Matt Rife on How He Landed Macaulay Culkin and Charlie Sheen for Netflix Christmas Special Promo

Matt Rife has some holiday tricks up his sleeve.

The superstar comedian dropped a Netflix holiday special, Matt Rife: Unwrapped — A Christmas Crowd Work Special, on the streamer Dec. 2. Directed by good friend and fellow comedian Erik Griffin, the special was taped in Phoenix, Arizona, and finds Rife wearing Santa pants while riffing on gifts and seasonal traditions with plenty of sexually charged material in between. To pump up the launch, Rife recruited Home Alone hero Macaulay Culkin and Netflix’s reigning reformed bad boy Charlie Sheen for a surprise promo video that also debuted today.

In an exclusive chat with The Hollywood Reporter, Rife opens up on how he landed the veteran stars for their first collaboration, his burgeoning acting career (with a high profile role opposite Julia Garner) and the naughtiest and nicest things he did in 2025.

We have so much to talk about. I just saw the promo you posted on Instagram. How did you get those guys and whose idea was it?

Oh, man. I was trying to figure out how to promote the Christmas special, and when it comes to Christmas, you either think about Mariah Carey, Will Ferrell or Home Alone, right? I’ve never met Macaulay Culkin and I didn’t think he even knows who I am, but I asked my people at Live Nation if there was a way we could try to contact him. They found a way and went to his agents who brought it to him. He was like, “Absolutely.” They gave me his number and I called him up, told him the idea and he fucking loved it. He was all about having some fun with it. That was set a week before we filmed. For the role of the robber, I figured I would cast one of my comic buddies. But, randomly enough, Charlie Sheen started following me on Instagram, and I direct messaged him, “Holy shit, Charlie fucking Sheen. I love, love, love what you do.” He replied that he loved my comedy, and I was, like, “Oh, good shit.”

He suggested that if I was ever in L.A. that we should grab lunch or coffee. I told him that I happened to be coming to L.A. the following week so we made plans to have lunch on a Tuesday. I was already scheduled to film the promo on Wednesday. So I texted Charlie and apologized if it was too forward since we hadn’t even met yet and he should feel free to say no, but I happened to be filming this promo for my new Christmas special and would he have any interest in doing it. I shot him over the script, and he loved it. We had a four and a half hour lunch on Tuesday, and then he came to shoot on Wednesday. It was so much fun. It was the first time that Charlie and Macaulay had ever met each other.

Brought together by Matt Rife — a Christmas miracle.

My buddy who was there at the shoot said that I might be the only person on Earth that could bring Macaulay and Charlie Sheen together. It was pretty incredible. They were so game to play and it made everything fun. Neither were sensitive or worried about anything. They just were up for having some fun. That’s what filming should be like.

What most surprised you about working with them?

The professionalism. I’m obviously newer in the industry. I’ve been doing stand-up for almost 15 years but acting is something that I’ve only been doing for a handful of years now. Other than Owen Wilson, I haven’t had the chance to work with people that have been doing it for decades [like Charlie and Macaulay]. Watching them flip that switch on was pretty incredible. When Charlie arrived to set, he’s such a cool guy, very humble and soft spoken but the moment we called “action” on the very first shot, you can see the switch flip in his head. You can just tell how much he loves doing what he does. That’s just who they both are, and why they are the absolute best. It’s inspiring to be around.

What’s a four hour lunch like with Charlie Sheen?

It’s really hard to narrow down everything we talked about but, you know, I obviously asked him how he even found me. He had a meeting with Dan Lagana who I’m writing a movie with called The Chasm that we’re going to film next year. Dan brought my name up to Charlie so he looked me up, and said, “Dude, I went down a rabbit hold watching all your specials and Instagram clips and you’re really talented.” I said, “That’s fucking cool, I’m a fan of everything you’ve done, drugs included. You’ve been wildly entertaining my entire life. Thank you for that.” I asked him some fun stories about what it was like when he got started. I had already watched his Netflix documentary so I was pretty up-to-date on most of his stories but there were a few that he left off the documentary on purpose. Those were incredibly fascinating.

We talked about things he loves, from ghosts to paranormal stuff. I recently bought Ed and Lorraine Warren’s home and Occult Museum so we talked about that for a little bit. He asked me what I wanted to do on the acting side of things and I asked him about what he wants to be doing now. We just kind of fed off each other and got to know each other. It became a really, really friendly bunch. It was awesome. We probably would’ve sat there for another couple of hours if I didn’t have something else I had to get to.

