Hi, everyone, It's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Hello work in progress, smarties. Today I am joined by not one, but two of my favorite funny gals. Today's guests are Tig Nataro and Stephanie Allen. They are incredible comedians. You likely know Tig from being a brilliant stand up She's also an amazing writer, radio contributor, actress, even though you'll hear today why she's not super comfortable wearing the moniker of actor and a wonderful director and producer.
And along with her.
Wife Stephanie, who is a genius improv comedian and a phenomenal writer and director in her own right, she is here to talk about the movie that they co directed, Am I Okay, starring Dakota Johnson. This movie is so funny and so poignant, you guys, not just to me but given the last year of my life, but I think will be to all of you. It follows Lucy
and Jane, who are the best of friends. They finish each other's sentences, they can predict every detail of each other's food order and pretty much know everything about each other. But when Jane gets promoted at work and agrees to move to London for her new position, Lucy finally confesses her deepest, long held secret.
She likes women.
She has for a long time, and she's sort of shocked and sort of terrified by this later in life revelation. The film is actually based on the friendship between writer Lauren Palmerants and producer Jessica Albam, who took their sister Leavon to the screen to showcase the many life defining friendships shared by women, and it felt like the right opportunity for Tig and Stephanie to co direct this movie.
Stephanie directed Tig's most recent stand up special, Hello Again, And today I get to pick their brains about what it's like to work together as a married couple, why the tropes about working with your spouse are just not true for them, how much fun they had making this movie, how amazing Dakota Johnson and all the other actors in it were to work with, and what it was like to be on the journey of getting this film out into the world for five years. It's finally here, it's perfect,
it's on Max, You're gonna love it. And as a bonus, of course, I get to ask these two about their love story. It involves a sweater from Canada, and I think you're really going to enjoy the details. Well, hello ladies. Tig, welcome back to work in progress. Stephanie welcome. I'm so happy to have you both here today.
Happy to be here.
Yeah.
So normally I love to kind of sit with people who are doing really exciting things in their lives and careers and start in a big rewind and ask a little bit about whether or not from this sort of seat you sit in today you see similarities to your current self and your childhood self, Like if you looked back at yourself at eight or nine, were you telling stories, telling jokes or were you a completely different kid? And Stephanie, since it's your first time in the hot seat.
Let's go to you first. I feel like a news anchor.
Yeah, that's funny. I feel like in recent years I feel more connected to how I felt as a kid, which I feel is a very good thing and it's kind of taking me a long route back to that feeling. And I feel like the I feel like as a kid, I really felt, you know, as all kids do, like you know what you love and you know and you're just confident in it, and I feel I do feel like similar to that kid now, especially directing.
Yeah, really yeah?
Is that because you can sort of create a world, and that's something where we do so easily when our children.
I think so.
And it's like you know what you like and you don't think, you just you don't question it.
You just go, oh, I think this looks good.
I like this line, I like this, and you just kind of do it the way you want to do it.
And it feels very childlike to me. It feels very free.
Yeah, it's funny.
The like feeling I get in my chest as you're describing it is it almost feels it feels really pure.
Yeah, totally.
To operate on that level of instinct to always go for the yes and is really free.
Yeah, and you're in the present. So I think it's for directing. For me, I feel more like, oh, I'm not thinking oh is this gonna work? Oh is this gonna be bad?
It's more just like, oh, this is fun. That was good. I like that.
Is a very different feeling from like say, going on stage to do comedy.
Well, I do improv, and so I feel like that is very similar actually because and I love that feeling of God, I don't know what's going to happen and I don't have to prepare, which I enjoy that feeling. Yeah, take doing stand up and it's like, oh, what are you doing tonight? What are you talking about? You know where I can just show up and walk on.
Yeah, Like if you're going to do one of those big Largo shows, for example, you just get to show up and play and then and then you're doing when you're doing a special, which, by the way, steph for our friends at home, Stephanie's directing like you've had to tour that all over the place, right to get the cadence of it and to figure out what the joke order is, and and it's it's so prepared, even though for us watching at home or from the audience, it
it feels like it's just sort of happening, like magic does the Prepper?
Like?
Were you were you a preparer as a kid too? Or is it totally a different thing from who you were as as any whipper snapper?
Yet? Was I a prepare? No?
God, oh my god, what I was like?
No?
