While Andy Samberg and his Lonely Island mates were shooting a comedy called “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” they made sure to indulge in a few rock star fantasies along the way.
Like the time during filming when he got to rap on stage in front of a soldout crowd at Anaheim’s Honda Center — never mind that the audience paid to see Maroon 5.
“Adam Levine and the band let us come out right before the band came on and pick up some shots, so we ran around and the crowd went crazy,” Samberg, 37, told the Daily News. “Yeah, always with everything we do there’s a little bit (of a rock star fantasy) — but always ending with massive public humiliation.”
In the R-rated mockumentary opening Friday, Samberg plays Conner4Real, the breakout star of a boy band whose members — played by the other two-thirds of the Lonely Island, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone — he left behind on his path to solo stardom.
There is plenty of satire about celebrity culture and the music industry and a Grammy telecast worth of cameos, from Levine to Nas to Usher to Ringo Starr.
“To have a Beatle in our silly movie is incredible,” Samberg said.
Somehow they got Mariah Carey to play herself . . . sort of.
“I relate to (the Conner4Real song) ‘I’m So Humble,’ because I’m the most humble person I know,” Carey deadpans in one scene.
But there may be deeper themes to read into the premise. The Lonely Island trio, which wrote “Popstar” together, could have been working through their own issues about Samberg’s meteoric success since they all broke through together with their digital shorts on “Saturday Night Live” a decade ago.
After all, Samberg rode his popularity as a featured player to a successful post-“SNL” career with his sitcom, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” fresh off a pair of Golden Globe wins, including one for best actor.
“It was like we’ve been describing how it could’ve gone if we were different people — if everyone had handled things the wrong way,” Samberg said of the parallels.
Certainly, he’s earned enough to splurge on some lavish rock star amenities of his own.
“I’m from Berkeley so I don’t really aspire to a lot of glitzy stuff,” Samberg said. “But things like having a home that I’m comfortable in or leasing a car that I’m comfortable in, basic everyday kind of stuff, I will splurge for that.”
Surely there’s a helipad and helicopter on top of that comfortable home?
“No need for the helipad,” he says.
So where does he put the gold helicopter?
“Food. I spend the money on food,” Samberg said. “That’s my big indulgence.”
Gold food?
“Why are you so obsessed with gold?” he laughed.
There are better measures of his success. Like the number of law enforcement and airport security personnel that stop him to thank him for his positive portrayal of an NYPD cop on “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” Or seeing his photo on the wall backstage at “Saturday Night Live” — alongside some of his idols like Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray and Phil Hartman — when he returned on May 21 to premiere a fake music video from “Popstar,” a ballad about a woman who asks Conner4Real to “f— her like the U.S. military f—ed Bin Laden.”
He pauses to reflect.
“Just realizing the scope of it all and how many talented people have come through there,” Samberg said, “it’s very overwhelming.”
