‘The Invite’ Is a Hilarious Social Nightmare, With Olivia Wilde!

Endless summer escapes start here. Travel the worlds of Netflix IRL. Inspired by fan favorites like Stranger Things and Squid Game. Brave the upside down. Face off with the front man. Play leveled up arcade games. Shop exclusive merch. And enjoy themed food and drinks. Beat the heat. Play, eat, and shop on repeat at Netflix House at Galleria Dallas. Bring your crew and save. Get your tickets today at netflix.com/house. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the Big Picture 8 Conversation Show about The Invite. Today on the show, you're invited into a deep dive into a very funny, very middle-aged Dark Knight of the Soul. The Invite is a sharp-tongued and even more sharply made four-hander dramedy starring Seth Rollins. And the show is brought to you by The Invite. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And today on the show, you're invited into a deep dive into a very funny, very middle-aged Dark Knight of the Soul. Today on the show, you're invited into a deep dive into a very middle-aged Dark Knight of the Soul. And one way out of that is to kind of make a change in your life. and maybe it's through your sex life changing. And when somebody is doing something else in the world, it feels very foreign and maybe a little scary or weird, but it can also be exciting to you that you can like transform out of that shrinking quality. I think it's really interesting. You know, I'm sitting with two children of divorce and I'm conversant in difficult marriages. I think it's really interesting that you bring up these older films because one of the things I loved about The Invite was that it told a very familiar story with some familiar refrains or melodic ideas, but where maybe some of the older films you're referring to are a lot about like repression or people feeling trapped in a society that won't let them do this or won't let them do that. This movie is about people who really, at least emotionally and intellectually, have the whole world at their fingertips. They're over-therapized, perhaps. They indulge in recreational drug use. They can explore every sexual fantasy that they want, but they're still not happy, you know? And they can buy things or they can have like a man cave and all the things that like, maybe we don't remember our parents having access to those things, but they are unhappy in the same way, just in a different accent. You know what I mean? I think that's really astute. And I think that's why this is kind of a timeless, if somewhat undefinable genre of multiple couples tearing each other apart. But on the general. Generation-specific terms. Yes, yes. Yeah, and to your point, both like emotionally and therapeutically or over-therapeutically. But, you know, the details and the specific references and the rugs of it all is so attuned to our. And so knowing of our particular walk of life and time of life in a way that is funny and cruel. Can I just say something I really loved about this movie? Obviously, one of the main topics of conversation on this. On this podcast is, like, great directors. And while I thought she did. While did an astonishing job, like, there's like a really, really distinct style to this movie where I don't think she overindulges in, like, big close-ups. Like, she lets this play out somewhat theatrically, like you're watching a stage play, but it definitely feels cinematic. And there is like a physical architecture to the apartment that the film is set in. And a geometry of the shots. You really have an idea of, like, the world that exists, like, for the Rogan character's office versus, like, the part of the house that they aren't proud of versus, you know, the specter of their daughter who's at a sleepover. She talked at length in our conversation about this. It's very, very, very well realized. The set decoration's incredible. I loved the fact that it felt like this film had multiple authors. I love the fact that. I'm sure you could cast this, you could do a roadshow of the invite with different people, but. Only Rogan would have played that character that way. Only Wilde would have played that character that way. And certainly only Cruise and Norton would have played those characters that way. And it could have gone wrong in so many different ways if somebody was too big or somebody was too little in their performances. And I felt real, real equity from everybody involved of, like, I own this character and I want them to. I'm going to treat them with the dignity that I have in my mind about that. So, like, you really do get old-school movies swept up into, like. I'm watching a real person. I've seen Rogan do this bit for 25 years now or whatever, but not like this and not restrained the way I think he was held back a little bit in this movie. And I really admire Wilde for doing that. Yeah, I mean, everybody gets to have their showcase, but they also have to play within the system. And I had a similar thought. I don't know if you had that thought, too, that it felt like there was a lot of on-set contributions. Contribution, watching the movie. I was like, these are Seth Rogen jokes. Like, these are so finely attuned, like the best version of him being a cranky asshole. And I felt very much the same way about the Edward Norton performance. I'm like, I've said this is the best use of him in a long time. And I encourage people to stick around and listen to what Olivia Wilde talked about, his major contribution, in terms of the thing that you're describing, because he did something in this movie that. It's not unusual, but you don't really often hear about it. In terms of like how somebody gets a chance to take some ownership over a sequence. And I think the same can be said for Penelope Cruz. Like, if that's a different actress at a different age or from a different country or with a different kind of like persona that they bring to the screen, that Pina doesn't work as well as a character. And she gets to be this like. She gets to be Alma Dovar Penelope Cruz. Yes, yes. And she gets to be this like crusading strident figure in the first half and then kind of fall in love with her. And then she kind of falls apart in the second half too. And there's something. They really, all four of them have a lot of shape to the character that I really, really liked. And I agree, even though they're such famous people, it was such. I would say Olivia Wilde has the least defined screen persona of the four of them. But she is at least, she is playing against the idea that we have of Olivia Wilde as like the, you know, the most beautiful woman in the world. And she's often like, if not the hot girl, then like a figure of desire in the film. In the film, yeah. And in this movie, she's shooting herself and dressed herself. And also the character is written as like desperate and annoying. And you can like see the bags under her eyes, which I just, I give her so much credit for. So I agree with you that it does feel like each of the characters are, you know, from the actors or like using what the actors have and what we know about the actors. And like. Spinning on them in interesting ways. Yeah. I think there's also something in this that I've been meaning to talk to you guys about. And I probably brought it up with each of you individually over the last couple of years. But I'm really interested in the idea of new friendship when you're a little older. Sure, you have brought this up. And because, you know, we have a lot of old friends. We have a lot of friends who we've, and we've been lucky that we've been able to, a lot of our friends have moved out to this city and we've stayed close. We've been able to work together. But then two things happen. Like one, you just, you meet people in the world. And you make new friends. But then when we had kids and you're constantly confronted by new people and you're like, is this person my friend now? Do we socialize without our children? And this movie is also about that. This movie is about two people who are like seemingly not very good at socializing, don't have a very big social circle. Their life has become, you know, Seth Rogen's character's job. Their 11-year-old daughter. Maybe not much else. Rug shopping. And so in an effort to kind of open their world up a little bit in more ways than one, they invite this new couple into their life to see what could happen. And I don't know. I find it interesting. Like I'm enjoying making new friends at this stage of my life, but it never quite feels like an old friend. I think it's, for me, part of the, not problem, but part of the phenomenon of it is that I'm still friends with my old friends. So I think that like I, I really enjoy meeting new people and I enjoy hanging out with new people. But like, I unfortunately am also like right next to you and Zach so then I'm like, oh, like so. So we can just watch golf for five hours and it's the most fun I'm going to have this week. Like it's hard. I think that there is like something about like these two characters in this film that I found like really well drawn where it's probably like a combination of feeling like you've failed professionally and that you've devoted a lot of life to, a lot of your life to your kid has made you recede from the world outside in a big way. Some of it is that they just don't know how to be social people or grownups at all. And there's so much anxiety about having the people over and, you know, performing the role of we are hosts. We do this all the time. Like we know how to put like a cheese board together. This is like, we have the rituals down. We know how to be people. But yeah, I mean, making hard, making friends is hard at any age. But this does identify something about like as an adult, it just seems like everybody else has already figured out how to make friends and is already friends. And you feel like you're just the people who were not invited to the party and everyone else is already there. And, you know, and you learn that that's not true. And everybody is like figuring out like all the time, like, oh, are you my new preschool mom friend? Like, are you, is this a friend date? You know, it is very much like the same feelings individually or as a couple. But because not everyone is, you know, you start school and everybody starts school together, right? Like you graduate from college, you all like move to a city or in like new phases of life and everybody is kind of open for business. But like once you're an adult, when you're 45, no one's open for business. Also, I just think friendship when you're younger is less modular. Like you, you, you maybe have roommates or maybe you just have your buddies in college or early life and wherever, what city ever you're living in the 20s. And you're like, let's just hang out for three days. Like more or less not like nonstop. Like let's go to the bar but then tomorrow let's get bacon and cheeses and then let's go to the movies then let's go back to the bar. Yeah. That doesn't really happen