shoot myself (and the kids) with a smartphone. It was technically difficult for me."
It's pretty easy to imagine the awkwardness of the scene itself, let alone trying to film it on a phone while also having a full camera crew around you — in a cramped stairwell no less! Maybe the cellphone was just a little too big to hold onto ... Uncle Jack has had some pretty interesting moments in the series since season 13, including his ice cream truck "side business" in season 16 that took the character into even more disturbing territory than ever before, and it doesn't seem like the gang is going to let up on Jack's awfulness anytime soon. Here's hoping we get another moment as brilliant as his screeching "Don't look at me!" from "McPoyle vs. Ponderosa: The Trial of the Century."
"It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" is available to stream on Hulu and FXNow.