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It’s been three decades since “Fat Guy in a Little Coat” became an earworm: Tommy Boy turns 30 on March 31, 2025.
The film followed Chris Farley’s Tommy Callahan and David Spade’s sidekick Richard Hayden on a wild roadtrip to save Callahan’s family company. It made almost $33 million at the box office and in the years since, has become a cult hit thanks in part to Farley’s magic.
“I got him during a very good part, probably the best part, of his professional life,” director Peter Segal, 62, tells PEOPLE as he looks back on making the film. “He was clean and sober. And obviously David and Chris are very unique — their chemistry is one of a kind.”
Segal admits he almost walked away from the film at first. Though he was drawn to directing Farley, who died on Dec. 18, 1997, making the movie was “risky,” he says.
“We did not have a script that was working and we encroached on the SNL season,” he says of “sharing” Farley and Spade with Lorne Michaels. “But it was a blessing in disguise.”
As the actors commuted to the set three days a week and spent the rest of their time working in New York City on SNL, Segal and his team would chip away at improvements on the script. “It was literally like putting train tracks out in front of the locomotive every day,” he says. “We were kind of making it up as we were going. But if anything, it taught me, this too shall pass. If I could survive this, I can survive pretty much anything in this business, because that was a hard shoot.”
Segal remembers Farley being “so physical,” and at the time, often hopped up on caffeine as he worked on his sobriety. “So there were times when I’d almost have to treat him like a football player and say, ‘Go run around the courtyard! Drop and give me 20!’ just to calm him down. And he could do it, and it worked. Getting him feeling right and confident was really important.”
While Farley thrived during filming, Segal says there was one aspect of making a movie that neither Farley nor Spade could get used to.
“That was multiple takes, multiple angles” he says. “It’s not Saturday Night Live, where you have your many cameras pointing at you, one take and you’re done. So they got bored. There were times when Chris started channeling John Belushi, and I’m like, ‘Chris, you’re doing Belushi.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to do the same character every day, it’s boring. ‘ ”
But that SNL energy also meshed with the film, like on the day of a wardrobe test, when Farley came out of the wardrobe trailer wearing the iconic brown tweed jacket from the film.
“He goes up to Spade,” Segal remembers, “and he says, ‘Hey David, does this suit make me look fat?’ And Spade said, ‘No, your face does.’ And I went, ‘Oh my God, that’s going in the movie.’ ”
The same happened with “Fat Guy in a Little Coat,” which Segal would learn Farley often said around the SNL offices.
It is tough, Segal says, to think Farley’s humor isn’t here anymore.
“He had such a tremendous range,” he says of the late star. “There was a great, great future for him. It’s so tragic. With anyone who has substance abuse issues, you just think about the amount of life they could have led.”
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The director has, however, stayed in touch with Spade, and even bought one of the cars featured in the film from him recently. And he has only fond memories of his time with Bo Derek, Rob Lowe and Dan Aykroyd, who helped round out the hilarious cast.
Though critics weren’t overly kind — Segal remembers Roger Ebert “hated” the movie, and PEOPLE wrote that “the jokes are mostly obvious and the acting shallow” — “we’re still talking about it,” Segal says of the film’s legacy.
“Sometimes if I’m spinning around the block, watching TV and changing channels and it comes on and my wife sees she goes, ‘Really?’ ” he says of watching it again when he can. “It’s hung around.”
Tommy Boy is now available for the first time ever on 4K Ultra HD in a 4K/Blu-ray™ Combo or in a Limited-Edition SteelBook®, both of which include hours of legacy bonus content and access to a digital copy of the film.
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