now. You are much more like, would you like to come over from four to 630? Would you like to meet me here for 27 minutes? Right. And then, or for five minutes before a movie or whatever. So it's like. Are you going to be in town anytime in the next three months? Yes. And the dinner party idea, the convention of this film is excellent because it's like, it is, it is basically like the language that you're forced to learn of like, well, We have to provide some sort of attraction. for socializing it has to be a cheese board it has to be this and then the great thing about it is that then the movie turns and i'm always reminded of this rogan quote that he gave um seth rogan uh that this rogan you've been speaking of joe this i have i talked about this with andy i thought that his taylor sheridan episode was illuminating um i'll bet uh he seth rogan does a really interesting uh conversation i can't remember i think this on the off-camera interview show um but he talks about the difference between plot and story i think we've talked about it before but plot is like the like this then that then this that people think they're getting and then story is what the movie is really about right so usually what this movie is like a couple has a dinner party and their guests come with an unexpected proposition and it should in 90 of movies that would be about this bring them closer together and instead in this one it just kind of exacerbates the schism between them i think although then you start to get into the panopticon of how did you view this film well and then it does also okay so spoilers i guess at this point sure and spoilers for the invite spoilers for the invite and weapons and the odyssey husbands and wives and husbands and wives yes and uh okay cloak and dagger from 1982 and it's not that much of a spoiler because like sex checkoffs loud sex noises are introduced very early on in the movie before penelope cruz and edward norton come over so you know that they're getting up to some stuff upstairs that can be heard in the apartment but pina and hawk pina and hawk are into group sex and they host these parties and they accepted the dinner invitation from joe and angela those are their names that's right olivia wild playing someone named angela is like a bridge too far for me but that's okay i like this movie um i think also just you know do you know any angelas i did once okay yeah i worked with an angela i mean it's a lovely name it just doesn't seem my next door neighbor growing up was named angela but she's about 92 years old okay right that that was kind of my point a different generation anyway they've come to dinner to invite joe and angela to have sex in really any permutation that suits them yeah to all together yeah just to kind of feel it out to see how things go and this is me sending texts about potential podcast appearances how would you want to do it what would it be about choose a film um and so we have a menu so there isn't do you want to sit in the chair while alex and tracy talk that's where i want you every time okay so there's a lot of this and there's a lot of you know eventually the subject is broached then there's a great great scene where they are speaking frankly about the menu and pegging and how it works and what's happening and olivia wilde asks a lot character asks a lot of the questions i always want to ask which is just like how does it work in a in a real sense and the movie does also answer some questions for me of like is there a cheese plate at these you know gatherings like is there small talk yeah how is it all apportioned off um the menu is more for conventions where we learn yes yeah they don't have a menu at this dinner party no we don't see of your preferences it's not laminated like at a greek diner and so then there's more discussion and so they do pair off uh some things happen but nothing nothing graphic and nothing um conclusive shall we say well put and then why does it oh catherine throws his back the most you could well i'm gonna say i said it to olivia i was like i'm a 43 year old man who's been married for a long time i'm gonna say i'm a 43 year old man i'm a 43 year old man who's been married for a long time i'm gonna say i'm a 43 year old man who's been married for a long time i'm gonna say i'm a 43 year old man who's been married for a long time with a bad back this is this movie yeah yeah there's this play about us um i think i'm not sure i wholly identify with the seth rogan character but i think there is something universal about the seth rogan character for many men um and that sense of uh being thwarted you know he is a real classic thwarted but also bitterly sarcastic person and to me i think this is the best thing olivia wilde's ever done i think the fact that it it strains out all that glamour that she brings to so many roles really helps her the movie is dedicated to diane keaton and she is giving a very diane keaton performance yeah um and i say that as a compliment um and that character i don't know that i've i've yet seen this person i mean i really wanted to ask you about this because some of the things that she's saying and some of the feelings that she's having i have had those conversations with my wife because she's at the same stage of life the character is that we are right now and it's very yeah direct you know i would say like emotionally what's going on with women in their 40s in a way i really liked yeah right i mean you know the the the perimenopause scene and the uh the the testicles what is it compared to oh the olives i mean it's it's like all-time stuff and salute olivia wilde for for putting that in a movie but i think much in the same way that you like relate and identify with seth rogan but it's not it's a character right and it's a combination of like a heightened version of all of these things that all of the bad or negative or you know setbacks that can happen to a woman in her 40s where doesn't really have any life outside of the home physical desperate changes doesn't really connect with the husband anymore feels like completely cut off from her sexuality and like you know at a time where you're like basically going through puberty 2.0 so it it's just she's down bad you know and i think that's a really good point and i think that's a really good point and i think in a way that i i agree i haven't seen anyone with this entire collection of problems there's one other thing that that character does really well and then she gets met by the norton character really smartly which is like the way that people will throw themselves into their like their hobbies you know they're like they're sort of like aesthetic interests yeah and she's she's a she's a she's a rug gal you know she loves rugs she's decorating the home yeah and she the movie effectively opens with her bringing a rug essentially like i think one of the things that i really like is the way that she's decorating the home and she's decorating the home wild shoots the home while there is some of the interior decorating porn of the drama and other you know like contemporary films um there's a scene in particular where uh angela is showing off her bathroom and the tile on the bathroom and like how she wanted to like basically keep the old skeleton of the you know the structure and bring back the spirit but also put like something new on top of it and it looks like she's in prison she's like stuck in this bathtub she's like kind of like clinging to the curtain and she's like you know she's like you know she's like you know and then edward norton's response is like i'm not a big tile guy you know and it's so great because i think it just throws off like her whole equilibrium of being like finally someone who appreciates me for what i'm doing here right and like appreciates the work i'm putting into the appearance of this thing and no this guy of course has to have some sort of soul communion with rugs um i want to just hit one more time the the utilization of rogan in relationship to wild and so i'm giving olivia wild obviously credit for this is when you watch the studio an equally brilliant comic performance that has some dramatic moments the scenes are written i think i really like the studio but the scenes are written to maximize the jokes i think and to maximize the sort of cringiness of the moment in the show i'll say the pathos is broad the pathos is broad and it straight it's it uh it strains believability it's not realistic it's like this guy wouldn't be able to hold this job for 48 hours if he acted like this there's no way in which like he could fuck over this many people or screw up this many film sets or whatever like it just wouldn't happen and sometimes i think probably we're a little too close to the film industry so we're like that's funny but it's not exactly how it would go right i love the fact that this is actually how somebody who can't take anything seriously would be treated by three other people and it's like it usually is like well no he's the funniest person in the movie so everybody should create like a a sounding board and a kind of receptive audience space for him and the only person who can be there is his nagging wife but she still loves him no matter what you know like that's not the case in this this actually makes the rogan character so grating because even though he's hilarious you're like i can't dude i can't believe how you're fucking like killing every vibe because you can't shut the fuck up yeah i think you'll find empathy for him by the end but for the most of the movie he's the villain yeah well and so how we do that is interesting and also leads us to the edward norton and penelope cruz characters hawk and pina who are you know swan in like beautiful confident hosting group sex parties up above their house like they have no problems and then both wearing black in contrast to seth and olivia's characters both wearing denim and they both kind of like match each other right and even like through the negotiation and the you know separate so they decide to switch it up i guess it's i guess it's like a swinging arrangement and couple swap yeah there you go and they decamp to different parts of the apartment and even through that are leading the way and the joe and angela characters like kind of can't believe what's going on and then back gets thrown out everyone's brought back to together and their characters start showing their their soft spots and their ugliness and you are you know it's revealed that this is pretty new and also that they don't really have it together either and that what they're doing is as much a coping mechanism for other things and that you know there isn't some fantasy world where everyone just has it figured out and you guys can't there's also the great reverse where it should be that ever norton and penelope hawk and pina introducing group sex to angela and joe undoes their relationship but in fact right angela and joe's toxicity to an extent that's one of the great strokes of the movie is that this kind of