I

mean, there's literally lines like we're a family.

And and Toni Collette is this like kind of mousy wallflower who who is a new temp.

And she immediately gets brought into this group of like kind of.

brassy funny like kind of uh you know yeah cool girls they're temps they kind of like don't care about the job you know and she's like never been given permission to like act like that so it's like it's kind of like they're the pink ladies and she gets pulled in and like she comes out of her shell a little bit and you're like it's like the sweet their friend you get so invested in their friendship and then what happens about halfway through the movie is these like little um office like things start to go missing at this office and because they're the temps everyone blames them and then it's like all about like surveillance and paranoia and like and again like we're a family like why would anyone if anyone needs help here like come to us you know but then they like everyone turns on them and it starts like eat away at their friendship it's like it's really brutal but it's you know because I was I was like a child watching this and like when it started to turn I was like It just had a very profound effect on me.

But I literally felt the reason why I brought it in.

And I spent months thinking of what I would bring in.

remember like what made you pick that movie?

[laughs] Totally.

But I, but I ...

And, and, you know, there are a lot of, like, conscious, uh, kind of like high- highbrow, um, references that I had going into the movie.

And, and I've talked a lot about certain influences, whatever.

And but then so- the, I've, I very rarely had an opportunity to go on record and also be like, "I felt that." Yeah.

[laughs] Mm-hmm.

I mean, like- I get that ... like, I, like, there, there really is, like, there's, like, a, a ...

[laughs]

[laughs]

Like that's, that's what I wanted to do.

And so like the more I was like kind of doing the character, it just started to build out from there.

And the big thing was the marriage of like the classical, like the kind of, the formal, the sincere, the gorgeous classical elegance of like old school filmmaking and old styles of like expressionistic acting-

Ugh.

But, like, but the milk was very important because that is, like, the kind of...

I think we all agreed that the perfume had to, or the eau de perfume, um, it had to have the kind of these different tonal elements of the movie.

Which is to say, like, there is something really bright and sweet and punchy and girly, obviously-

This is my

novel.

There's a woman who is a bartender at a gruff and rough and tumble bar called Dangerous Protectors who is torn between her love for an Indian fellow and an Israeli fellow.

Israeli fellow's name, Einel.

And she also goes to the bar a lot.

And it's here.

I looked around for Einel.

Sorry, keep going, keep going.

Yeah

... uh, for a really long time at that point.

The, the commercial was inevitable.

Like, it just was like, obviously, this has to come with a commercial.

But it was, I was completely at the end of my rope.

I, I was doing a play and promoting the movie at the same time, and I just was like, "I'm so happy I did this." I just was like, "Ruby, I cannot do this.

I will show up.

Mm.

Mm-hmm

... enchanted on screen, I- I think she is being pulled by some sort of mysterious force at the beginning of the movie.

I think- She wheth unconsciously is ready to kind of destroy this, as you say, pathological people pleaser thing in her.

She, but she doesn't know she's doing that.

So she's kind of, she's kind of, at least on a conscious level, I think at the beginning of the movie, she's full of hope and optimism, and she has dreams of going from being a humble dishwasher-

Mm-hmm

...

when I was 18 years old.

I know.

Because honestly, it would be crass because it would be like we were trying to kind of like sell and market our duo ship.

But anyway, while we were shooting this special, because it's been a long time since Kate and I have been given the opportunity to make something on a big platform.

While we were shooting it, there were times when I would be like so moved where I would be like, Kate, I like I really believe in the duo.

Like this is so special.

Like this is so important right now as everyone is like screaming on their phones, you know, and I and I understand why they're screaming.

I get it.

We're just trying to be beavers.

Ginny.

Ginny.

Ginny.

I told Ginny.

I was watching Zootopia 1 with my nieces because we were doing it before we went to go see Zootopia 2 in theaters.

They had already seen it a million times, but I was like, I really want to see one.

They don't care about that at all.

yeah

Yes.

And afterwards, someone came up to me and was like, "Hey." He, he, he was, he was like, he was like, it was so funny, "Um, Mitch, Mike Mitchell's in it?" And I was like, "Yeah," and he was like, "Are, are you, are you gonna do Doughboyz?"

Ooh, I think yes.

Like, I felt very oily today, and even broke out.

And, and I, and I was like, "Is this because I'm eating oily foods?" Or what-

And then from there, after that initial inspiration, did you create the Maddie character first or did the story emerge?

Well, it was really the character first.

It was like, I knew I had these, again, these kind of rough impressions.

Like I knew I wanted her to be jogging at the beginning of the movie.

And then, and I knew I wanted her to work in food media.

And then, and then as I was like ending up in this genre, that was almost like a kind of, I mean, I was, I was going for melodrama, but I knew we had $4.

So I knew it would end up actually looking more like a TV movie and so I kind of embraced that and then I started actually directly looking at TV movies and so I ended up in this sub-genre of TV movies like the kind of eating disorder TV movie genre because I felt like okay well if she's in food media if she makes food content what's the kind of the lurid dark secret you know the shadow side of that and um And then I found myself watching the movie Kate's Secret that had always been recommended to me, starring Meredith Baxter, about a bulimic housewife made in the 80s.

But was there like a moment when you were still making it? Were you sure that what you were going for was going to translate on screen?

We love Revival

Hub.

