(photo courtesy BJ Bales)
The Overland Park native is set to share his comedic vision in a new film, “Suburban Psycho,” in 2026
“It’s hard watching yourself on camera over and over. You kind of have to do it in third person.”
BJ Bales is “knee-deep in footage” of his upcoming film, “Suburban Psycho,” which he cowrote with longtime writing partner Jeff Howard and acts in alongside Howard. The film’s cast includes stalwarts Ron Perlman (the “Hellboy” franchise) and Dennis Haysbert (“24”), as well as newer talents, including comedian/writer Abe Farrelly (son of director Bobby Farrelly). According to IMDb, the Fred Goss-directed film follows two friends “forced to question everything” when they suspect their closest friend is a wanted murderer only to learn, upon digging, more shocking discoveries “about someone they thought they knew.”
Bales, an Overland Park, Kansas, native, splits his time between Kansas City and South Carolina, where the film was shot and whose “ecosystem” is his model for eventually making films in Missouri and Kansas. “That’s what I’m trying to tread into,” he says.
Bales has loved comedy since he was a kid. His comedy trajectory — from cheering the success of earlier alums of Shawnee Mission West High School, Jason Sudeikis and Paul Rudd, to co-starting his production company, Big Smits (in 2015, named for a friend who passed away) — began when his mom brought home a shoulder-mounted VHS camera when he was 9. “I just started writing scripts on loose-leaf paper. I didn’t know how to write them, and we would crudely edit them,” he says. “My mom’s house kind of turned into a movie studio.”
Calling Jim Carrey his biggest influence, Bales recreated the DHS delivery scene from “Ace Ventura,” and began thinking of a future in comedy.
After a brief stint at K-State, Bales, already grounded in improv, moved to Los Angeles when he was 23 and began the climb by working the door at the famed Comedy Store, and quotes comedian (and former door guy) Marc Maron’s assessment that “the place is built directly over a portal to hell.”
Though he had interactions with Dave Chappelle and Robin Williams, advice wasn’t forthcoming. “I was probably too young and too nervous to ask.” One night, Jim Carrey appeared at the Store, “in full beard.” Bales asked his hero for a photo. Carrey replied, “Listen, man, if I take one, I got to take a hundred.”
Bales, undaunted, continued working, eventually getting acting roles. Working on a TV pilot in 2011-2012 with John Leguizamo and Christopher Lloyd proved valuable. “Being aware of lens and frame and millimeter impacts your performance. Those guys helped me understand the technical camera technique. John knows exactly what that performance needs to match that frame. They’ve been doing it so long.”
While honing his camera awareness as an actor, Bales continued writing with Howard, whom he had met in the aughts on a pair of back-to-back indie movies. Their “synchronicity” led them to begin writing together. “At the time, we just got excited to try writing. We had no clue what structure was.”
Fast-forward to the summer of 2024 when Bales was back in Kansas City, helping his mom through a series of surgeries, and he and Howard decided to write a movie for themselves. Howard wanted to do something in a suburban setting and Bales wanted to do something “with a criminal element.” He says, “Jeff and I have a unique shorthand and we’re kind of aligned on how we see things.”
The jump from finished script to produced film clicked after a layer of introductions led to talking with Brandon James, who runs Danny McBride’s Rough House Pictures. Bales says, “We kept in touch over the years. No project really aligned. Then we sent Brandon this one and he said, ‘Let’s do it.’ That was exciting to me. I’m a huge McBride fan.”
Rough House invited Bales and Co to shoot in Charleston, where they were wrapping up a production of McBride’s comedy about a televangelist family, “The Righteous Gemstones.” Longtime friend Goss, who directed Bales in one of his first commercials, directed “Suburban Psycho” and “knows exactly how to treat the comedy kitchen,” he says.
“Every single person who works on all of Danny’s shows, crew-wise, came together and did this movie with us,” Bales says. He credits McBride and James for opening their proverbial Rolodexes when it came to sharing resources and people who could work on the production. Including the casting, which as Bales says, is the “hardest part of everything.” Who’s “on-board one day but not the next can change the feel” of a movie.
Now in post-production and yet to secure a distributor, Bales is also reaching out to film festivals for an early 2026 viewing. He continues working on other projects, some for his production company, which includes creative editor Jeff Tyner and financier Jeffrey M. Zucker.
In the meantime, Bales is about telling good stories.
“I don’t really care about the pageantry of it all. I just like art, and I still think there’s a world where people want those fun, crazy comedies.”