thing is is infectious in a bad way like it's that that the hostility that joe has and angela's ability to reconcile like her own unhappiness in the marriage i mean that's the the thing that is going on is like she made a commitment to a guy early in her life who she thought was really cool and he turned out to be not so cool they grew apart she has her own problems but like he did not help the issue with his the way he has kind of retracted into his depression and it's kind of getting on hawk and pina who are in kind of the honeymoon period of their life they've been together for about a year you know they're both they both have clearly lived other lives and this is the time when that that the honeymoon is sort of maybe about to end and they're they're confronted with this stark reality of like well you could become like this you're not too careful sure which is this again another really smart construction of the story it doesn't i feel like it doesn't take those like easy no it doesn't exactly at the point where we are fully in spoiler territory but right when you're at the point of oh hawk and pina are just as fake as these two like that's not even his name you get yet another turn where the erin orton character gives this monologue which is sort of becomes the centerpiece of the film i think i mean outrageous stuff and it's like yeah honestly could hear it is a pin drop moment in the film where you're like if i didn't hear a single sound in in the theater that we were in and in an otherwise like fairly uproarious screening room yeah but it but it is kind of like it's just like alec baldwin doing glenn gary you're like what the fuck is happening this guy just blacked out and it completely throws the film off its axis again um and then i think the last 20 minutes or so are the ones that i i i'm still thinking about the ones that i'm still like i don't know how i felt about the possible metaphysical aspects of hawk and pina or i wanted to ask you guys about that yeah i think there's a there's a reading that i think is strained but there's a reading of it you could say where these are sort of projections well i would just say it's a choice it's a choice that olivia wilde makes to to basically have hawk and pina's exit from the apartment eventual exit seem almost supernatural to they're suddenly gone yeah and it's like were they ever there uh i don't think that that's the case but i also think it is a choice to do it that way it raises the possibility and then the end end the end of the film is incredibly soft given the sort of feeling of the rest of the movie i think and ambiguous and it is a book end with the opening yes the film opens with this kind of duet this piano performance kind of happening in like a hazy mind and it ends with the two of them seated next to each other after this really bare knuckle kind of it's over confrontation yeah and they play together and then the movie ends and i i asked olivia wilde this i'm curious how you guys feel about it whether or not this is a movie that is optimistic or pessimistic whether it's a movie about two people who have gotten through something and will stay together if it's about a movie that about two people who will break up immediately if it's about two people who will break up and still love each other or people who will break up and be embittered towards one another like there's a lot of potential outcomes and its ambiguity i think is actually quite powerful um yeah it's a rorschach test right for like yeah how how do not just this relationship but like how do relationships work now yeah i mean i thought the thing that i i is a hallmark of fights that i have had with significant others or with my wife is like that crazy feeling where you're like what's happening like how bad is this you know what i mean like whenever there's like a moment where you're like i i often fuck up where i'm like i thought we were going to be like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like i thought we were arguing but now we're fighting you know like i thought we were just like yeah each other and now all of a sudden i don't remember what we're fighting about but it's about everything and no i don't let that happen ever i like i just i can't i like abort leave yeah oh totally i'm just like i'm sorry i can't do but that's like it's it's half child or divorce and half we've learned that only child because i didn't learn the sibling thing of you can be at each other's throats one second and then you're just like back to normal because you're like oh you live together yeah yeah and i just i straight up don't have that but i i i do think that there's an element to this movie where i think for both characters maybe more for joe and maybe that's just my identify more with him as like i am like oh this is like every night like do they come he comes home she's in a fucking tizzy about something he's his back hurts and they just start fighting and maybe they keep it together because they have a daughter they're six nights a week or whatever but this is the that this is like kind of like where their relationship has like a constant ball breaking until it's time to like get into this oh that's so fascinating because i interpret it like this is something that's been bottled up or unacknowledged for yeah and this is like i thought i got the feeling this is like basically they're like bar mitzvah you know it's like the the thing that has to happen for them to transition to the next fascinating so i like version of what their relationship will be that being said i don't know that that means that they break up yeah and i yeah i was like the piano playing at the end to me was like an indication that maybe like and now we play our coda on like another night of insane fighting where we realize well the only two people we have in this crazy ocean are each other i don't know if i have a definitive takeaway on this i really like what both of you said i think both of those yeah potentialities make sense to me i do think that seth organ is maybe a little too skilled at sniping for this to be the first time they've ever really been nose-to-nose but maybe she hasn't been as confrontational with him in the same way there's a great scene in the movie and during that final fight at the end where rogan is kind of losing it and he shifts to a really dramatic performance where he's like why can't you just like leave me alone in my depression yes why can't you just let me be unhappy which i would not say is a feeling that i relate to but i do like i i understand i think we relate to it in our parents that's exactly right that's exactly right and it's a really powerful choice to let him say that out loud and i think that's a really powerful choice to let him say that out loud because i don't think people really ever get to say that out loud but it is a common feeling that a lot of people in unhappy marriages have yeah i think we probably all look at our parents if we watched our parents now we'd probably be like these people are unhappy like these when they're together you know like they and like for the most part are either like forced to stay together or never speak to each other again and so to watch two people who are like but i wanted so much more for myself and now i live in a society where i'm constantly bombarded with pathways to that whether it's sexual intellectual pharmacological whatever you know like it's it's got to be almost worse you know what i mean like yeah and the movie is really smart at showing us all of these different signposts for those things where we see inside the the the bathroom vanity that there is medication that we see eventually wild's character takes some of that medication um we see that seth rogan's character is very quick to go spark a joint they don't have any wine in the house well they have the good bottle well there's a good bottle but i was like only the one good bottle in this apartment maybe they drank all of it the day before maybe that's something else that is going on that we don't really know if they do that then seth rogan knows to stop on his electric bike on the way home and pick up it's sorry it's not like i'm sorry yeah that one i was just kind of i mean maybe they're not drinkers maybe they're california sober or whatever but uh could be um you know there's other examples of this throughout the movie too where the sort of like the souffle which she forgets about and overcooks which is a metaphor unto itself the jamon where you think you've done something elegant and elevated and you're meeting someone at their culture and you've misunderstood and misacquired something um the flan that pina makes right her ability to make something kind of light and sweet and tasteful so pina does ask for the tupperware back for the flan she does which i just is i mean which is an incredible moment and but again like those characters do show their own weaknesses at the end they do um even just the everyone's job sure you know that that hawk is a retired firefighter and he's learning about rolfing and pina is a sexual psychotherapist and um angela doesn't have a job yeah and they live in this house that they've inherited from joe's parents and that they have a you know that he has a ton of hang-ups about that and about his own individual failure after that and so i think that's a really important part of writing one pop song that was a how popular do you think that pop song i think that was like an indie rock song that had some burn make make a comparison uh is it clap your hands say yeah oh it doesn't it didn't seem that cool is the wrong word but like they seem out i guess they're locating in 2008 like brooklyn pumped up kicks yeah maybe closer to that yeah that's kind of okay it's not like he wasn't in semi-sonic That would be too. Right. Too big. Too big. Too big. But. you're on the right track with like blog indie era. Yet another little like portal for me into the movie where I'm like, oh, you were like a 2007 indie rock star. Like this movie is really, we're in this time. This is like, this is the flip side of Devil Wears Prada 2 and the animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie where I'm like, wow, just our people are all making the movies at the center of the world now. Yeah. And that's really weird. Like, you know what was interesting? My childhood. I don't know how it feels. You know, and you know, I think Olivia Wilde, of course, is divorced and Seth Rogen is not divorced and she talked about that they have different perspectives on the ending of this movie. He also doesn't have kids. He doesn't have kids and like the strain that that can introduce into a relationship. I thought, what did you think of the fact that the daughter is mentioned but does not play any, any, any role is like absent, never inadvertently comes home in the middle of the movie or like they have to go pick her up in the morning. Like, it's kind of like out of the picture here. I liked it because then it can just be about their marriage and their