Will McCormack

Well, so this one, though, is from a 2016 play that gets made into a, a Spa- First, that's a Spanish play that gets made into a Spanish movie, um, few years later, and then gets remade all over the world in different, as different films.

But here, Rashida Jones and Will McCormack write it, Olivia directs it, and it's...

And you come aboard.

Um, Olivia said she was sort of inspired by Mike Nichols' films, especially Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which makes sense when you see this movie.

I don't know if that's the right pronunciation.

Will McCormack and Rashida Jones.

Rashida Jones, fantastic person from Parks and Rec and more.

Olivia Wilde directed it and it stars, of course, Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen and Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton and they all were fantastic.

It is, yeah.

And this version is written by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack.

Yes.

Which I didn't know about going in.

So that obviously gives them the chance to kind of grow in the story.

But she also said they had like two weeks of rehearsal process.

And that was just kind of like going deep down into... for anyone who wants to know what most film rehearsals are like it's not what you're thinking in your head try and look for the it's to be on YouTube like the social network rehearsals so we like Jesse Aaron Sorkin David Fincher Andrew Garfield like that's just it it's just like spending eight hours on the table kind of going into the script and finding out why every line is there and things like that and she was like it was like the four of them and Rashida Jones and Will McCormack just like for two weeks just kind of getting into the script um and then she the one that was kind of like a big reveal it says like Edward Norton basically improvised that big speech

monologue yeah he's monologue that big monologue

When you see early cuts of movies and you're just like, it's so unwieldy that there's no through line.

And I think that the way they shot that, there was obviously a great script by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, but I think all those actors are incredibly opinionated, particularly Ed Norton.

And I think that it was a lot of her trying to wrestle all these personalities into something that felt moldable.

Yes.

Absolutely.

And the screenplay from Will McCormick and Rashida Jones, real life celebrity couple is so authentic and so genuine in the way that it captures this opening sequence of like, probably like 20 something minutes before the other couple shows up at their apartment is so genuinely funny, uncomfortably relatable.

Cause if anybody's been in a long-term relationships and are trying to make plans and you know i'm the planner in my relationship with my wife and i've had plenty of conversations about like are you ready for tonight's like what's tonight and having those types of dynamics and at least in this film had an extremely great payoff when the truth of whether this was a planned out event or not and just the way seth rogan played that off was absolutely hilarious but The writing's impeccable and so relatable and sharp.

And just the way that this is incredible work from Seth Rogen in terms of comedic banter.

Yeah, it was very...

It all came together like kismet almost, you know? Yeah, I really enjoyed it.

And I think that we need to give more credit to Rashida Jones and Will McCormick because their writing is absolutely brilliant.

So smart and capturing the zeitgeist of the moment, capturing humanity in all the... depths and absurdity.

Too much.

how you write with another person like right down to the practicalities of it how you choose those people that you want to write with um and i guess the fact that the three of us always talk about doing more of it and don't so i mean i guess like on the invite will mccormack and rashida jones like the the spark notes of that episode or of their relationship was essentially they were set up on a date by friends they dated for like a month and and realised that they weren't right for each other, but they stayed friends.

They're both actors by trade, and they just became a writing duo.

And they were writing together for probably a good decade before they actually produced anything worthwhile.

But this is the thing.

I think people think about creative collaborations sometimes in the same way.

I know I talked about Will McCormack and Rashida Jones at the beginning of this.

But it is similar in some ways to romantic relationships or at least partnerships in that way.

Well, I like that.

Adapted, written by Rashida Jones and Will McCormick, I think.

He did that short film about school shootings.

It's animated.

I mean, nothing moves fast in Hollywood, but this thing moved like lightning.

and literally it was like beast honey directors interested in doing it with us etc etc there's a long history i won't go down all the details but this was all before the strike but the first people i went to was rashida jones and will mccormick the writers Why? Because I sat with them at Sundance years prior to this with a movie called Celeste and Jesse Forever, starring Annie Sandberg and Rashida Jones, who's also a great actress.

But she wrote the script with her writing partner, Will McCormick.

And it was a perfect sensibility for what we were trying to achieve with the American version of The Invite.

So they went and they loved it.