Congratulations on Unwrapped. In another promo you posted on Instagram, you said it was “by far the most fun I’ve had on stage.” Why?

Crowd work is always so much fun. It’s why I continue to do it. Personally, the funniest stigma about me is that I just do crowd work. I tour around the world and do 20,000 seat arenas. It would be impossible for me to do that night after night. If I’m on stage for an hour and 15 minutes, maybe 10 of those minutes are crowd work because it’s fun and spontaneous to try and navigate. It’s a new experience for every single show and that’s what makes the night exciting. It’s the possibility of what might happen. For Arizona and the theme of Christmas, we struck gold. We wanted to pick another theme for this because when you bring a room of people together, you need to talk about something that everyone has in common. With Lucid, my last crowd work special, we went with the premise of dreams. Whether it is aspirational or sleep dreams, everyone has experience at some point in their lives.

I was supposed to film my newest material special about two or three months ago. I don’t know why but the thought of Christmas got stuck in my head. Maybe it was a yearning for my favorite holiday, and I just thought, you know what man, it would be really fun to do a seasonal or holiday-based theme for my next crowd work special. It’s a skill set that I’m blessed to have. I can kind of do it anywhere at any time, so why not hone in on this specific topic. It’s something that a lot of people celebrate, and if they don’t, there are other traditions that happen during this season. I didn’t feel the rush to put out a new material special because I’m in the middle of a tour right now and the show’s only going to get better the longer I work on it. So we went for a seasonal special for my favorite holiday. It’s something people can watch every single year around Christmas, and Arizona had the best of everything. We met some naughty people, we met some nice people. It was fun all around.

When do you plan to film a special around your current material?

I’m aiming to shoot it early summer next year. I am still trying to pick where I want to do it exactly, and that will help determine when. But I would like the material special to be out by next August, or sometime around then. I don’t want to wait too long. Almost every comedian will tell you that as soon as you film a special, if you continue to do that material for a couple weeks, you always find extra things that make you go, “Fuck, if only I had waited a little bit longer.” The jokes or the people sometimes end up being better than what you filmed. Having not yet done a special for this material, I’m eager to see where this material goes over the next couple of months as I continue to add new stories and new jokes.

You mentioned people thinking that crowd work is only what you do. Do you feel like you’re always knocking up against that or is it a bummer to you that people think that?

No, not at all. Here’s the thing: Nobody actually thinks that. Definitively, people are just haters. You would have to know nothing about comedy to think that what I’m doing is only crowd work night after night in front of 20,000 people for an hour a night. It’s impossible. It’s a stigma only because people want to find something to not like about me. But I couldn’t care less. All I care about is putting on a great show for the people who come out to my shows. Not to change anybody’s mind about me. But that’s the world we live in, unfortunately. I just want to make the people happy who already like me.

People might hear Christmas special and think that its overly earnest but your grandfather’s “pocket pussy” makes a cameo, after all. So, there’s plenty of raunch and a lot of heart as well, even with some card tricks.

I’m such a fan of magic, the card tricks blew my fucking mind. We almost didn’t keep it in the final cut.

Assuming you thought people might assume he was planted in the audience?

Yeah, absolutely. That’s why I felt it necessary to say that afterwards. It was one of those situations like I had in Lucid with the mother-daughter blowjob class. They just happened to be there but people assumed they had to be audience plants. I just happened to get luck. That’s the amazing thing about crowd work is that with live shows, you hit some duds or you strike out, and you don’t fucking post or use those ones. We just happened to get luck with the taping. The magic thing happened to play out so well but I had to consider what people would say. They are going to think it’s fake anyway but I thought it was funny and cool and it was a very cool experience for me. Fuck it, let’s keep it.

There were some other wild moments. The mother talking about her son’s masturbation habits and the couple with their parents talking about sex. What moments were your favorites?

The couple with the parents talking about the sexy calendar they do each month, yeah, that was by far my favorite one. I couldn’t believe their openness. It made me fully believe in that marriage. That’s a couple that keeps it hot and keeps it spontaneous. I love that we were able to keep it in the holiday theme. It worked absolutely perfectly. The Muslim dudes and the foreskin was also pretty great. I also loved the opportunity to look down the barrel of the lens while giving people at home a moment to masturbate. That was pretty good. There were a bunch of outtakes that didn’t make the final cut and we may release those on socials over the next month. There was a guy who said that his wife keeps asking to peg him after Christmas. She asked for it and he said that he was so against it but it felt like maybe he’d let it happen before. There was another woman who told a story about how her son stole her dildo to use on himself with his girlfriend. This past Christmas, he bought her a new dildo to replace the one he used. It was so disturbing. We’ll post some of those down the line. Man, there wasn’t really an interaction that I didn’t enjoy.