I was, you know, disorganized, class clown, failed eighth grade twice, moved up to ninth grade. Failed that dropped out. My apartments were a mess. I just it was not. No. I feel like it's such an example of when you follow who you really are, everything falls into place. And when I started doing stand up, that taught me my passion for stand up taught me life skills that I didn't have before. Because I was so into comedy that
I wanted to get organized. I wanted to have a schedule and make sure I, you know, my work ethic appeared out of nowhere. And yeah, it just I started being able to pay bills and everything just kind of clicked into place. And it's just funny how as a child, being the class clown was looked down upon and the fact that that was parlayed into an actual career that got my life into order is just mind blowing to me. And that all goes back to just figuring out who I was.
Yeah, it's a really interesting thing right when I don't know, there's so much pressure in society to kind of like do the things that look good on paper, to check all the boxes, and like, once you've checked all the boxes, you'll have done it, get to happy.
Maybe it won't be so hard and like nobody's ever really.
Encouraged us to go, Like, maybe stop pushing the rock up the hill and go in the other direction and see what's over there. Yeah, maybe you're supposed to be over there.
Let's see what happens when the rocks.
That might be the place where everything begins, everything that's really for you anyway.
Yeah.
I mean I feel like, especially in like teenage high school years, of like feeling very competitive, feeling very like I needed a's, I wanted to go to a good college. I was in every activity, like every sport, like really in that world that the world tells you to participate in, and then trying to achieve in that world. And when I also dropped out of high school, and when I did, and sort of I felt like I like sidestepped out
of the world. And then all of a sudden, I was having a great time and everything fell really fun and it's like, oh, I didn't.
Have to do that, and it's yeah, but it's I think a lot of people get stuck in that other version.
So did you each know that being an artist would kind of be it for you?
Or did it happen? Did it just happen and surprise.
You I didn't think it was in the cards for me because my stepfather was very regimented and all about education, and I just felt like there was something over on the side I wanted to be doing, whether it was playing guitar or acting foolish. But I just kept thinking, how can I make a living and be around things?
And so I went into I thought the medium would be if I went into music business, because then I could be in entertainment, but I would be having a job, you know, and which I did for a while.
But did you have a desk?
I did.
I had a that's crazy.
I had a desk. I rented a space in my friend's basement of their coffee shop in Denver, and I think I paid them like two hundred dollars a month for the space. And yeah, but as soon as I moved to Los Angeles and I saw all the opportunity for stand up I was like.
This.
I thought it was all over. Everything was all over.
And what about you, Stephanie? When you dropped out? What happened?
Well, I think prior to dropping out, I thought it was like I knew I I thought I wanted to be an actor. I knew I wanted to be an actor, but I still saw the route as sort of through the conventional system of like, oh, I'll go to a school and I'll major in theater and then I'll do like plays, and then I'll maybe graduate and then i'll like audition.
Like I was still.
Following that sort of like schedule and like timeline. And so when I dropped out and sort of removed myself from that, the freedom of going, oh, I can do this however I want. And that's where I found improv and similar to Tig, was like, oh, here are my people, here's you know, my group, and sort of started doing things sort of on my own.
Very random. I still feel like I'm very random in my career.
Do we ever get over that feeling.
Though of it being random?
Yeah? I don't know, Like what we do is so fucking weird.
Yeah.
But every single time I just finished this movie, went to shoot in Utah, which, by the way, was beautiful. I was like, what are we Why are we going anywhere? But this place, like what's happened? There's deer outside. It was amazing, but not the point. And I was talking to one of my coworkers and I was like, yeah, I'm twenty years into this, and every time I get to a set, I'm like, will this be the one where everyone figures out? But I have no idea what I'm doing.
I don't know.
I just show up everywhere and tell everyone I have no clue what I'm doing. Yeah, let's get started, let's figure it out.
And now for our sponsors, how in this lovely journey of being a little clueless as to what our jobs are?
Where? And when did you two meet?
We met on the movie in a World, which is like Fell's film and.
Movie what I love that movie.
Yeah, it's really great, and yeah we were We were in scenes together and kind of met and enjoyed each other, but then didn't reconnect until a year later when the movie went to Sundance.
So you had a date in Utah.
It's a magical place.
That's right.
