Q: You have two fantastic and recognizable actors as your leads whose most famous characters were key pieces of complicated relationships: Aya Cash, who played Gretchen on You\u2019re the Worst and William Jackson Harper, who played Chidi on The Good Place. Do you think audiences will bring their preexisting familiarity with those characters into the experience of watching this film, and is that a good thing?<\/p>\n
JR: I think it would be irresponsible if we didn\u2019t assume that people will bring some expectation of, you know, basically shipping Gretchen and Chidi, and being like, how would that go? Look, I would 100% watch it, because I\u2019m a fan of both shows. I worked on one of them. But ultimately I like to think that they\u2019re both unique characters in their own way and they\u2019re quite dissimilar from those two people. It is familiar actors in a relationship, which we\u2019ve certainly seen. But I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve been able to see them as the leads of a romantic comedy.<\/p>\n
LJ: Absolutely. It\u2019s nice, because there are things that are a little bit sour about the movie, and things that are a little bit sweet. It\u2019s very grounded character work. Both Will and Aya were excited to be like, oh wow, if I\u2019m the center of a rom-com about a breakup, what does that look like, and how can I grow and stretch? They\u2019re both so beloved and those characters are so beloved, so we\u2019re grateful for it. We\u2019re just excited to get to see these two people together.<\/p>\n
Q: Were they the actors you always had in mind for these roles?<\/p>\n
JR: With Lori, the moment our casting directors brought up Aya for it, and with her in mind, I threw on a You\u2019re the Worst<\/em> episode, and it was just absolute, immediate, yes, we need to offer Aya the part now. I might have checked with Laura first, I might not have. I might have been too excited. And then, as I said, I was assistant director on The Good Place<\/em>, so I personally know Will. We\u2019ve been talking about Will for the role for quite a while. Because I have a personal relationship with him, I didn\u2019t want to tell him about it. I kept it quiet and didn\u2019t bring it up to him until I was very confident that the movie was getting made. Between season three and four of The Good Place<\/em>, it became very clear the movie was going to happen, at which point, instead of texting or calling Will, I waited until we were on set. I think it was like day three of season four. As he was walking back to his trailer, I pulled him aside and said, hey, I have a movie happening. Aya Cash is attached. I want you to play the other lead. The script is in your trailer. He was like, okay, cool. He wrote me the next weekend when he was actually able to read it and said, oh, you actually have a real movie and it\u2019s fantastic. Yes, let\u2019s figure out making this. From that point forward, there was no wavering, we never talked about anybody else from the moment both of them were attached. It was really just figuring out both of their busy schedules. At that point, Aya was just finishing up shooting on The Boys<\/em>, and Will was going to start shooting on Underground Railroad<\/em>. We just needed to find a window that worked for both of their schedules, and thankfully we did.<\/p>\n Q: Do you consider this film a romantic comedy? Even if you don\u2019t, did you set out to make a romantic comedy?<\/p>\n JR: My answer is always bad for this. Go for it, Laura.<\/p>\n LJ: I like to call it a rom-com about a breakup. So it automatically gives you the idea that we\u2019re going to be mixing tones here. Yes, there are elements of a rom-com, but it\u2019s also a very grounded relationship story at the heart of it. No, I think we didn\u2019t set out to make a rom-com. We both love rom-coms, by the way. I think it was about figuring out if there were components of those movies that we wanted to bring in here, and did we want to go along with those patterns, or were there things we wanted to subvert? Very early on, we were like, let\u2019s not get locked in. Let\u2019s just tell his honest story about a couple at a crossroads. The hijinks element of it is, of course, they\u2019re at the sister\u2019s wedding and they have to lie about it, they have to pretend to still be together. But we weren\u2019t worried about hitting beats. We weren\u2019t worried about hitting familiar rom-com tropes. We wanted to go with what felt naturally right with these characters and this story.<\/p>\n Q: And Jeff, what\u2019s your terrible answer to this question?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n JR: I just, I understand that a horror movie is a horror movie. My brain has never operated in genres. I want to tell the most honest story about the characters. Once you do that, I understand film marketing, I understand things get labeled in Redbox and that\u2019s what happens. For me, it\u2019s always just about what feels right with the characters. If that means there\u2019s not a joke for five minutes, then there\u2019s not a joke for five minutes. For me, I fully recognize that we\u2019ve made a romantic comedy, and I\u2019m okay with that. I always treated it more as a relationship movie.<\/p>\n Q: Do you feel that there are other films out there that do justice to the equality in a relationship, where you\u2019re rooting for both people even if a breakup seems imminent?<\/p>\n JR: There weren\u2019t that many, so that was part of the genesis of us working together on this project, the fact that we\u2019ve both been in long-term relationships. My now-wife, at the time we started writing it, we weren\u2019t married yet, and Laura\u2019s been with her boyfriend now for fifteen years, and they are happily unmarried. We just sort of tackled the reality. We wanted it to feel equal. Most romantic comedies, there\u2019s a villain in the story, and that was what we wanted to avoid. It was taking some of our favorite movies, Forgetting Sarah Marshall<\/em> or All the Real Girls<\/em>, or any of these movies, and as opposed to, somewhere in the late second act, realizing the other person really isn\u2019t that bad, it\u2019s what if they\u2019re present throughout the movie. Again, I love those movies, but that was our take, and our way to sort of shift it and make it a little different.<\/p>\n LJ: Not centering one person in the relationship, but really centering both individuals and the relationship, so that you can kind of root for all three.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/we-broke-up2-1024x683.jpg\")
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