Vacation Friends Director Explains How He Designed the Wild Comedy’s Trippiest Scene

With Vacation Friends now streaming on Hulu, I recently spoke with director Clay Tarver about directing his first feature film. If you haven’t seen the trailers, Vacation Friends is about two couples that couldn’t be more different that happen to meet up at a resort in Mexico. Marcus (Lil Rel Howery) and Emily (Yvonne Orji) are straight-laced and careful planners while Ron (John Cena) and Kyla (Meredith Hagner) are thrill-seeking partiers that don’t worry about what tomorrow may bring. When the two couples end up rooming together because of a hotel mix-up, the usually level-headed Marcus and Emily spend the week enjoying uninhibited fun with their “vacation friends.” Months later, back in the real world, Marcus and Emily are shocked when Ron and Kyla show up uninvited at their wedding. As you can imagine, chaos ensues. Vacation Friends was written by Tom Mullen, Tim Mullen, Tarver, and Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley and also stars Robert Wisdom, Andrew Bachelor, and Lynn Whitfield. During