8. Language Lessons and Plan B with Natalie Morales

So you convinced these Zulu people.

Yeah, I convinced the Whola people and now and then we're going to make a movie.

And then they're like, oh yeah, IRUs.

We were like fully prepping. Our shoot date was like March fifteenth, twenty twenty. We were ready to go, and yeah, we got shut down, which was very depressing for me, but like, also.

You know where we going to survive? What was going to happen, the.

Whole world was.

It was very crazy.

And then sometime in June we got totally shut down. And so in May Mark was like, what are you doing.

I was like, I don't know, sitting in my house, what are eating? And He's like, I had this germ of an idea. What do you think of it.

He's like, I've been taking Spanish classes online and I thought maybe we could make a movie about that. And I was like okay, And so we wrote it. We didn't know what it was going to be, but we were like, let's figure this out and we shot it in four afternoons in.

Like one night.

The whole film.

The whole film, Yeah, I know.

Welcome to more than a movie, a podcast that gives you a behind the scenes look at your favorite movies. I'm your host, Alex Fumeroro. Last season we did a deep dive on American met This season, I'll focus on a different movie. Each episode, feature interviews with the biggest actors, directors, writers, and producers behind them, and tap into the history of Latinos in film. It's twenty twenty one and the world

I've heard, a lot easier to work with.

I asked her here today to talk about those two movies, language lessons and Plan B and how the fuck she managed to make two movies in one year.

Hi.

Hi, I'm Natalie.

Hi, Hi Natalie, what's up? You and I have some things in common?

We do?

You are from Miami. Yes, I'm also from Miami. Where did you grow up in Miami?

Westchester? That's how I say.

I spent a lot of although, like, listen, whoever is updating Miami?

Not Miami?

Be my Wikipedia, which I don't know who it is and I don't know how to do it, says Kendall. And so everyone thinks I'm from Kendall and I'm not from Kendall.

So you're growing up in Westchester?

Was it like, from a little girl you wanted to be an actress?

Oh?

No, No, I didn't know even that I could, right.

I mean, I think there was always a performance aspect to me. I used to do magic for my family, used to make them sit and watch me do magic. And I remember begging my mom. I saw like something for an audition for some kids show. I don't know if it was a live show at play, I don't know what it was, but I saw a poster somewhere that said like kids show auditions whatever, and I begged my mom to take me. And then my mom's not a show mom. She was like, okay, it's at this time,

I didn't know. I had no idea that. I just was like, I'm here, what do you want me to do? I'm funny with my family.

And they were like, okay, you don't have anything prepared, and they told me some Spanish song that I didn't know, and then they were like, okay, why don't you just sing I will love Youse Love.

You by Whitney Houston.

And I was like, oh, just that okay, And of course I didn't remember it and botched it.

I was like seven, I'm not a singer.

And they were like okay, thanks, And I remember that being like, I guess I'm not a performer. I guess that's not for me. But that was like the extent of it when I was a kid.

Yeah, what a way to like almost ruin your entire life. Yeah yeah, I just set the bar super well. Yeah, yeah exactly.

And then so I read that you eventually go to a high school that has like a performing arts program or just I went to Southwest Southwest Okay, yeah, what school did you go to? I went to Ransom Everything. Yes you did, yes, yeah, yeah.

We all wore ascots.

So you went to Southwest But like you did productions there?

Yeah, they did. They.

I was never cast in anything. I mean that's not true. Not for a while, not for a long time. I had to beg to be cast in things. I was never cast in anything at FYU when I was at FIU Theater ever, So.

Like, do you have formal training or are you just one of those horribly obnoxious people with innate talent training?

And what film? It's going to be the latter, But filmmaking, No, I don't acting.

I feel like you could just be talented. But like filmmaking, there's like a lot of elements to that. Ye that are technical. Yeah, so how do you When do you start to learn those elements?

It was really just being on set as an actor and just paying attention and watching and honestly reading books and being a really big Buster Keaton fan and learning a lot about the history of film. And yeah, I just like for so long was like always asking questions on every department of why they did things and what they did things. And there's still a lot I don't know, and I'm like, I need to know that. There's things that I'm like, yeah, you got that. I'm focusing on

Well.

I mean clearly not thank you, thank you, But people will make you feel that way. People will make you feel that way, especially if you're a woman, especially if you're young, especially if you didn't go to film school. And I really think that like good directing, it doesn't mean that you know every single lens and exactly what it looks like without looking through you know what I mean. Like, it doesn't mean that it's a lot more to it, but it's a craft.

And it sounds like you learned not only by doing, but also by just being on set and being curious. Talk to me about those early I mean, you were on some pretty cool shows fairly early on, right eventually, I mean like Parks and rec you know, but there's like The Grinder, Santa Clarita, diet films like Wall Street, Money, Never Sleep, Yeah please, So you're on these sets with

Flag that Bravado.

I will say that Bravado has gotten me a lot in my life. But I really did have like a why not?

Why not me?

And then I really did fake it till I made it. I guess I lied up and down on my resume. Any anything I could exaggerate on my resume I did.

I was like, I just need to get.

In the door. I just need to get in the door. Once I'm there, I can do the thing. But if anything's going to prevent me from getting in that door, that I could change that, No one's gonna double check why not do it?

Sure?

I can parachute, Sure I can I skate, Sure?

Why not? I never got those jobs?

But I think everyone does that on the resume. But yeah, my best friend Serena and I moved out here. She's still my writing partner and my performing partner, and you know, my life partner and anyways, but we moved out here together and I had this really absurd sense of confidence where I was like, Okay, we get out there, within a month, we'll have agents, and then another month we'll

You're gonna do.