We had exchanged numbers because, like I had, we when we were making the movie was when everything exploded in a bad way in my life where I had cancer and this intestinal disease and pneumonia, and my mother tripped and died and my girlfriend and I broke up. But once we finished the movie, I had run into Stephanie and uh, I was coming through all of that, and then we exchanged numbers because we were going to Sundance, and we just started texting and ended up just really
really liking each other. And then we had gone. I was writing my book and she was like, Oh, I'm at this bar with some friends. Why didn't you come meet us? And it happened to be Valentine's Day and it was eleven o'clock at night and we hadn't met up in months. We were just texting and I was thinking, Oh my god, I haven't showered. My hair's a mess. And then I was like, oh, she doesn't like women, like who cares what I look like? And so I was like, yeah, I'll come down there and meet up
with you and your friends. And I went, you know, filthy, with my hair going every direction. And I walked in with this like really thick Canadian wool sweater with like an eagle on the back, and and then when I walk in, Stephanie has almost the exact sweater on, but it was dark blue, and I was like, it was so weird. She was so crazy and she's sitting at this table with like eight friends, and I was like,
oh my gosh, how funny. We're in the same sweater, and I said, let's switch sweaters and h and when we did her her friend was like, oh, I'll get a picture of you two in your switch sweaters. And we went to put our arms around each other and we immediately started kissing in front of everybody at the bar and at the table. Yeah. And I was like, what is happening?
And and then I said no, I had never kissed a woman before ever.
No, And so I was like, well, this is fun. I said, do you want to go?
I should say it very out of character for both of us.
It wasn't like we weren't the We're not those types of people to make out in a bar in any way. And there it wasn't like alcohol induced. It was like the weirdest thing of just like putting your arm around someone and going like, oh, this is very comp this feels very normal.
Yeah, your bodies took over.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And our texting that led up to that for months was not flirtatious. It was just all, you know, jokes and making each other laugh. And then I was like, do you want to make out in my car? Like I was just like, whoa, because I already thought I had a crush on her, and she was like sure, and so we go to my car, we make out, and then the next day I get like a fifty thousand page email from her saying that was really fun. I'm not gay, I like you so much, I love
hanging out with you, but can we be friends? And I was reading it going, oh gosh, And then I just wrote back, okay, dyke, just like lighthearted, because I thought I can't like force this person to like me, so I was that's all. I just thought it'd be funny to write back something very short and casual and and well we've been together ever since.
Yeah, and I got that, and it's like, oh no, I like her.
Oh my goodness, yeah, oh my goodness, you guys.
I love it. Wow God.
First of all, I own one of those sweaters maybe all maybe all Canadians do. I'm like, I know exactly the sweater you're talking about. Mine is also brown.
Mine is white, Stephanie's is blue.
Oh mine is that like sort of maybe it's more of a grayish like brown gray.
And the and the bird is white.
Oh okay, all right, well we can all hang out and listen.
Oh wait, is this does the movie that you've now directed together, does it feel especially familiar for you then, Stephanie, because.
In am I Okay?
You know, we followed Dakota Johnson as a woman who's thirty two realizing that she's gay and wondering how she couldn't have known this about herself, And.
Yeah, I don't know. I'm just like, hold the phone.
There's a whole group of us that clearly needs to be having this conversation.
Yeah.
And I think that's the thing is like I similar to Laurene palm Rance wrote the script, and similar to Lucy Dakota Johnson's character and myself, It's like, we weren't the people that were like, I know, I'm gay. I got to come out. I got to tell people. When am I going to tell people? Or there wasn't shame.
Around Oh I'm gay?
You know?
It was more like am I gay?
Like it's it wasn't. I really didn't know. I one hundred percent didn't know. And I and over the years from being with TIGS, I can look back and go, oh, I wasn't. I wasn't connecting with men, I wasn't falling in love with men. I was I liked them.
I thought they were cute, I thought they were cool.
I would gravitated towards the ones I liked probably the most as friends and thought we're cute pretty much. And then but in that part of myself, it's like, oh, I bet there are so many women at many ages that they don't they're not really in love with the person there with and they felt they they and they're not going, oh, it's because I'm gay.
Well, I think there's so much too in the in the narrative. This is something I've spent last year really talking to a lot of friends about. Like you hear these tropes right, like marriage is hard, relatedationships take work, you have to settle down. And I think there's there's this sort of assumption. I don't think we realize how
deep heteronormativity runs. Like we know the stats. I guess I'm like, how many people you know identify as fill in the blank, you know, straight, gay, by queer, whatever, But like, I think so many women are like, well,
I'm settling a little bit. Everyone says everything's hard, all my friends hate their husbands all and you sort of go like, oh, and then maybe that's not it, Like Right after my last breakup, one of my best friends looked at me and was like, I gotta say, like that was just painful to watch, and I'm so glad you're getting out of it. But like I don't just think like he was not the right person for you, but also like I don't actually think you like men.
