Packers on 'Pitch Perfect 2' cameos: 'It's fantastic'

Thursday's release of the "Pitch Perfect 2" movie trailer -- which almost immediately went viral -- caused plenty of buzz in the Green Bay Packers' locker room.

That's because five players -- offensive linemen David Bakhtiari, T.J. Lang, Josh Sitton and Don Barclay and linebacker Clay Matthews -- are prominently featured in the sequel to the hit 2012 film. Jordan Rodgers, the younger brother of Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, also was part of their group.

Here's what they had to say about that:

Left tackle David Bakhtiari

Have you seen the trailer?

Yes.

And?

I think it's fantastic. I just hope the movie is just as good. I haven't seen the movie, in case anyone is wondering. It's pretty awesome.

Think it'd get to this point?

Not the initial day, but I had a shot. It was a lot of hard work and coordination with me and (producer) Max Handelman, and (director) Elizabeth (Banks), as well. We were able to orchestrate the whole thing, it was pretty awesome. Really proud of how it was able to come to fruition.

Do you have a speaking role?

I didn't care. I just wanted to get the right guys that they wanted to recruit and make sure we all went there and had a fun time. It was a good part to the movie.

Did anybody sing from your five?

I guess I'm pretty good at keeping a secret, so I'm going to stick to that trend. You'll have to go see the movie.

How'd you keep it a secret?

We didn't talk. We just knew going into it, me and Max were pretty good at communicating and staying on the same page. I talked to these guys, I tried to tell them, 'Hey, let's keep it on the DL and be quiet.' I had to say a couple white lies to make sure nothing happened. Now the secret is out. We wanted to wait until the movie came out, Max talked about that. But Universal and the NFL were so happy, they wanted to let people know, especially during the football season.

Who knew?

I would assume maybe a couple others. Not a whole lot. They gave me a couple shirts to give out. That's why I gave it to the coach, Coach (Mike) McCarthy.

When did you film?

The filming was right after, as soon as OTAs finished up, we flew straight from here to Louisiana. Baton Rouge. We shot for about four days. It was a great time. We all loved it. All these guys, they were smiles the whole time.

Do you expect any movie-related trash talk from the Vikings on Sunday?

What trash talk can you say? "Oh, my God, you're in a movie, what a loser." So I guess that answers your question.

Did you get a Screen Actors Guild card?

Yeah, we got our letters. I don't think I've yet to sign up for it yet. The NFL has a pretty good thing going on. I wouldn't want to pay extra money for pretty much the same kind of benefits.

How did you get hooked up with the movie?

Max told me it originally started with a tweet. ... He read something on that, then started tracking my Twitter and then he saw I started tweeting at either Jordan or T.J. or Josh, one of these guys started tweeting about the movie. So he went on Elizabeth's account and followed me and then we exchanged contact information. I put myself out there saying, I'd love to be a part of the film. Anything we can do to help. We worked around a lot of obstacles. It wasn't easy. You have five high-profile NFL football players, trying to schedule within a month and a half they have to film. There's a lot of scheduling errors that go into place. On their behalf, they were extremely flexible with us and get us not only in the movie and in the scene and not waste our time, and we were able to sync that up. And also get all these crazy hooligans on their time off come together, especially with how busy Clay and Josh, T.J., Donnie and Jordan are. To come together, that was pretty big.

How long are you on screen?

I couldn't tell you. I would say the trailer was like maybe 6 seconds, so I would say double that. It will be a good amount; I don't know how much, though. I don't know what they did with the cutting in that regard.

You were the leader of the band?

I would say their actions speak louder than words. Just seeing them have big smiles. These are all very manly men, I guess, so they're not going to come up and gush like little girls, "Thank you so much." To see them smile and say how awesome it was, that's the gratification I get.

When we were there, we were able to hang out with everyone. It was a little break for them. Max was really pleased with us coming and having the ability to bring a new little flavor and a little twist to the actors and actresses, because they had been there for about a month and a half so they had been kind of getting a little sassy over there, so to speak. When we got there, everyone lightened up and was a little bit happier and we were able to liven the party, especially with Josh and T.J. just being hooligans. We had a lot of fun with them.

Do you play yourselves?

Yes.

Do the credits acknowledge the Packers?

They did but they had to go through all the licensing with the NFL. I'm pretty sure on that. I'd say about 90 percent sure. You will know. I'm pretty sure they say, "Green Bay Packers."

Will there be a private screening?

Shoot, I really can't ask for anything more. I'm assuming that we will go to the premiere, barring it doesn't conflict with our scheduling. It'll be an April premiere, May for the movie.

What about Clay Matthews?

Yeah, I had to do a little convincing with him. I had to tell him the benefits of it and he was on board with it. He had seen the movie; he just needed to rewatch it again. We were training together and after he watched it again, he was like, "OK. Definitely. I'm definitely in."

About the first 'Pitch Perfect' film

I was going to go see it anyway. I even told Max, "Hey, this might even cut my chances of being in it, but I'm not going to lie, I hated anything that had to do with a musical. But for some reason, this movie is just actually enjoyable to watch."

Do you sing and dance?

Yeah, we do a little. I can move. You've seen my kick-step. I've got some pretty good feet.

Linebacker Clay Matthews

How many times did they have to rip your sleeves off before they got the take they wanted?

Quite a few, actually. Nah, that was a fun couple of days we had down there, and obviously seeing from the trailer, hopefully, it looks like it's put together well. So I'm excited about seeing it knowing that we're all A-list celebrities now.

Did Bakhtiari have to convince you do to this? He came to you with the idea?