I saw that listed and I was like, oh, this is thrilling.

I would love to see a Tori Spelling, Kelly Martin, two-hander on a big screen.

Like that was really thrilling to me.

So I went with Claudio Doherty, who's in Maddie's Secret, and Vanessa Bayer, who's in Maddie's Secret.

Wow.

Does that play any of the Synespia screenings? No.

Mm-hmm

... totally perverted by social media.

But I'm in this moment right now, which always happens to me when I'm promoting something where I'm like, "Oh my God, I feel like overexposed." And I don't e- I don't even mean on like a kinda press cycle, l- like there's too much, people are sick of me.

I just mean like ...

I mean although I do think that's true.

I f- more just feel it in a kind of a psychological way.

I feel like, "What is this th-" And, and I had moments making this movie where I was like, "What are you doing? What is this?" Because like there were m- moments when to me it felt just like so fun, the idea felt so fun.

Yeah

Mm.

And me and Max and Gordon were all friends, and we, we, you know, worked very informally on this movie without, you know, getting paid before it, pre-production started.

We, we were living together for a couple weeks even before pre-production.

And you know, I, so, like, uh, there were those ...

And, and Gordon and I know each other very intimately [laughs] and, like, and he knows, certainly understands certain kind of performance insecurities I have.

And, and so he was, he was actually, he was incredible kind of emotional support [laughs] which is, uh, which is absolutely something that a director has to do, whether they, you know, of tyrannically avoid doing it or not.

But like, anyway.

[laughs]

[laughs]

Um, but it was for a, I was a college comedy show for, for a college in New Hampshire, and it was, there was an ice storm, and I was, uh, and I drove on the highway.

No one else was on the highway but me, because it was so dangerous to drive.

But I needed the check so bad that I risked my life to perform.

Yeah.

You know, uh, it was so subversive and, you know, it, it's, it pokes fun at American pieties and k- kind of weird, perverse moralism and, uh, yeah, so it was definitely, definitely inspired.

And Amy, actually, when I was writing the movie, she gave me the, the Cherie O'Neill Boone, um, memoir, Starving for Attention.

[laughs]

And then, uh, a- and, and she gets kind of, um, promoted to an on-camera position.

She makes a viral recipe, and she kind of becomes a reluctant food influencer, and this, kind of, rising fame reawakens these old demons.

She struggled with an eating disorder as an adolescent.

It's, in many ways, a kind of contemporary retelling of this old '80s, uh, TV movie called Kate's Secret starring the great Meredith Baxter.

[laughs]

Um, no, I'm 38.

And I, um.

Hmm

... back pocket.

She's just always like a chirpy, sweet, little ingenue voice that I do kind of to make myself laugh, kind of to make fun of myself.

[laughs] Uh, and you know, I, I guess she's kind of this vehicle for my sincerity, my, you know.

Uh, and I wanted to see what would happen if I stretched it out from, you know, just a little joke I do to make myself chuckle to, like, an hour and a half.

[laughs] I thought something maybe a little mysterious and magical could happen if I did that.

Mm-hmm

...

Because, you know, she's like the suburban woman and she just radiates goodness.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, so I don't know.

First of all, I'm very touched by that.

I'm a huge Laura Dern fan, as I'm sure is apparent in all of my performances.

But I...

Yeah, I think that's...

But I would love for you to talk a little bit about why Showgirls was such a reference point.

Oh, wow.

Uh, yeah, we've been rehearsing with Andre Gregory.

This is actually a quite abbreviated version [laughs] of his typical rehearsal periods.

Uh, but Lucas has assistant directed.

I'm in the play, and we've just been, uh...

I don't know, we've just been so happy to be welcomed into this [laughs] community of great artists.

And I, I think a, a lot of, a lot of that community, uh, that Wally has built, so to speak, um, is, is represented in, in these films.

Mm.

Why did you go this route?

Well, I basically wanted to make a kind of almost like a 1950s classic Hollywood melodrama.

that's set in contemporary life.

Now, the only problem is that those were very expensive, lush movies.

And so, you know, we didn't have much money.

And so because I wanted to achieve that style, but we had to be resourceful, I looked to the TV movies from the 80s and 90s because those movies were made by these brilliant craftsmen and women who came of age making these beautiful, technically just divine films, but with the changing industry, where they started to have to do it on TV, where there was no big studios.

They had to do it on location.

was like, why don't I have a boyfriend? That's so weird.

It doesn't have to be a big departure, but –

I always need something.

But over the years, it's gotten more and more like me.

You know, the character resembles me more.

Right.

Like I used to be when I first started doing stand up in the 80s.

I'm kidding.

It is Looney

It doesn't have to be a big departure, but...

I always need something, but over the years it's gotten more and more like me, you know, the character resembles me more.

Right.

Like I used to be, when I first started doing standup in the eighties, I'm kidding.

I was like, there was this, it was kind of hostile.

There was something a little, there was like a hard shell.

Yeah.

me and I

Mm-hmm.

... extras.

So those are, like, two different things in my, uh, in my mind.

And I think that some people, I think it comes from a fucking punishment fetish.

Yeah.

Rather than, like, "I don't think about it." Of course they think about it, they see, they have to fucking sign it.

They see the line that they're not filling out and they're going, "Mm, you don't get anything." You're not...

That wasn't good.