And there was sort of this aha moment where I was like, oh, maybe the drama when like I fell in love with this beautiful French exchange student when I was sixteen, Like wasn't about her being a girl, it was like that she lived in France, and my parents were like, this feels irrational and really like a setup for heartbreak for you you're sixteen. And like maybe when I was twenty five and some friends who I think met
well but who were like, you've mostly dated men. You can't say you're by And then I was like, oh my god, Like the queer community has been like my home and is the home of my whole family since I was old enough to understand that, like Uncle Tony had a boyfriend and not a girlfriend, Like I would never want to hurt the people I care the most about, right, who've been like in this fight for liberation for so long, I'm going to get out of the way.
And then it was like, well, maybe I don't have to like get out of the way.
Maybe I just get to like who I like, Yeah, what a revolutionary idea. And Dakota's in the movie being like I'm thirty two, shouldn't I know this by now?
And I was like try being forty one?
Hello, Yeah, Like I get it, And I just I'm so excited you've made this movie because no matter what it is you're looking for, I think there's real power in expanding your purview of what might make you happy. Yeah, And it is so special to like watch somebody sure have to come to terms with their identity, but like, I don't want every queer story to have to be
about suffering, because they're not. There's so much joy and beauty and all of the things, and like your love story is so beautiful and like I die for do you want to go make out of my car?
And like, I don't know, I want more of that on screen.
And I feel like I feel like sitting and watching this movie that you two made, I was like.
I've been waiting for this movie. I love this movie.
Tig was it was it like an interesting thing because obviously, well for folks at home, I should hope you've seen it, but if you haven't, get your shit together. Stephanie directed Tig's most recent special, So you've been directed by your wife. Was it an interesting thing for the two of you
to go to work and direct together. Do you feel like, because of your relationship and the fact that you're both phenomenal comedians, it gave you this amazing shorthand or did you go to work some days and be like this is so weird, Like normally we're talking about workover coffee and now we're on set telling people what to do.
No, it feels so natural. Stephanie and I I feel like we just flow in and out of work and marriage and kids and everything. We I don't feel like we're career focused couple where that's like the leading vibe in our house, because I feel like we are very much a family and a couple with children. But we have act we met on in a world. We've acted together, we've produced, we've written, created, we've done everything together, and we have such a similar senseility and we make each
other laugh so deeply. I mean, we make each other laugh so hard, and and I feel and I always explain it, like we do have that similar sensibility and then we have slightly different ideas and thoughts and feelings about whatever, and those differences I think elevate our projects perfectly. I mean, whether people are into them or not, we walk away going yeah, that feels right. And we love
being on set together. And uh, even when we're doing separate projects, inevitably one of us texts saying I wish you were here, like I wish you were on set with me today. Yeah, and that's true. And also just like we have hard days at home as a married couple and as parents or just people in the world, we have hard days on sets, but I feel like it's very few and far between, and we can we can get through that, just like we get through our days that are rough at home.
Well, it's really interesting because like that sort of hard that you're talking about, I think it's such an aha when you realize that, like there's constructive hard and then there's like torture hard and constructive heart is pretty cool
because you're building something together. And like the whole time you were answering that question, the image that kept coming to my mind, was like the way bees build a beehive and the honeycomb, and like the group project that requires flow, like you're talking about, and when you have flow as an artist, I think it can make you
feel so creative and so free. And if you manage to create flow in a family with you two as a unit and with your children, and like you're you're building something that's greater than the summer of its parts. And how totally cool you get to do that together.
I feel lucky. But what if we threw it to Stephanie now and she's like, it's a living.
What they talk about.
She's like, well, it's really interesting.
She gets very she's a nightmare.
One nightmare.
Get this woman her order from craft service quickly.
Yeah.
I think Tick and I have that in common truly across the board, and we I think other people pointed out to us, and then that's how we kind of were like, oh, yeah, we really don't think about that or care about that, or we were not worried about that. That's sort of like grasping energy. I don't think either of us have.
That's really cool, like a desperate panic anything. I think it's unnerving to some people that were like we're going to whatever. Yeah, we're gonna do our best. We hope this works out. We hope this comes out. We hope this and that and if not, onto the next thing. You know, I don't feel like we both have that clinging to things in a panic. It has to happen like this. It's like you have to remain fluid, I mean through all of it.
Yeah, I mean, this, this circus we all work in is so bizarre. You kind of have to hold everything with an open hand. Otherwise you're like punching yourself in the face with a closed fit.
