YouTuber Brent Rivera and 'Black-ish' star Marcus Scribner talk new teen comedy 'Alexander IRL'

What is the most important thing to include in a teen comedy? A party, of course! And Alexander IRL, YouTube Red's latest film offering, features just that.

The movie -- which debuted on the streaming service this week -- follows a young teen Alexander (YouTuber Brent Rivera) who decides to throw a legendary house party to win friends and woo his crush.

Meanwhile, his brother EJ (played by Nathan Kress) wants to use the party to impress his venture capitalist boss by building a mobile app to get kids unglued from their phones. Marcus Scribner plays fellow high schooler Darius.

Rivera has amassed over 25 million followers through his comedic YouTube vlogs and Vines. The film marks his acting debut.

Scribner, who plays Andre Johnson, Jr. on ABC's hit comedy Black-ish, recently won a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Performance in a Youth/Children's Series or Special. This is his first digital project.

Mashable caught up with the duo to talk about the movie. Check out the Q&A below.

Mashable: As a YouTuber, what made you want to do a film for YouTube Red? Did you balance creating your own videos while making the movie as well?

Rivera: Well, we made the movie before we knew it was going to be on YouTube Red, but the decision of having it on YouTube Red was because I’m super close with YouTube and they’ve supported me my whole career thus far. I knew they were going to do a good job with the movie, so I’m excited!

While making the movie it was a pretty fun time. But at the same time, there wasn’t a lot of time to do other stuff social media-wise, but I found time somehow! I came home one night, it was like 9 o’clock ‘cause we kinda had a far drive. And I called my friends and was like “Alright, come over! We’re making an Instagram video right now, like I’ve gotta post this!” Yeah, I’ve had my YouTube videos going strong weekly, as well as Instagram videos. ‘Cause I do a weekly YouTube video, and I’ve never missed a week in like the past two years.

Scribner: [Laughing] Pretty much a baller!

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Why do a project for a digital platform?

Scribner: I feel like digital media and social media and things like that are definitely things of the future. I know I always go on Instagram, I always go on YouTube and I always deal with those kinds of things, so you know getting to make something on a digital platform like YouTube Red is something unique and something super special. ‘Cause I’m used to doing stuff for like television shows and stuff like that on network TV, so it’s a unique experience in its own that allows for different types of creative freedom and you get to work with different people. So it’s really cool getting to work with YouTube Red and just working on the movie in general.

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How'd you guys get involved? What drew you to the movie?

Rivera: I got involved when Rob Fishman, one of the producers, reached out to me. I’ve worked with Rob for a long time on brand deals and stuff like that working with different brands. He reached out to me with the idea of making a film, and I was very interested. So me, Rob, and Asher (the director) kind of helped put this film together, and it was super cool because it’s my first film and I was so excited to use what I’ve learned making YouTube videos and stuff and just putting it into this, and it worked well.

Scribner: And the way I got involved with the film was, actually Asher, who’s our director, and Rob reached out to me and I really enjoyed the script and loved the character and so I was able to really jump aboard the film, and just get to have a good time with everybody who worked on the film like Brent, Sarah Gilman, Ryan Newman, Bo Mitchell, Nathan Kress, and the list continues because there’s just so many amazing people on our movie. So it was a very unique experience that I really wanted to have and I’m so happy that the movie turned out the way it did.

What do you like about your respective characters? What were challenges of the role?

Rivera: For me, I liked how my character kind of took challenges, and worked on them by working with his brother and working closely with his friends to solve the problem. Obviously there were some mistakes, but he learned from his mistakes and that was kind of cool. The challenges would probably be being a good dancer during the party. I had to practice the night before, and we just really needed to make sure I looked like I was a professional dancer. [Laughing] That was probably one of the biggest challenges.

Scribner: I think that what I really enjoyed about Darius’ character in the movie was that he was kind of the character that grounded everybody in just like what they normally are or what they normally do. And this gave a very good contrast between their normal lives and what they were doing to try to create this party and make this app, because Darius stayed grounded in what they’d normally do while Brent’s character sort of goes off and has the party. I feel that those aspects of the character are super cool. What was difficult about playing him was trying to be angry at people all the time because it seems like that’s his favorite part of living is just like scolding people. [Laughing] So that was a little bit difficult, but he’s a fun character.

Why do you think YouTube Red is a good platform for this type of movie?

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Rivera: Well, first of all it is an internet movie, it’s a digital movie, so I feel like it’s a perfect fit especially with all the social media influencers we have on the movie. I actually did not mention that Juanpa Zurita is in the movie, and he is a famous Mexican YouTuber that is huge in Mexico and he makes one of the party scenes really, really funny. So credit to Juanpa Zurita.

But yeah, it’s a good platform because especially with all the social media people, they post on YouTube and everybody’s already on YouTube, so what better way to release the movie than on YouTube. Except it’s YouTube Red, so instead of a YouTube video it’s more produced and more thought out.

Scribner: I feel like YouTube Red is the perfect platform because of all the reasons that Brent stated. The fact that most of our fan base are on social media sites such as Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and things like that, they’re already there and so all they have to do is get their YouTube Red and then they’re able to watch our movie. So I feel that putting it on YouTube Red is probably the best place that it can go and have a home and just chill out, you know what I mean?