There’s a scene near the end of ‘Nimrods‘ that Kylr Coffman still can’t quite believe is real. He won’t spoil it, but he’ll tell you how it felt to watch it back for the first time: “The end of the film just seems AI to me. There’s no way someone let me do THAT with Green Day.” It’s the kind of disbelief that only makes sense once you know where he started.
This year, Coffman steps into his first leading role in a feature film as the star of ‘Nimrods’, the Green Day-inspired coming-of-age comedy. He shares the screen with Mason Thames, Jenna Fischer, Bobby Lee, Fred Armisen and the members of Green Day themselves, playing Fred — one of three best friends who mistakenly believe their garage band has been invited to open for Green Day on New Year’s Eve, and who set off across the country chasing that mistake anyway. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2025 to strong critical acclaim, with Coffman’s performance singled out again and again as a breakout.
For Coffman, the role isn’t a stretch so much as a homecoming. Growing up in small-town Oklahoma, he didn’t have superheroes in the traditional sense. Instead, he had bands. Green Day, Operation Ivy, NOFX. “While most kids grew up with Marvel and Star Wars. When I was growing up, punk rock was my Marvel,” he says. Later, as a teenager, he found pop-punk — The Story So Far was the gateway — and started his own garage band, Found in Atlases, playing alongside genre names like Title Fight, The Wonder Years, and Tigers Jaw on Oklahoma stages. “The music scene taught me the value of storytelling and art, specifically DIY storytelling,” he says. “If you’re lucky, your art and stories can become a home and a voice for others.” That belief is why, he adds, “getting to tell this story felt like writing a love letter to a music scene that provided the home and family I always wanted growing up.”
That homecoming got a literal exclamation point at TIFF, where ‘Nimrods’ premiered in 2025. Coffman had never even heard of the festival before his own film landed there. “That night was sick!” he says. “TIFF was my first time visiting a new country, my first time seeing myself in a leading role, and getting to share that with a crowd for the first time meant a lot… My mind was blown at how big of a deal it was.” With ‘Nimrods’ as his first major film, he says he’s learning something new about the industry every day.
That background gave him a head start most actors playing musicians don’t get. He already understood the bond that comes from being in a band with your friends — “your band vs. the world,” as he puts it — and he leaned on that to build the on-screen chemistry of Analog Dogs, the fictional garage band at the center of the film. “Punk rock music was never great to me because it’s perfect,” he says. “It’s great because it’s passionate and honest. I truly feel like we captured that feeling with our band, Analog Dogs, in the movie.” The one real challenge was technical: Coffman grew up playing drums, so learning guitar and bass for the role meant starting almost from scratch. Still, channelling everything he’d absorbed from bands like Green Day, Sum 41 and NOFX, he says the process felt like a gift — “I felt like I understood the assignment.”
Still, choosing to be an actor at all was never a given. “Becoming an actor in small-town Oklahoma felt impossibly impossible,” Coffman says. He didn’t meet a professional actor until he left for Los Angeles after high school — and once there, he made a choice that still shapes how he talks about ambition. To save money for SAG dues, acting classes, and headshots, he went without stable housing for a stretch, a decision he says got him misunderstood, judged and called crazy. “You’re only crazy and delusional until your dreams become a reality,” he says now. It’s a line that doubles as his read on ‘Nimrods’ itself — a film about three friends whose delusion turns out to be what saves them. “Making your dreams come true is gonna take sacrifice, faith in others, and a bag of mushrooms.”
Much of ‘Nimrods’ was filmed in Oklahoma, which Coffman says made the whole experience feel like it was folding back on itself. “It was surreal shooting my first big movie in the place where it once felt impossibly impossible to be an actor.” The state’s film industry, he notes, is having a moment of its own — and he clearly sees his own arc as part of that larger story.
Working alongside Green Day themselves, he says, was the rare case of a childhood hero living up to the hype. “Don’t meet your heroes… unless those heroes are Green Day,” he says. “Hanging out with them is everything you’d want it to be and more. They are the world’s biggest punk band and still the most down-to-earth dudes.” He came away with advice from Mike Dirnt that he says he’ll hold onto for good — that staying true to yourself sometimes means knowing “not every envelope needs to be opened.”
As for the pressure that comes with a first lead role already being talked about as a breakout, Coffman says he’s trying to meet it with gratitude rather than anxiety. “I’m protecting Fred and myself by practicing gratitude,” he says. “This moment and this role are much bigger than just me. It’s so special to be telling stories and creating characters that allow others to be seen and heard.”
‘Nimrods’ is in theatres now.
skateboard photography. Brent White
portraits. Nigel Bland
interview + editor. Kelsey Barnes