You know.
I know I always tell people what I remember. Well, I don't have to go into the example, but just I always think about everybody's trying to get in the front door. Everybody is in a long line just trying to get in that front door. And it's like okay, well or see if there's a back door, or maybe go see if you can open the window or wait. Yeah, but whatever it is, it's like, people get in this like we got to do this, we got it. This is the way to go, this is how we have
to do it. And it's like eh, or yeah, head home. This other thing another day, or yeah, see if a window opens.
I feel like you have excellent blood pressure. It's just nice. Yeah, your doctor must be like, well done.
No, my doctor is like, are you alive? Yeah? My blood pressure runs so low, which got me into many, many terrible medical situations. Oh, dear, but I think I'm but yes, you're alive. I'm alive. I'm alive.
Thankfully you are here.
And now a word from our sponsors that I really enjoy and I think you will too.
Was it an interesting thing? Because I read a little bit.
About how, you know, the the merger with like the studio was happening, and you'd made this movie, and was it gonna come out?
Was it not?
We've got all these weird people who don't seem to care about movies, who run movies tod now, who like throw movies away for tax write offs, which is crushing for us artistic humans. And now here it is like it's it's coming, It's arrived. It's wonderful. How long, because I do think people at home don't know how long this stuff takes, Like, how long did it take from beginning to do this to finally it's June twenty twenty four, and this movie's coming out on HBO.
Max.
I think we signed on to the project in twenty nineteen, oh my gosh, and then we were about to start shooting right before the pandemic. And then we were one of the first projects up and running in twenty twenty one where we were like in masks and shields and you know, before the vaccine and then and then it went to Sundance, and then it was two years after it went to Sundance in twenty twenty two, and so now it's been two years since then.
I know, I'm saying this definitely much. I think about when you see award shows and somebody's accepting an award and they're like, I just want to thank this person for believing in the film. This took us ten years to get here involved, and I would sit at home thinking, why did it take them ten years? You're doing yeah, and you don't understand that it's a game of Djenga.
You get an actor and then it falls apart and their schedule of moves, and then you lose a tax credit, and then you have to go from La to New Jersey. There's just a million different things they're financing falls through and it's just an ongoing game of djengo.
It really really is.
It's like it reminds me of that Carnival game where like the guy has all those solo cups and one of them has a ball on it and you're just trying to figure out where the ball's going.
Yeah, it's totally manic.
And people would always like ask us, like when's am I okay coming out? Where's am I okay? And it's like we don't let us know. Yeah, we have no clue.
But also why isn't it called am I okay.
Or am i gay?
Is it too late?
Like the cover artists just turn it around for you.
Or it's the eye when it comes out in Ireland it can be am I okay, okay? Apologies, you know.
And then oh and then the bottom of the question mark is a teeny diny little four leaf clover. That's right, that's correct, It's I love it, is it? I have a question for you too, because this is something I find sort of fascinating. And Stephanie, I don't know if you experienced this, but like I watched Jane ask Lucy in the movie, like you really didn't have any thoughts about this or like how long have you felt this way?
You didn't have any sort of inkling And they have such great chemistry, like they're such beautiful intimacy and their friendship, and I think the notion of platonic chemistry can confuse some people. And I definitely had a moment where I was like, I guess maybe I thought the pool of like women that I liked versus like your earlier point men,
was just smaller. And I was like, I don't mean this to sound insane, but like, look at all my friends, Like they're hot, they're brilliant, like they're so amazing, and I've never wanted to like sleep with any of them. And then one of my guy friends was like, well, yeah, but straight guys always try to sleep with all their female friends, so like is that maybe why you think that?
And I was like, huh, that's really right.
It's really super interesting because I do think like when you have your best friends as a woman, like you
love each other. Like I am in platonic love with my best friends for sure, Yeah, but like it's such a different situation and like knowing that you know a lot of straight dudes run studios, I'm like, did someone never try to pitch to you that Lucy would admit that she was in love with Jane, Like did you have to fight that battle to be like, no, that is her best friend, that is not the person she's interested in, or or did people get it and leave the story.
B I think people got that, Okay.
Goods Well.
I do feel like there were early conversations of wanting to define it. I don't think anybody was like forcing an agenda, but I think there were a lot of conversations of like, well, what are are they falling in love with each other?
Are they not? If they're not, then they're not.
And I think we always were like it doesn't matter, they're friends, Like I.
Don't even remember that. I'm embarrassed.