relationship and you can't, I mean, and it, and it works in the sense that she's on a sleepover. I can only imagine what it's like to have your child regularly out of the home that often. You know, I'm not there yet, but. In a cool way. In a cool way. Feels very far away. It feels, yeah, so it felt very far away that sort of strained credulity to me but it is also, that's just because of where I am in life. I thought it was good. I'm going to be very, I'm really going to laugh if I come over and you've got like a boarding school pamphlet on your table. Yeah, it's called Camp Chris. Just checking out all the options, you know. They can just stay with you for a few weeks. Yeah. Um, I agree with what you were saying earlier as well about come back looking like Bo Jackson. It's great. Is that what you're doing? Getting them pumped up? Multi-sport stars, yeah. Protein shake? Yeah. This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail-biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with the big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime. Movie's shot really well. Looks good. Shot on film. I almost always know where the camera should be, on whose face. And it's not always the person who's talking. And the thing that I noticed the first time I saw it and I've had a chance to see it twice now is she frequently frames characters at the distance from which the person talking to them is. So, like, it's almost as if the camera were the person. So, it's how you're being perceived by the other person is the way that we watch the movie. Which is a simple choice, but is a very, very effective one. Because it's a movie about a bunch of people who are just like, why doesn't anyone. Right. Does anyone know I'm alive? Like, there is that feeling that I think you get in your 40s sometimes where you're like, ah, am I vanishing? And especially Angela is totally vanishing. And one of the things that her character does in the movie, which is sort of revealed since we're fully in spoiler territory, is that after she gets out of the shower, she will frequently walk past the window that overlooks Pina and Hawk's apartment and she will display herself nude to Hawk. Though not to Pina, which I thought was interesting. But then they go have sex talking about her. That's right. Yeah. That's right. And the movie then shifts perspectives where we see from through the window, down the window the other way. Like, it is a very smartly constructed perspectival movie. Yes, it is. I mean, it is one location and it is an apartment and then sort of the apartment upstairs through a window. But it also, it uses the alliances between the four characters are shifting throughout the movie. And so, where the characters are framed, both in the frame and respective to each other, is communicated like very smartly and clearly throughout the movies. And, I mean, it is also, you understand the geography of the apartment itself and how people are moving around it and where they are, which is very hard to communicate, especially in such a, you know, closed environment over time. It is. It's really, it's an impressive piece of directing. I would have thought about this movie a lot in relationship to the drama because I think it augurs something very positive for contemporary movies if we're going to make films that have, like, a very high concept but are less concerned with the concept than they are with the characters and also what's universal about the movie rather than what's highly specific about it. So, there are so many things in both of those films where you're like, that moment is so, if not relatable, like, real. Even if the specificity of group sex or a school, a threatened school shooting are not, you know, something that everybody has familiarity with. But there does seem to be a willingness now to, like, be like, we have to sell it on this. We have to sell it that there's going to be a big second act twist of some kind. But, like, the people in these movies feel, like, real characters to me and, like, real, like, I don't know. I'm very, this gave me very positive vibes. It's the same, it's the same way that we're, like, you know, singing the praises of Obsession and Backroom for bringing some kind of original storytelling mechanism back. I'm very excited. I mean, this could easily slip away and become, like, the cut essay of films, you know, like. Oh, you mean that everyone will see it? Or just that, like, you could make a cheap version of this that's, like, my group sex that went wrong or whatever. But, like, I think, I think that Let me be clear. I'd read as many of those cut essays as they want to commission. I think the movie earns its seriousness. It's a very funny comedy, but it really does earn, I think, some of the deeper conversation that we're having here. And there's, like, I was trying to figure out a way to kind of frame the movie and I couldn't totally figure it out. But it's, like, there's a lot of, it's a movie of confinement, right? So you could be, like, oh, it's, like, 12 Angry Men or it's, like, Ex Machina or something like that. And you have to think about that geography that you were describing, Amanda. But it is really, like, as you noted to us, like a nightmare couples movie. And whether or not there's two couples or one couple in this movie is an interesting idea. But I did want to at least hear from you guys, like, what are versions of this kind of formulation that you like? Because it is very tried and true. So we each chose five. You want to, you want to, you want to get, you want to hit us with your list? Yeah. Well, you guys picked some of the, some of mine. So I just tried to get creative with it. So, you know, number five, Edward and Connie, a.k.a. Richard Gere and Diane Lane from Unfaithful. You know, it's a classic suburban everything looks great on the surface, but then it's a windy day in Soho and. Would you do that? Would I have sex with that guy in a. No, no. Other way. Other side. Oh, would I kill the person who, the rare book dealer? Is that what he does? He's a rare book dealer? Who were you looking at just now? The booth, you know, my inner self. With it? No, because. You wouldn't do it. No, because I would find the, all the cleanup and the cover-up very stressful. Okay. You know, which Richard Gere's character does, but I don't think it would be like a violent outburst like that. It would be more like I would collect my revenge over time, you know? That sounds right. All right, what's number four? Henry and Eleanor in Lion and Winter, which is just, that's a different arrangement. They don't see each other anymore, except for Christmas with their children. And then they say incredibly rude things to each other. And at the end, they're like, you know what? There's no one like you in my life. So that's beautiful. That's the 15th century husbands and wives. As she literally sails back to prison. But that's, that's some good shit. Peter O'Toole, Catherine Hepburn, you know, I'm open to that. All right, number three, Liliana and Troy, Reality Bites. These people are just fucking insufferable. And obviously, then the logic, of the movie, they gotta get together at the end. And being young is important. And you should live it to the fullest. But would you want to spend one minute around them? And is it anything gonna work out for them? I'd love to be boys with Troy. Listen, I'm kind for Troy. Hey, that's my bike. Troy in his 40s, how would that be going? Much like, I think, the Rogan character. I agree. Yeah, I agree. Okay. Florence Pugh and Jack Rayner in Midsommar. Oh, yeah. Yeah, this is tough. Well, we know how that one turns out. Well, sure. Yeah, but the movie is really mostly about that. And this guy being a dum-dum. And she just stays there much longer than she should. You know? Because sometimes that happens. Those are great. What's your last one? And then Reynolds, Woodcock, and Alma, Phantom Thread. But this is positive. This is aspirational. Are you. I think it's a beautiful portrait of marriage. As a. Wife to a damaged man right now. I have been thinking a lot about Phantom Thread, honestly. But my husband recently had shoulder surgery. Oh, no, no. Like, I. Kiss me, girl, before I'm sick. Yeah. And the way that it does, you know, change the dynamic and the vulnerability and the. Even though, you know, the reality is is that I'm usually. A successful marriage, everybody is Reynolds, Woodcock sometimes and everybody is Alma. And, you know? Yeah. And I know you all think I'm Reynolds all the time. I didn't say that. But I'm not. Zach has been recently. Have you been since? To ruin my day? Yeah, but they figure it out. Possibly in my life. You know? They do. It's a heartwarming tale of destroying one another. Also, it turned out that really my life was obsession and he was just in the never-ready standing in the corner but with an arm. I mean, we could add them to this list. I know. They're a perfect fit right now. Just like, hey. And another thought I had was like, oh, my God. Leave the room. Chris, you want to give us your list? I realize now, looking at this, that I picked all murderers, but that's okay. just to break out of like the kind of heteronormative corner that i sometimes sure paint myself into i'll go brandon and philip from rope yeah uh those guys love a dinner party yeah two beautiful gay men who want to kill people it's a good movie rope rope is great alfred hitchcock yeah some of his best um kind of a little surprise here but i got uh bruce wayne and talia talia al ghul yeah dark knight rises sure she activates a whole new side of his political thinking and then betrays him by being uh rosal ghul's daughter yeah and coming to fulfill his kind of a trump marjorie taylor green situation but it's more like she takes bruce wayne and she's just like think about the becoming a democratic socialist you know like there's a lot there's a lot out there and then it turns out like it's just she's how much of mary cotyard's personal politics did she bring to the part do you think um did you know that she did the french dubbing for dark knight rises herself i didn't i should hope so yeah because she's french okay um i also have mickey and mallory from natural born killers uh the woody harrelson and juliet lewis characters uh you know um two of the best bonnie and clydes of my of my lifetime um ace and ginger from casino two people who probably just should not have been in a in a romantic relationship with one another uh she obviously um was also interested in group sex um maybe just with different guys sure yeah more polyamory yeah and then the i think the ones who were probably the number one scene are nick and amy from gone girl this is it yeah you know it didn't even cross my mind but that's a great one that's very that's very toxic endless summer escapes start here travel the worlds of netflix irl inspired by fan favorites like stranger things and squid game brave the upside down face off with the front man play leveled up arcade games shop exclusive merch and enjoy themed