Obviously as a fan of the original "Pitch Perfect" movie, David Bakhtiari and his affinity for social media and reaching out to other people, in weird direct messages, and replies, was somehow able to get in the right touch with other people and to me like that. So I thank him for his creepiness. ... He had to do a lot of lobbying but he came through and more power to him. ... I was a little leery at first. This stuff doesn't happen to often. I think the last was maybe Brett Favre and "(There's) Something About Mary." But that stuff doesn't happen every day and when it does, you obviously have to jump at it.

Was this different than your indie film project?

Oh, yeah, those 5 seconds of fame I got were essential to how I performed with this. ... It should be fun. I'm looking forward to it. It was great being together with the O-linemen for that many days down there (in Baton Rouge) and just seeing a different side of the business, which was fun. At the same time, just being a part of something we are fans of.

Are you a better actor than Favre?

I know I am, but some of the O-line, they had to do a few shots over again, which is the magic of filmmaking. But I thought I was solid.

Did you do karaoke to prepare?

You'll see what we're singing when it comes out. But when they gave us the song which they wanted us to sing, obviously we were shocked and we got a good laugh out of it. So we had to rehearse that and that's funny, obviously, to see 300-pound-plus men singing the song of choice.

Who has the best voice?

T.J. Lang and Josh Sitton sing country music all the time. ... The thing is nowadays I think we sound like professionals with all the instruments and things. Like I said, it should be fun -- and funny -- to see and hopefully you guys get a kick out of it.

Did they use any autotune?

No, they just let it natural. You'll see. Summer of 2015.

Right guard T.J. Lang

Sitton said you have the best voice on the team. Do you?

He tells me all the time, I don't know if he's just joking with me or it's an actual genuine statement. I don't know. We had a lot of fun doing the movie. Obviously I think we're pretty big into music and we're all big into the first (film) and it was an honor to be asked to be part of the second one.

How did Bakhtiari get you into this?

It was a lot of determination by Dave to set that whole thing – determination, desperation because he was at it quite a bit trying to get a hold of the producers and get us into the movie, and shockingly they actually let us in after all those desperate tweets and phone calls and emails. It was fun. I think we were all big fans of the first movie and just kind of jokingly would always talk about it. When we went down and met the producers they were just in love with the fact that we loved their first movie. For us, most of us being offensive linemen, we don't get exposure like that very often, to be a part of that, to be a part of the big screen, we had a lot of fun. It was fun filming and based off the success that the first movie had, I think the second one will do just as good.

Give us a preview.

You know, we have a pretty short scene in the movie. I haven't seen the whole movie yet, so I don't know how long we're in it for. We're part of one scene where we do a little singing, a little bit of dancing. I'm not going to say how we did in the competition, but we had a lot of fun. I'm excited to see the movie because I haven't seen any more than what I saw today in the trailer. We're not a big part of it. We kind of make some cameos, but from what the producer has been telling us from their test screening, we seem to be a pretty decent hit. It doesn't come out until May. That seems like a long time, but we had a lot of fun doing it.

How did it work?

It was long. We got down there, we were there four days, Sunday to Thursday, and it was full days. We were working from 10 in the morning until 1 in the morning the next day. It was a lot of work, a lot of down time, a lot of makeup, touch-ups. Rob's used to that. You're seeing costume people, hair and makeup, it was just ridiculous. There was a lot of time spent, I don't think we really anticipated that. The whole experience, just to see what those guys go through day in, day out, it's eye-opening. We were there for the perfect amount of time. We got a good glimpse of it, but weren't there long enough to where we were starting to get tired and bored with it. We had a good time with it. It was a lot of fun.

Did they dye your hair?

No. You didn't see the orange light right above my head? No, my hair was not dyed red. Thank you for tweeting that, though.

So the movie is why you've been playing well?

I don't think I'm going to attribute the success to that. We've been anxious, man. Really, since we started filming the thing in June, we had to be pretty quiet about everything. They didn't want anybody letting the cat out of the bag. I think they wanted it to kind of be a surprise. We had a conference call with them last week and they said we were in the trailer, so I think they wanted us to kind of help promote it a little bit, which I don't think they'll need any help with. I think it's doing fine. We had a lot of fun doing it. It's hard to keep a secret that long. Even family and friends and stuff, nobody really knew, but I wouldn't attribute any of that to how we've been playing football. It was just some fun we had in the offseason.

How does the pay compare?

Not very similar. But honestly …

Did you have to join the Screen Actors Guild?

We did, we had to fill out a lot of paperwork. For us, it was such an honor, we would've done the whole thing for free. We would've paid to be in the movie, to be honest with you. We didn't make a lot of money but that's not what we wanted to do. We wanted to have some fun and be a part of a movie like that. We hope to have big success. It's something that might be a once-in- a-lifetime experience. It was something that we obviously had a lot of fun doing.

How many times have you seen the first movie?

Twenty, thirty times. I watch with these guys. I watch with my wife loves it. It's just a good movie, man. I was skeptical about it at first, but I've turned into a big fan.

Do you know it from memory?

Yeah, pretty close. My wife actually bought me the CD for Christmas last year. That's still in my truck. Still put that on every once in a while.

What songs did you get to sing?

Oooh, I don't know if I want to spill those beans. We really weren't instructed what to say, what not to say, but I don't want to ruin anything. I don't want to ruin it for the audience, man. I want to make them wonder.

Give me one.

We only sang one. I can't sing the only one. If we sang like five, I'd give you one of them.

Did you record the song in a studio?

Yeah, we recorded it. I'd imagine it would take too long if everyone was singing. The first day we went in and did costumes and did the recording. Our song is probably I don't know 30, 45 seconds. We did all the recording and when we filmed we actually did the lip-syncing. I don't want to give that song away. The category was a song about butts. There's quite a bit so you can wander your mind on that one.