It's very open hand, yes, but.
I think even that is like, no, they are best friends, and that we don't want to like put a scene in that's going like see they're definitely friends, or a scene where it's like, oh they might be you know, It's like it is what you're saying, they're friends, and there's a lot of intimacy and we I think girls do that they like have they sleep in the same bed, very platonically and it's there's never it never crosses their mind and they can be really physically close and that's
that's like a joy. And so that's what I mean, that's what their friendship is in the movie.
Yeah.
Yeah, I feel like it's such a special thing to show people what healthy intimacy looks like in every form between friends, between lovers. Like it's it's really really just refreshing.
I feel like I know all of these people, uh huh.
Yeah, And it's also nice to see a movie about women in their thirties who don't have everything figured out.
Yeah, Like I love that you've.
Created something in that space between like the teen TV shows so many of us grew up doing and then like playing the mom on the teen TV show, which is fun, but right, like, there's this whole juicy section of our lives that.
I don't feel like we get as much content about, yeah, and where people feel confused and they are in a gray zone and they also feel really young and this sort of like idea to advance that or you know, like I don't know, I think we were both really drawn to that part of it, that it was someone in their thirties.
And maybe not everybody has their dream job yet or maybe not. Everybody is in the right relationship and is going through the moment where they have to start over it all. It all felt really really Yeah, refreshing is the word that I keep kind of coming back to.
That's so nice.
Yeah, something that we just screened it at NewFest in New York and something that came up during that, which I also feel like is an important piece of it. It's just that it's like, in terms of the friendship, it's like, this is her best friend who she tells everything to, and she has to come out to her too,
you know, and that's like just as hard. And I feel like, aside from whether it be sexuality, when you want to change something in your life, whether it's career, a relationship, the way you dress, your house, color, the color palette you like, and anything but those things, I feel like people in your life, whether it's family members, friends, they often sometimes don't want you to change, and there's this pressure to be like, well, that's not you. What are you wearing that's not you?
Oh?
You like that now?
And there's this sort of attitude of like how dare you change? And so I think it keeps people like in these decisions that they made really young and there, and it just.
Go, oh, that's me.
That's how I dress, that's what I like, that's what I do. Yeah, the career I chose, and so I have to. And I think the beauty of this is that you're like, if you don't like it anymore, that's what humans do. We evolve, we change, and you should and the people around you should go cool.
What are you into now?
Yeah?
And that was the relation. The friendship needed to evolve in that way.
Yeah. Yeah.
To be loved by people who want you to know yourself better and better, yeah, I think is the greatest gift. And and it's a really interesting thing. This theme has come up so much lately. I like, I literally have goosebumps. I'm wearing pants, so I can't demonstrate, but I.
I'm like kicking a leg.
But it's a friend of mine said to me recently. Anybody who rejects a happier or more evolved version of you never really wanted you to be happy in the first place.
They liked you being small.
Wow.
And it's like, so to have somebody who will look at you and say, like, anything that makes you more fulfilled happier, any any change you go through that has you sleeping better, like I'm here for it, and that I think is really really important to show people as well.
Yeah, and it's cool to be in that curiosity. It's cool to go God like, I'm being drawn to this for some reason and yeah, oh, I wonder why this is speaking to me right now. And to just have your friends going like, huh.
That's interesting, you know, yeah, yeah, and talking about it making a movie like this, especially when you know you get pandemic delayed and as you said, Tig like the Jenga pieces are moving around so much.
Did the delays give you, guys, you know, as directors with your writers, because I know Lauren wrote it, but it's based on her real life friendship right with her
best friend Jessica, who's a producer. Did that give the four of you and then Dakota opportunities to just sit and do versions of this, to like and talk about relationships, you know, over meals while you were waiting or were you like, Okay, well, while this is delayed, we'll all go do these other projects and like, hopefully remember the details of this when we come back.
I think we were really ready to go and then and we had I think we had yes. I think the first part we had tons of time to discuss everything and to really have time with Lauren, have time with da Code, have time with all the cast. And then once it was like into COVID and it was shutting down, I.
Think everybody was scared.
Like I think the cod the reality of COVID was a very different vibe.
Would you feel that way through?
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
How did you guys manage to navigate that because coming back to work in twenty twenty one, as you mentioned, you know, for our friends at home, it was a very scary time. You know, the testing protocols on sets were really rigorous. There were departments that were never allowed
to interact with each other. You know, sets are sort of like being in the circus, like everybody's working on this crazy project and performance together, and suddenly, during the pandemic, the height of it, the experience was very bifurcated among all the departments. So were there changes you had to make, were there people you had to take, you know, out of scenes, or were you sort of able to work around most of what was on the page and keep it feeling the same on screen.