food and drinks heat play eat and shop on repeat at netflix house at galleria dallas bring your crew and save get your tickets today at netflix.com house this episode is brought to you by welch's fruit snacks back to school season can be tough on parents but choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be stock up on welch's fruit snacks made with whole fruit and now made with no artificial dyes it's a snack kids already love and one you can feel good about giving them go back to school with welch's fruit snacks now made with no artificial dyes okay i'll do my five quickly uh the one i love which is a really good movie with mark duplass and elizabeth moss that came out in 2014 that is a little bit about well one that movie also opens with like a couple playing a piano note yeah and like that indicating something about their relationship which is what made me think of it and it's somewhat similar and then eventually becomes a very uh twisted portrayal of um maybe what you wish your partner could be like and what happens if they would change in some way um that is like a pretty sick uh kind of psychological thriller uh number four is husbands and wives and specifically uh sally and jack the judy davis and sydney pollack characters you know we're fond of claiming sydney pollack oh this wonderful character actor from eyes wide shut and i don't know if you've heard of him but he's a great actor and michael clayton this is the sydney pollack performance to me and the way when this when these two split up and start dating other people and the way in which they become enraged with each other especially when judy davis beds down liam neeson which is some of the best shit in any woody allen movie um they're very special and evil um number three is woman in the dunes which is a crazy japanese movie um about a man who gets trapped inside of a dune with a woman and her mom and uh they they drive the man completely insane uh a horror movie that is absolutely crazy and it's kind of like the invite prequel okay um and like what happens if you get trapped in my lair number two uh death trap which is uh kind of a comedy a sydney lumet movie that we talked about um on that episode starring michael kane and christopher reeve about two guys who are sort of like mentor mentee and we think maybe rivals and are perhaps plotting against each other but are in fact something else entirely yeah and also very very toxic to one another and then the last one's the lighthouse i think this is beautiful this is great um i had not really thought about this before but uh robert pattinson and willem defoe play a lighthouse keeper and his his mentee who's going to eventually take over the work of overseeing this lighthouse and pattinson's character says his name is ephraim but he's actually named thomas and willem defoe's character is also named thomas and they're the same person and sometimes marriages can feel like that spoiler for the lighthouse um spoiler for the lighthouse uh and this movie too i think that like doubling of the couples where you know couples they just start to like look the same yeah after a number of years and you can you can spot this at a lot of dinner parties in our in our lives right now where you're like oh those two people have just sort of like agglomerated together when phoebe throws shows up in a thrasher sweatshirt guess who's jacket this is yeah there you go um it's a very fun kind of formulation in a movie i actually had that the other like a while back where like she was wearing something and i was like you look really good today and she's like i'm wearing your clothes like what is that's weird it's pretty pretty common yeah uh so yeah the the invite really great quality flick i hope you've already seen it if you're this far in the podcast yeah so we didn't talk about this in our um best movies of the year so far but it is it is very high up there for me um and i think we didn't talk about it because it's the release is kind of odd where it's opening on june 26th limited maybe going wide july it was a sundance film that was acquired by a24 out of the festival and it had that old school like yo you gotta see this craig holbeck when you saw it texted me immediately after he saw it it was just like do you think summer is a good time for this to be released i think it's a fall movie i had just had was just had this conversation with somebody earlier this week it's interesting to release it amidst all of the noise going on and i i you know olivia talked about how it was really important for her to get this in theaters didn't want to sell to a streamer um yeah on the other hand i feel and it's anecdotal but i mean this is counter-programming for everything that you know and that people in my life haven't seen disclosure day yet or you know who are not in the who are not 20 and there for obsession week five know about this and are interested so i think i could certainly have drama-esque yeah word of mouth i hope so that would be really exciting okay thanks guys let's go down to my conversation with olivia wilde we're here with olivia wilde thank you for being here olivia thank you for having me okay so i am a 43 year old married person with a bad back so this is a very very relatable movie for me yeah a little bit in a good way good um good but i am curious uh you you are you know we're generationally close oh yeah 42 um is is that what attracted to you to the script to directing this why did you want to be a part of this movie so many reasons but specific to that question i'm going to ask you about the generational connection with the with the characters i i think that the idea of taking on a love story that was specific to this part of life when one has been through many relationships sometimes with the same person that really fascinated me um but i certainly wasn't setting out to make something for a certain kind of generation i just thought oh i haven't seen this story told in this way and and i think now i've lived enough life to know how to tell it right yeah the watching it i didn't think like oh this is only made for me it kind of reminded me a little bit of that feeling that i had as a teenager watching who's afraid of virginia wolf or exactly husbands and wives and being like this is how adults are yeah and i don't know how to be an adult but maybe this is like even if you're unhappy this is the way you're supposed to be unhappy well the thing that fascinates me about those movies is i too was a teenager loving movies and woody allen like why did i watch hannah and her sisters at 16 and felt feel like i understood everybody's marital stress yeah and i think it's because when we are in moments of high stress in relationships we often behave like our adolescent selves so i think there is this connection this recognition from young audiences of adults behaving like kids because they are out of control and often love and uh the dissolution of love can make us feel completely out of control and and so it becomes something that i think every age can recognize yeah it's really interesting i'm curious did did starring in it come first were you always going to direct it first what was the trajectory of your involvement in the project in general i was not planning on acting in this movie at all and certainly you know even i acted a bit in don't worry darling but really out of necessity we had no money left so i was like i'll do this part so that we you know so that we have someone in that part but for the invite i was so focused on directing it in a very specific way that was um new for me and for many of us uh in that we were going to shoot this film in order we were shooting it on 35 millimeter we were doing this all on a stage on a set we had built that you know there were there were so many factors that i wanted to make sure i kept an eye on as a responsible director that i it never would have occurred to me to also act in it and then it was the cast that asked me to play that role really based on the fact that But at that point, we had workshopped this material together, and we understood each other and really felt a kind of cohesive flow. It was a clear kind of chemistry. So I asked their permission. Once they asked me to do it, I was like, but wait, do you guys feel like I'll be able to take care of you and be in it? I don't want to drop any balls. I really want to do this right. This means too much to me. And when they kind of said like, no, you can do it. Also, everyone in this movie is a director. I mean, Seth's a director. Edward's a director. Penelope is a filmmaker, and she's so experienced. She knows exactly what she's doing, and she's actually directing a fabulous documentary right now. And so with their enthusiasm, I kind of – I jumped on board as an actor as well, and I'm really happy I did. I think it's – it's my favorite of your performances, and it feels like you really feel – Connected to the character. But that's got to be a very strange thing to be locking in with someone who's really like under duress in the movie. Oh, yes. For the majority of the movie, and also the just general stress of making a movie. Yes. Did it help? Totally. Yes. I think directing a movie that you care deeply about is much like hosting a dinner party that you care deeply about where the stakes are extraordinarily high. So in a way, it made perfect sense. It was very meaningful. It was very meta. It was like I got to use all of my anxiety about the production as a whole and kind of infuse it into this character who really does feel this night determines her self-worth, the future of her marriage. And I think that it was kind of a thrill to be able to allow myself to feel all the stress I was feeling and kind of channel it through this character who was going through something that was not entirely – I think that it was kind of a thrill to be able to allow myself to feel all the stress I was feeling and kind of channel it through this character who was going through something that was not entirely unfamiliar to me. And I was experiencing a ton of like real catharsis in so many ways through the performance itself. I mean, the joy of acting with these incredible actors. I can't even describe it. It is so profound to be able to jump into a scene with someone like Seth Rogen and feel you are almost kind of harmonizing. Yeah. It's so fun. I can't even really describe it. I want to ask you a lot about the filmmaking, which I think is really accomplished and cool. But there is one other thing that I'm thinking about at this stage of my life that I felt was interesting about the movie. When you're in your 40s and you're making new friends or trying to make new friends, which is kind of a weird social situation, especially if you have kids. You find yourself – you're meeting a lot of new people all the time. Yes. And there's this dance of like, well, you're not really my friend. Like I have my real friends from over here. From my 20s or even my 30s. But then you get into a period of time where you're like, should