It’s nice you kept the engagement in there. Has that happened before?

Never at a taping. It’s only happened at a couple of live shows. The reason it’s in the credits and not in the special itself is that there was an interaction I had with a woman in the front row right before it. She brought up Muammar Gaddafi and it ended up being kind of a long, funny story. But then the proposal happened and at the end of it, I did a call back to Gaddafi but the whole chunk was around six minutes long. For time purposes, we didn’t keep it in but the proposal still was a cute thing and a cool moment for them. I haven’t spoken to the couple but I imagine it will be a cute thing for them to see it on Netflix.

You’ve got a bunch of projects on the horizon for 2026, including The Altruists with Julia Garner. Why did you sign on for that and who do you play?

I play Ryan Saleme, a trader who worked with Asian liquidity via Hong Kong for Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX. Working with Julia Garner and Anthony Boyle [who play Caroline Ellison and Sam Bankman-Fried] has just been eye-opening as an actor. They are two entirely transformative actors, and it’s been an opportunity to learn in a way that I’ve never done before. I’ve never played a real person before, or acted in a story based on real circumstances in this way. The stakes are so real. I wanted the opportunity to do a scripted drama. Comedy is something I know how to do, and I pride myself on being good at it. But I’ve never had the opportunity to sink my teeth into something like this, and I’ve always wanted to take my career in this direction. I wanted to test myself out of comedy, whether that be drama, horror, action. I think this show will be award nominated. It’s amazing and the writing is incredible. The acting is great. All my cast mates have been awesome to learn from. It was an incredible six months.

And the project you’re writing with Dan Lagana?

That’s The Chasm. It’s essentially a mockumentary of Free Solo with Alex Honnold. We’re just about finished with the script, and our plan is to film it hopefully at the top of next year. It’s a comedy and I’m psyched for it, man. It’s so funny and feels like such an untapped world. I have such respect for the climbing community and the entire sport, and I don’t think enough light has been shined on it. It also brings some realistic humor to it. It’s going to be really fun.

You’re closing out what’s been another incredible year. You broke a lot of arena records with your tour and you’re continuing to act and write. What are you most proud of? And what are you most looking forward to next year?

Most proud of is hard to say. As a stand-up, I’m so proud that I continue to grow and that I get to stay doing these massive venues that never seemed possible when I when I started out. It can sometimes feel stagnant doing so many shows that you might not feel the growth within yourself. But I got to do two shows at Madison Square Garden as the youngest comedian to ever sell that place out. And I did it twice. I’m pretty proud of that. On the acting side, being cast in The Altruists is a show that neither myself or my reps ever imagined I would get cast in. On paper, I probably don’t look like I’m qualified so that was very validating for me. I’m right where I want to be. I’m really proud of myself for getting to have worked as hard as I have on being a good actor and working towards the things I want to achieve in that field. I’m also proud of getting to work with Owen Wilson earlier this year on the comedy Rolling Loud. He’s another one of my absolute heroes from when I was a kid. It’s been a fantastic year.

My last question is a two-parter in keeping on theme of the special: What’s the naughtiest thing you did this year? What is the nicest thing you did this year?

The naughtiest thing that I did this year was probably buying Ed and Lorraine Warren’s home and Occult Museum. It’s a lot of responsibility and it taps into a much darker world. It fascinates me and I have a lot of respect for it. We’re doing a really good job of preserving the history of the place that they built. A lot of people would probably think that’s a little naughty but I think it’s fucking awesome. I’m super proud to be a part of that. The nicest thing I’ve done this year? Oh boy. I do a toy drive here in Providence, Rhode Island where I live. It’s for Hasbro Children’s, the pediatric division of Rhode Island Hospital. I do a toy drive show in town and invite everyone to bring toys. I’ll go buy a few hundred toys and we donate them. That show is coming up in December. That’s one of the nicer things I do every year. I love giving back to the community.

Matt Rife: Lucid – A Crowd Work Special.

Clifton Prescod/Netflix