I mean, I feel like I can't remember specifics, but I do feel like things had to shift because of COVID, And I'm trying to think of what that was exactly, don't you feel. Yeah, we had casts.
That we lost that we had to shift because you could only kind of be on one if you were shooting in another city, and you couldn't you couldn't go back and forth with the different sets.
Yeah, you couldn't. Even even if you were in LA you couldn't work on right.
Yeah, So we did recast for people that had conflicts with other things. And then it's also just a weird way to go about filmmaking because that you're in like little pods of who you're you can talk to, you know. So there's like the crew and then there's like the writer, director, producers, and then the actors, and so we did we had to communicate a lot through like our assistant director who was you know, with the actors and giving notes over
you know, speaker, which feels not ideal. So that the sort of like that thing that's so great on set of everybody kind of being really together and intimate, we lost that. And I think that's what's such a massive testament to Sonoya and to because they were able to really.
Convey that in.
A situation where they were like separated and masked, you know, until they were shooting.
Yeah, they did such a phenomenal job. Yeah, it's so fun to watch it in front of a live audience here in New York a couple of nights ago. It was explosive, Like the laughter and the tears and the energy was so so much filling the room. It was really exciting to all these years later land in that theater and get that response, especially when it seemed like the movie went away. Yeah, and so it was. It was. It was a nice, a nice evening, to say the least.
I'm so glad you guys got to have that. Yeah, and now a word from our wonderful sponsors.
One of the things I enjoyed so much, And it's interesting to think about you guys having to do this again at the you know, sort of height of masking and and all of that strange separation on set.
Like one of the things I.
Really love that you did so much of in this movie is you let their looks and reactions to each other communicate a lot, not just the dialogue. And one of the things I've found historically, you know, on some of the TV that I've worked on, which you know, I love a show because you get to week after.
Week discover someone.
But when you have to fit into that you know, perfect timing so they can stick the commercials where they want to, you lose a lot of that air. You lose like looks before someone says something or whatever because they're trying to get.
It for time.
And I always am really taken aback in a good way when I get to watch people have the air to see each other and get all their little visual reactions in around the words that they're speaking. And I thought the chemistry between them in their looks and their physical comedy and responses to each other was so excellent. And it's wild to think that they managed to do all of that and communicate all of that when they had to mostly be separated when the cameras weren't rolling.
Yes, absolutely, And.
Then that is so nice to hear because I feel like that.
I just I love actors so much, and I feel like when movies used to take their time and just the pacing was really slow, it was like it's like so beautiful to get to watch actors for like those longer spaces, and not that this movie is long in any way, but it's just that was certainly a goal.
It's so nice to hear.
It definitely doesn't feel long. It just feels like it's breathing. Yeah, Like I don't feel like I'm watching people live life.
On one point five X.
It's very, very lovely to be in the world that you made. And just as an you know, native Angelina, I also was thrilled to see the one zero one cafe in scenes.
I was like, oh, it's.
Home, which actually, by the way, that was a benefit of COVID. It's all of those places we shot at we could not do. We couldn't we didn't have the budget for that, and they couldn't close those down and for permits or whatever. And then when we shot during COVID, everyone was like, please come in here, you know, he's with shut everything was closed, so we like got to really shoot in those types of places.
That's so cool and it's interesting. Like when you say I love actors so much, I do too. I just I love I love everyone in our funny little family who shows up and is like, hey, let me be as vulnerable as possible all of these strangers and equipment and.
See how it goes and like and then take.
I find it's so funny because you'll talk about how you're like, I don't identify as an actor like I did a spittake when you recently were like, could you imagine if they cut to me like at the saga words?
And I was like, Oh, I'm an actor.
Stoup, Like what why do you think that that feels weird for you? Because you are like a comedian, an actor, a director or producer, a writer, like you're very good at this.
Why do you think that term feels so like?