I let this person be a part of this? Completely. I don't know if you can maybe speak to that experience. Totally. Well, I think it is a big part of why it's sort of scary to host new friends in a home that you feel will then reflect who you are, how you've kind of taken on this task of being an adult. Like is this home adult enough? Am I adulting correctly? Like as a kid, you're like, I don't know. This is my house. This is my mom's house. I don't know where to be. This is not my decision. And then in your 20s, you get away with saying like, I don't have a coffee table. I have this box and that will be fine. And then you get older and you start feeling like, are my side tables like grown up enough? Does this feel wrong? Oh, God. What does this table say about me? Oh, my God. This couch says all the wrong things. And we start to really feel that when we bring strangers into our home. And that's why a lot of people don't. I mean we are in this. This culture, very isolated from one another and increasingly so. And Joe and Angela, the characters Seth and I play, are people who never have people over. We don't socialize. We've really, in a pretty sad way, kind of lost touch with our social selves. One of our major gripes at the beginning is we don't have friends. And so it's people who have no friends attempting to make friends in their own home. It's a disaster from jump. And I think that many of us can identify. At least with the anxiety of that process that you nailed. It's very specific to this age. There's something really clever in the movie too about locating common ground like in the rugs. Yes. In the film where you're like, okay, so we have this. Like we can spend 18 minutes discussing this. Oh, my God. This will power us through and maybe it will lead to a new tributary of conversation for us. Yes. So that we can get even more connected. And when one person is more willing to play that social game than the other. Yes. And you think like, just get on board. Just embrace this rug conversation and just participate. Because by stonewalling it, you're making it impossible for this kind of like social lubrication to take hold. For us all to move through this so we can survive this night. You have this great dramatic tension in the movie where your character is really trying to lean into that. And Joe is really. Willfully resisting. Yes. He's a wall and he's got a snide comment. And the editing and pacing of the movie is really interesting because it really needs to be very rat-a-tat. It needs to have, but also needs to have enough space so you can frequently laugh at what Seth is saying. Yes. Like Seth gets a little bit of open space. Can you talk maybe about making sure that the timing and pacing and the performances and the way the movie works played? Absolutely. Yes. I mean, it was, part of it is a result of having shot the film in sequential order, which was by design. It was something I was really excited about. I've never done that before. But the result of that, of course, is that by the time you finish the film, you really have felt the rhythm of the film. As it comes together, not just through making an assembly as you shoot, which we often do, but really experiencing how the energy flows, knowing when it dips, knowing when it's going to need an extra jolt of energy through the editorial process, through music or whatever it is. This project was also new for me because there were no kind of extra bells and whistles that are often used to inject said energy into something. There's no cutting to a different location or, you know, any sort of magical realism or anything. We are a linear story told within one environment. So the rhythm was clear to me in a visceral sense, having directed it and, of course, performed in it so I could feel it in my body. But sitting down and editing the film was about kind of finding the rhythm that would allow the story to feel like a train that's run off the tracks. Because that is what the movie's about. It's a comedy of errors. And I wanted you to feel propelled through it in a sort of out of control. Out of control way, but in, of course, a very controlled way. You're in the hands of a film that is holding you, but I want you to feel that you are unable to predict the next moment and you are delighted by that. And certainly when directing and editing comedy, as you said, specifically someone as brilliant as Seth Rogen and the way he improvises and there's always an option to use another alt from Seth, to use an off-camera interjection. A joke that is kind of barely heard, kind of thrown away, and often those are my favorite jokes. And when to use it or when you've kind of overused them, that was one of the more fun parts of the editing process. It felt like if we were kind of a, not to sound just really pretentious, but if the four actors kind of felt like a jazz quartet and Seth is an instrument that is, you know, you hear it when it's there and it is very powerful and then it's using that kind of wisely and making sure that you do it justice and you allow it to kind of have the effect that he intends it to when he gives so much as a performer. Everyone was firing on all cylinders and then I had the great honor of then sitting there and making sure to calibrate it, but the rhythm felt baked in. I've never experienced something like this where I really felt I just had to. To listen to what the movie was, to kind of ride the wave of the tone, to respond to it rather than to manipulate it. So one thing that jumped out to me the first time that I saw it was where you're putting the camera and how it's perceiving the characters in the frame. It felt like to me it was often at the distance from which the other character was standing. And because the whole movie, you don't realize this at first, but it's about like, are we being seen? Do I feel seen? Do I feel understood? Do I feel like in my marriage or even amongst new friends? Anyone looking at me and understanding who I am. Yes. But, you know, you're making this in a very confined space. I feel like you probably have to diagram the movie pretty intently to make sure you're getting that. Maybe you can talk about how you conceived of it and if you had to change it at all once you started shooting. Yeah, absolutely. So Adam Newport-Berra, our extraordinary cinematographer, one of the first things he said when I presented him with this challenge of how do we make a single environment film feel exciting. And we obviously had all these great examples that we were inspired by. Namely, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which was always my kind of North Star. But we talked about how I wanted it to be very visceral. I always think when you're working on something that was originally a play, when it's an adaptation into film, you really have to justify why make this a film. And I think the reason almost always has to be that you are using the medium of film to bring the audience closer to the emotional experience of the characters. That that's what film can do. You can allow the audience to feel almost telepathic. And. And that informed a lot of our decisions. We use a lot of really bold, very close-ups. And then our wides are really to accentuate the kind of emotional distance between people in a confined space. I love what Adam said, though. Right away, he said, we'll make faces into landscapes. And we'll allow the audience to feel like they've really been somewhere. They've been on this adventure. That had a lot to do with our production design and Jade Healy just crushing it in the design of that set. But the lensing, the framing was all designed to make you feel that you were slowly getting to know these people better, but you would also be kind of allowed to feel how much the other characters were able to— to recognize them. So when Penelope and Edward's characters first enter the apartment, we keep our distance for quite a long time because they are strangers to us, and I want the audience to only get to know them as quickly as we do. They are mysterious and enigmatic creatures. We kind of hold them in high regard, so we often are looking up at them. They are not characters I want the audience to immediately feel that they can align with. So it was a joy to figure out. It was a joy to figure out how to film them within this environment, never being overly prescriptive as a director and telling them how to behave or where to be, but knowing we were choosing our framing and even sometimes, you know, the way we'd move with them. For instance, when they first enter the apartment, the only person who's filmed on Steadicam is Penelope because her character kind of moves in a very different way, and I wanted you to sort of subconsciously feel that she has a different way of— A different way of experiencing this night and that she has some sort of different perspective and you can't quite pin her down. Yeah. So we called it PinaCam because her character's name is Pina. So all of these choices were made knowing that we wanted to have these kind of rules for ourselves as a crew and then let the actors be completely free within that framework. The funny thing was because I was in both worlds, I got to kind of experience that in two very different ways. What is it like when you're directing a movie and your character—there's this great moment when Pina is effectively defending your state of mind. Yes. And what's happening to women at a certain time in their lives. Yes. But you have to watch yourself be very vulnerable and like almost shattered at times as a performer, which is different than when you're working with a filmmaker and they're kind of helping guide you to a performance. Mm-hmm. But you have to look at yourself and know that you're doing the right thing. Like how do you know you're doing right basically? I think you can't ever know it, but you can sense that you—you know when you're being really honest. Mm-hmm. Everyone knows when they're being authentic within a feeling. And all I could do was understand that I was being as honest as I possibly could within a moment and that I had to trust that that would be what would work best within the scene. I also think that in order to earn the other character's reaction to me, I had to commit so completely to being that very vulnerable character because they needed that level of vulnerability to react to. So it almost made it easier for me to perform because it was on behalf of what I needed from them and their characters. So the kind of more broken I was, the more I gave Penelope to react to, for instance. Mm-hmm. It was the first time I've kind of experienced acting in that way. Also, for as long as I've been acting, people have been saying to me, teachers from childhood have been saying to me, acting is just listening. I have never truly understood that until this project, and I'm ashamed that it took me 42 years to understand this. But with a cast this brilliant, I was completely able to understand that all I had to do was be present and react to