All Fun And Games

Comedian Jerrod Carmichael joins the world of Transformers in Transformers: The Last Knight, and reveals how much fun he had filming it.

- Steven Goldman

In Transformers: The Last Knight, the fifth film in the Transformers franchise, Carmichael stars as Jimmy, a man who gets more than he bargains for when he joins forces with Mark Wahlberg’s Cade Yeager. Set in the aftermath of T-4, the new film finds mankind and the Transformers – minus a missing Optimus Prime – now at war, with the key to saving humanity’s future buried deep within the Transformers’ secret history on Earth. Directed by Michael Bay (who reportedly will exit the director’s chair after this instalment), Transformers: The Last Knight sees Carmichael joining fellow series newcomers Anthony Hopkins and Laura Haddock (as bot-expert Sir Edmound Burton and Oxford academic Viviane Wembley respectively), rising star Isabela Moner (as the street-smart Izzy) and returning cast members Stanley Tucci, Josh Duhamel and John Turturro.

Born and raised in North Carolina, Jerrod Carmichael got his start doing stand-up comedy, moving to Los Angeles in 2008. He has since fronted two HBO specials (in 2014 and 2017) and marked his first prominent film role with the Seth Rogen/Zac Efron comedy Neighbors in 2014. He is best known for his hit US sitcom, The Carmichael Show, which premiered in 2015, for which he also serves as a writer and executive producer.

We spoke with Carmichael about the making of Transformers: The Last Knight in Los Angeles.

What was it that initially attracted you to the world of Transformers?

Well, first off, there’s the size and the global appeal of it – how much it means to so many people all over the world. But mostly I wanted to work with Michael Bay. I just wanted to have that experience.

Are you a big fan of his films?