Oh, well, I just I mean I very much am a stand up comedian that stumbled into this because my friends had TV shows, and Zach Galafanakis was the first person that hired me to act on his TV series that he had years ago, and it just kind of kept happening, and I kept thinking like, oh, this is a weird little thing I'm going to do for a few episodes and then I'll be back to stand up. And of course I did always go back to stand up, but then the acting kept happening, and I think I
just feel like an impostor. It's like, I'm on the season three of the Morning Show and my childhood friend, who I've known since I was five, she calls me leaves a message saying, Okay, so I'm sitting here watching you in a scene with John Hamm and Jennifer Aniston, and I'm just thinking to myself, how the hell did this happen? You know, it's nobody. When I was growing up, I was never like, oh my god, I want to
be an actor. But I think I just identify as a comedian and I get acting gigs sometimes and I appreciate them tremendously, and I have so Stephanie makes fun of me because I have so much fun acting, not necessarily acting, but hanging out with people on set, you know where. She'll call and she's like, oh, are you making are you making new friends? And I'm like yeah.
The people that take like they stay in character, they listen to music, They're like very into the scene they're doing, they know where, you know, all of that stuff. Tig is like at having snacks, going.
Like, oh where are you from?
Yeah, I'm just like, uh, like a little social butterfly on set, just wanting to hang out and chat and get to know everyone. And so when people ask if I enjoy acting, I say I do, but it's really it's the people that I'm connecting with on set that that's making it enjoyable.
You share the one thing you often do on set that you yell out? Which one the one that I the one that you will yell out to like a director in between takes.
I don't know if this will come across I just like, because I don't avoid, because I love it, because I this is of course, after I've kind of established myself and relationships on set and people understand my personality for the most part, one of my favorite things is just to randomly yell out I'm bored, are like, what is that?
Is that?
During setup time or like mid take?
Yeah, just any time great, you know. But also when a director is coming towards me with a note, oftentimes I would say ninety five percent of the time I stop them and I say, before you say anything, just know that I have no range. Okay, what what were you going to say? But everything I do, it's I always say, it's Tig in a police uniform, Tig in space. Tig you know, is the fix It guy on the Morning show, and it's just, you know, I I but
I do. I enjoy it. I just feel like an impostor saying I'm an actor.
Well, I think you're doing pretty well at it.
Well, thank you.
I hate to break it to you.
You're an actor.
You're an actor.
I'm a comedian taking on actor jobs.
You're a multi hyphenet.
Is that I guess?
So?
Yeah, when you it could be upcoming projects. It could be I don't know, making a model of the universe with the kids for a science fair. I have no idea. But what when you look ahead at your summer and through the rest of the year, feels like you're work in progress. Now, now that the movie's coming out.
I feel like I feel like just across the board. What is always a work in progress for me is maintaining everything I have. You know, I always talk to Stephanie about I'm not in what I'm doing to take over the world or Hollywood or anything like that. I want to maintain my marriage, my family life, my connection with my children and my friends. And I want to
keep working. I want to stay on my health. I want to I just I that's really an ongoing work in progress for me, and I think that's every year, every summer, everything for me.
Yeah, I also like want to have what we have, keep having what we're having. But I feel like for me right now, it's really keeping my brain and body in like a space of openness and creativity because I can feel the world sometimes the world where you're like, oh, I got to do all these things and you're you're just not in flow.
And for me, I.
Feel like the more I can stay in that space, the better I feel.
Yeah, Yeah, keep the flow going.
Yeah, I like that a lot.
Yeah, And I would be remiss not before I let you both go to talk about your podcast take because clearly we're on a podcast, and I will say our work in progress audience is both smart and funny, and Handsome really feels like a zone for smart, funny people. So can you tell our little whip smart audience a little bit about what you and Fortune themest are and May Martin do together.
Well, it's pretty much just NonStop ridiculousness. It is our weekly podcast, Handsome. We get questions from our guests and we just chit chat about it and it's it's Yeah, We've gotten a really great response from our listeners in the world around us. So it's really fun. And if anybody's curious to hear some nonsense, check out the Handsome podcast.
I would call it wise nonsense.
And I would also like to say I don't host your podcast, but I am a fan and I get a great response because I wear the little cowboy hat every time I fly.
Well, yeah, I think is adorable and I.
Love to flyind a baseball cap and the number of people in the airport who stop me to be like, I really like your hat, and I'm like, hey, have you heard of this podcast? And people will be like, is it yours? And I'm like, no, I actually have a different podcast, but my friends do this one and they're hilarious, and so you should subscribe to both.
That's amazing.
You've made me very popular at LAX.
Oh good. Well, it's my pleasure.
So thank you for the show and the merch.
Yes. Yeah, thanks for getting the hat.
Yeah, and thank you both so much for joining me today. Thank you for making am I okay. It's so much fun and congrats, thank you thanks for having me