what they were doing. And immediately that automatically put me into the kind of most— Authentic state of mind. I feel like one consequence of working that way is that sometimes when you're working on a film, especially if you have some sort of like creative control over it, so to speak, is that maybe you realize that what's on the page doesn't necessarily make sense with how things are going. Yes. And so if you're shooting in sequence, like how flexible can you be? And Seth, obviously like a master improviser too. Yes. How did you think about balancing the blueprint versus what you wanted to make? We had this rehearsal period before filming that was one of the non-negotiables, right? It's the first thing people give away in any project. They give away rehearsal like it's meaningless. Puts everyone at a disservice. So we had these two weeks where it was just Rashida Jones and Will McCormick, the cast and myself, sitting at a table, working through the script and understanding the intention of every moment, which allows for improvisation to take place. Because as long as you're aligned on the intention, anything goes. We understood our characters so well based on those sessions of— You know, chewing on the material together, forcing ourselves to justify every decision. It was like a gut check for every moment. And reinventing these moments as we went along, the film really dramatically changed in those two weeks in a very profound way. So by the time we started filming, everyone knew exactly what we were going for. And so I wasn't afraid to allow for that flexibility because I was sure that everyone understood the assignment, that we were all telling the story. I think when that kind of flexibility can become a little dangerous, a little reckless, is if you haven't given everyone the opportunity to align on the goals, which, as we said often, that isn't ever offered to people. So I knew that everyone understood where we were trying to go, and I loved allowing for surprises to take place because the crew understood exactly how we were going to capture the story. And so the actors could make decisions that were spontaneous, and we all felt it was never going to kind of throw us completely off the rails. And we continued to reimagine the script as we went through. I mean, a week before we shot the ending, we did not know the ending. Interesting. Yeah. And not in a way that felt scary. Seth put it beautifully the other day. He said, we knew we would get it. There was never a fear of like, oh, my God, are we going to get this? We had such an understanding of the story we were telling. It was just a matter of how we wanted to tell it. There were several different options. We were very much building the parachute on the way down, so to speak, but we knew we would land. That's just because it has this real bookended feel. Like when you're watching it, it feels very conceived. Everybody loves a bookend. Yeah. Yes. I think we knew the bookend. We knew. I definitely felt strongly that the end frame would be as it is. I don't want to totally give it away, but I knew I wanted that. And it was about how do we want to get there and what do we want that to feel like? It was really this scene that takes place right before then. There's a conversation that takes place. And it was about how will we do that in a way that has become – we've had this tonal shift at that point in the film. We've gone from kind of comedy of errors, broad comedy, a lot of talking, a lot of energy. We've shifted into a different space. How do we do that responsibly so the audience doesn't feel kind of duped, so they feel they're on board? And then how do we bring them out of that? How do we kind of guide them through that into something that feels satisfying? And that took so much collaboration on everyone's part. One of my favorite stories about this movie to tell is that there is a monologue that Edward gives in that third act that was written on his own that he – all he said to us was, I want to tell a story. Can you just put it in the script as Hawk's story? It's a showstopper. Yes. And he said, can I perform it for the first time on film? But he didn't want to be the one on camera. He wanted the camera to be on me when he first did it because he really wanted to get my honest reaction to it. And what a gift. What a thrill. And I knew that because he's Edward and he's one of the most brilliant people to ever work in this business, I adore him. I knew that it would be great. I had no idea how emotional it would make me. I had no idea how necessary that tonal ramp would be for the structure of the film. He brings the audience from one level to another. And then Seth masterfully brings it to a level place with his response also improvised. So – Oh, wow. Yes. Oh, that's – Yeah, that's amazing. Amazing. I hadn't thought of that. Yeah, the consequence of that because the movie turns on that. The movie turns on that. That is like the knuckle. That is it. And they knew exactly how to handle that moment because we all just knew who we were playing. We knew – I remember feeling for the first time like I know how my character would react to absolutely – anything could happen in this movie. Anything could happen at any moment and I know how she would feel. And it felt so complete and that's how everyone felt. And it was a joy as a director to feel that there was no real risk in allowing for that kind of – It was a joy as a director to feel that there was no real risk in allowing for that kind of flexibility and spontaneity. I was delighted by what they were bringing to it and there were so many examples of that. I want to ask you a little bit about the four of you and bringing Edward and Penelope into it because I feel like it – this point in each of your careers you have screen personas like we have an expectation of like what kind of character you play or you know edward is frequently very funny in movies but not often asked to be funny yes same for penelope like she's been in woody allen films but she's seen as like a stormy european actress who works in deep melodrama um totally why them how did you think about kind of maybe playing with some of that expectation of their persona well i think that the funniest people are often the smartest people i think that really great comedians are people who have this ability to understand the scene from several different perspectives and uh actors who have bodies of work like these actors do are clearly intelligent on so many different levels uh in terms of their ability to understand the material to bring real emotional authenticity to it to have the confidence to be patient and to not um i say patient specifically because i think when you're working opposite someone like seth rogan an actor who isn't as as astonishing as edward would attempt to compete with his energy and i think people often even without trying to they often just match the energy of the other person in the scene there it's it's a move that you know it it is it is very common that we just start matching each other's energy and that can come become kind of boring pretty quickly also it's hard to match seth so it becomes watching someone try and fail edward is a completely different tone and a different speed and a different energy and that is what becomes delightful to me is that he he's never uh ramping himself up to be seth and seth is never changing his uh kind of rhythm to to compete with edward it locks together like this harmonizing force that is is only because of their skill set same thing with penelope penelope has the confidence to take the time that feels authentic and real to her character even in a scene with my character who's incredibly chaotic and frenetic and and i um i my dream was to have this cast i did not expect that they would you know that it would fall into place it was really extraordinary that once i started reaching out to people this material really drew them in right away and the pitch of the process which was new for all of us no one had ever shot a film in sequential order uh everyone was intrigued by the idea of approaching this like a little off-broadway play uh i think that they are all at the points in their careers where they do things for the process not the result and the process felt interesting and uh i got to be the beneficiary of that do you see the movie as optimistic or pessimistic optimistic okay i do i i accepted an alternative reading oh 100 it's actually my most my my favorite part of this is discussing the alternative readings of this and i don't i'm not sure if i have it but it's i think it's going to be really curious to see it go out in the world and let people decide oh maybe what the ending means it's interesting because there's a venn diagram and maybe this is spoilery i don't know i think it's fine but so really in every screening so far that i've been present for which has been many which has been part part of the joy of this like taking the film print around different theaters around the country and watching this with audiences has been the greatest gift of all time and after almost every screening i've said can i ask you how you interpreted the end and there is a on the surface kind of positive way to interpret the end and a negative way and it's been split almost 50 50 in every room and what i've been able to do is what i offer my personal take on it is is kind of a combination uh and i if if the question really is do these people stay together or do they break up my take on it is that they break up by they break up but they can see each other again they break up but they can see themselves again and it's this uh a kind of a very i think optimistic way at looking at the most difficult decision in their lives which might be their greatest liberation and we're seeing them at the point where they realize they have agency within their lives but seth has a completely different opinion which was so fun when we were filming it because he thought no these people stay together forever like they are soul mates and i was like well i don't know and and it was so fun to to be able to aim for a slightly ambiguous ending which is of course you know what we all want to do everyone wants to make the graduate and leave people wondering at the end but you can very easily uh do that wrong and allow i've i've you know i've tried i think it was endings before and it can be really hard because if you give them too little they're like what yeah i feel nothing and if you give too much they're like that was obvious i can't believe you thought that was ambiguous so this one was the dream was to have people enjoy the process of unpacking it at the end i'm still doing that oh good good i wanted to hear a little bit about maybe some of the more industry components of this your last movie was a studio movie yes and this was an independently made movie it got picked up out of a festival after you got hugely celebrated at the festival but like i assume it wasn't made in the same way that previous films have been made or the way that you have worked on films as an actor in the past so yeah maybe why was it independent um is that saying anything about like how you want to be able to work or how maybe just material like this fits into the equation these days i think uh this movie could never have been made within the studio system uh i think from everything from what we just discussed with the ending i don't think that would have been allowed in the studio system the score the score was a a choice that i think works really well i'm really proud of what dev heinz created for our movie but i think it was um not a score that a studio would have allowed and what they would have probably wanted to turn into a pretty basic romantic comedy i think um the process itself wouldn't i don't think i i think i would have fought to shoot on 35 but i probably would have been uh turned down it's hard i think studios are so risk averse that every single point in the process that does not feel like a guarantee of success gets immediately kind of raked out and of course those risks are always what lead to the rewards every time audiences can sense when you've risked something for them they can they can sense that you are risking them not liking it and there's a thrill like ah that could have gone very badly and i respect that you risked me hating it is a good feeling we put this together independently um because it was uh you know not the kind of material i think that these days as a studio is grabbing up and saying like this is great this is going to work people want more comedies and theaters people meeting audiences i think studios don't recognize that anymore i think it's starting to change but people have relegated many comedies to the world of streaming they think well if it's a comedy we can see it on tv and certainly doesn't need to be shot on film because film is for um giant epics uh but we all grew up loving comedies that were shot on film and it makes a difference so i think this film had no chance within the studio system and i'm so happy that it was made outside of it um the financing was put together independently through a few different parties and then i'm really happy we didn't sell stick rights until sundance international had been sold off but i wanted to go and earn the distribution of this film through the product itself not the promise not the names i wanted it to be judged based on the result of what we all made it's a huge risk because if you take it to a festival as you well know you take it to a festival it doesn't work then you're boned it's it's it's really tricky so that night at sundance was the most stressful night of all of our lives when you finished editing it and you were like this is locked yeah um did you did in your bones were you like i know this works like i know this is good because you worked on a million projects like you know some not everything works the same the way you want it to work yeah and there's been things i thought would work that didn't so certainly you can't ever be sure i had not shown it to many people in many rooms i mean i'd shown it to like mentors friends advisors you know certainly it was not made in a vacuum but i hadn't shown it to large groups of people so i knew that that would make or break it i knew it was the kind of film that should be experienced in a room with lots of people and uh i felt very confident that it would work but i had no guarantee because there was no real experience to show that we'd the groups we'd shown were not big so i felt confident but definitely not sure i i felt sure that i loved it and that was enough for me to lock it um but but i've loved other things you never know so it is it is the alchemy of the theater experience it's the chemical reaction of audience plus film and uh that's not something that you can predict i wish the studios realized that's not it's not a math equation i agree with you is there any valuable feedback you got from any of those mentors or friends and when you showed it to them so much oh my god thank god for people being honest i we really do have to be honest about each other's work like it helps you it doesn't do anyone any favors when you just hold back on clear um reactions that you're too afraid to give but um One was that we had filmed flashbacks that were meant to appear at the end of the film. There's a point where our characters are telling the story of how we met. And it is in the middle of a sequence that my fear initially was that it would be a sequence that would be such a tonal shift and a momentum shift from the earlier part of the film that the audience might feel impatient. And I, in a naive way, thought I have to, like, keep them interested. I've got to hold their attention. So I'll cut these beautiful flashbacks and that'll hold them in. And Adam shot the most extraordinary scenes that are so beautiful and so sadly will never be seen because once we made the film and I showed smart people, a few of those smart people said, what are you doing? Stick the landing. You made a film that takes place in one space. Don't bail on that by giving us. This reprieve and letting us out into the world. You have to you have to stick it out. You have to be bold and risk people becoming, I don't know, detached, impatient, because maybe maybe that anxiety that I was trying to protect the audience from is actually a necessary part of that emotional moment in the movie. And I think before this experience did not have the confidence to do that. And I certainly didn't. No, that would work until seeing it with audiences. And I'm amazed by the patience audiences have for for silence at the end of a very talky, talky, broad comedy. Yeah, that's so interesting. I never would have guessed that you would have had something like that. Yeah. Planning. OK, a couple more for you. Acting and filmmaking. Does one take precedence at this stage of your career? You you want to make films? Oh, yeah. I mean, there's nothing better than directing. There's nothing better. I. I do value the opportunity to act in other people's films because it's film school. It's always been my proxy film school. And, you know, directors never get to see each other work. We operate in silos. So for me to be able to observe another director and and learn something is is exciting. I really hope I get to keep doing that. But in terms of what I enjoy more and what I consider my job, it's it's directing. You have a certain kind of movie that's an ambition of yours. Oh, yeah. I mean. I love making comedies. I think making comedies feels like it's my offering to the world to allow people to get a little bit of to feel to feel some relief from life. Like, I think there's actually nothing harder than making a good comedy. And it feels like the service that I want to be a part of. But I also love thrillers and I just I love psychological thrillers. And I want to I want to make more of them. I want to I really want to understand. I think it's I think it's similar to comedy. Thrillers are similar because you it is a manipulative genre. You know, it's like I want you to feel this feeling. And it's it's hard because the audience knows the reaction you want from them. So if you fall short of it, they're like, no, I didn't feel scared. Same thing with bad comedy. If you it's very clear that you want them to laugh. Whereas a drama, you can be. Ambiguous about like, I don't know, maybe that wasn't my intention. Maybe I wanted you to feel that. But but a thriller, you're putting your cards on the table. Same with comedy. So I'm interested in that. I want to get better at that. I want to understand it. I grew up loving Hitchcock. And so so that's a real dream of mine is to work more in that space as well. OK, we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen? I know you're you're you're press touring, but have you been have you watched anything you like recently? I mean. Yes. Hold on. Let me just let me just make sure that it's I've seen great things. I really loved Eruption, Pete O's film. Yeah, sure. With Charlie. I loved it. Tell me about. Well, can you explain just a little bit? Yes. So they made this film. So sort of similar to the invite. They made this film linearly. They shot it in an absurdly small amount of days. I want to say it was like. Like nine days. Nine days. It's extraordinary. And. It is an incredibly effective kind of tone poem about about a woman in a relationship who is really struggling to kind of find herself. And it's all about trying to figure out if you are in a relationship that is enough, that makes you feel enough. Or is that part of your problem that you're chasing a kind of heightened emotional experience? It's actually not very healthy, but is that the thing you're looking for? And and specifically, this is a woman who wants love to feel like a volcano and she wants it to feel like an eruption. And is it OK if it doesn't feel that way? And and Pete O's created something that is similar to his other films where it is it is all about the authenticity of the performances. He gathers people, they workshop materials together similar to Swanberg or some of those folks really just extraordinary to to kind of experience something like that. But what I observed in that film was just a sensitivity to their environment that allowed the film to become something unexpected. I also just I love that he he shot it on a Canon 5D with a filmmaker hack that allows for this raw image to feel very filmic. And I I I loved it. I did a Q&A with Pete about this film and I said, if I gave you 100 million dollars to make a movie, what would you do? And he's like, I don't want it. And I was like, what? That's too much money for a movie. We and I was thinking about how much I disagreed because I there's a big part of me that I mean, I just I want to shoot like stunts and crazy shit all day long, but I so admire the authenticity of. Of Pete as a filmmaker. And I just loved it. It would make a nifty double feature with the invite as well. I'd be honored. It's a great recommendation. Olivia, congratulations. Thank you. Thank you for doing the show. What a thrill. Big fan. Thanks to Olivia. Thanks to CR. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on today's episode. Thanks to Lucas Kavanaugh for his production support. We are going to have another episode soon, but I don't know when this episode is airing. So what I'm not going to do is tease the next episode, but we'll see you on an episode soon. Beat the heat. Get your tickets today at Netflix.com slash house. Now at Kroger, your points add up to more ways to save every trip. Use them your way to take dollars off groceries at checkout or save at the pump. You can even save up to $30. You can save up to $35 on your next fill-up. Same points, more choices. And with low prices on fresh, quality food, plus digital and personalized offers tailored to how you shop, your dollar goes further. Redeem your points online or in the app. Kroger. Fresh for everyone. Restrictions apply. See site or store for details.