This coming up.

Natalie Morales tells us how Bravado took her from selling mattresses on Craigslist to starring in her own TV show on NBC. One thing Bravado can't do, though, is get rid of commercials.

Nope, we'll be.

Putting those in these podcasts until mister iHeart says I've paid him back for that thing I owe him.

Until then, We'll be right back. Welcome back.

We're talking with Natalie Morales about her start in Hollywood and how she landed her first leading role on a show created by Mike Shure, the same guy who did The Office, Parks and rec.

And The Good Place so yeah, I mean I did have lots of weird jobs for a long time. I was a bartender and a waiter and sold mattresses on Craigslist, and I took headshots of people like I just I.

Was like, hustled.

Yeah, I hustled. I hustled a lot. And then yeah, I just did commercials and.

I got my first guest star spot, and then I got this show called The Middleman, which was a huge break for me, and also was a thing where I was like, this is mine. Like I saw that come in and I was like, this is mine, and I was like, there's no way I'm not getting this.

And I felt that way about a few roles.

I felt that way about Abby's too, where I was like, obviously a role named Abby was not written for a Latina woman or me. No, but I was like, that is mine. That is a new mic Sure show. I am taking this, I am auditioning for this. This is mine.

It's interesting you say that.

I mean, well, first I really want to talk about Abby, so I also want to talk about roles that are quote unquote meant for you. Right, You've talked in interviews about having to having a feeling of having to like

Well, yeah, if you could.

You had definitely something I discovered, and I know exactly what you're talking about. That's definitely something I realized about myself. Honestly, in twenty twenty, I had this huge realization that I had been unconsciously or consciously sort of like code switching and making myself palatable and honestly, to be kinder to myself.

It was the only way to get a job.

Even though, like I knew that there were people from my community who are funnier than me, who are more brilliant than I am. But I would look at them and I'd go, you're dumb because you're not doing what they want you to do and you're not going to

For sure?

Did I wear the color red ever to an audition for the first like twelve years of me being here? No, because I thought I looked to Latina, no hoop earings, no red, specifically because I didn't want to get type cast and I don't fit into the types that Latinas were cast in. I was like, Okay, how can I

And I was like, I want to be the girl in this.

I want to be whatever I can do in this, and to do that, I have to know what they want, and what they want isn't authentically me. But I'm an actor, so I'm gonna do it. Anyway, because I know what

Yes, I am wearing red right now, and I'm wearing hoop peers.

And I'm not afraid to be you know, quote unquote to Latina because that's not a thing for me or for anybody. And I want to sort of trojan horse that into Hollywood and into the roles that I've had. I've like snuck in here and been like in all these mainstream comedies as the you know, hap to be Latina actor.

Right, So that's kind.

Of what I want to talk about, is like in that trojan horsing you find your way in how then do you go?

Okay?

We wrote this role Abby for someone who was not like me. I would like this to be more like me. How does that work?

Yeah?

I mean luckily.

The people that I worked with on that show were awesome and Josh Melmouthen and Mike sure like, we're so responsive to making this character real. For example, there's an episode where where they find Abby's male and they realize what her real name is, because again, Abi Gail is not a.

Name you would really hear, but if you did. For Cubans, that's how it would be pronounced, which is awful.

So they had written this storyline about her dad and her having a fraught relationship with her dad, and I was like, I love the idea that he named her after himself, and he has arguably one of the funniest Cuban names, which is Abe Laddo. And I was like, if her name is Abe lad that's so funny to me, and I think that that's a hilarious name to find out that your friend Abby is named Abe Ladda, which is what we named it. They were awesome and I did audition for the part. It wasn't written for me,

Like I did.

Do you feel like I mean the show was camped unfortunate? Yes, and de for Crystal A. Lonzo talk about this, I've heard other people talk about like they make these shows and then they don't necessarily get the same promotional support.

Well, they did, it just got no promotional support.

So the person who bought the show, the president of NBC at the time, left and then two new people came in, and they didn't want the stuff that the old guy bought, so they kind of like buried it and let it die, essentially, as like they couldn't immediately cancel something Mike sure did, but that was it.

They didn't give it a shot.

Yeah, so I'm curious.

So you have this imaginably frustrating experience being the lead actor of a show. Did this in any way kind of drive you to focus more on wanting to be behind the camera and making your own work, directing, writing, controlling that aspect of it.

I mean I always wanted to do that.

I was always working towards that, but certainly, I mean, certainly it did, and then twenty twenty hapned. Yeah, but but yeah, it's always been part of the plan.

I think, you know, I was directing before that.

I started directing some short films, music videos and funnier die stuff, and then I did TV. I did some episodes of Room one O four on HBO before Abby's, so I was already going in that direction. But certainly this made me go, like, Okay, what else can I do here? Although like, I don't want to be an executive at a studio. I don't want to be a studio head. I want to create things, but what we need is people.

But how do we get from that kind of state of like I'm directing TV, I'm sort of propelling myself towards a directing career to like, finally I'm attached to a project that I'm excited about.

Yeah.

So I got the script for Plan B and I was like, there's something really good in here, and I think I can make And it was all honestly the first script that I got to consider to direct, the very first one, huh, And I had never gotten anything like that. It was like, you have to meet with the producers. And I told my agents and my manager. I was like, I don't have the experience for this. This is a big movie and it was going to be Hulu's first theatrical release actually, and so they were like,

And it's critical of what's.

Here, but it's hopeful of what could be here, and like I have ideas for it that aren't necessarily what they want to do, and I have other things. And it was like a really high reaching thing where I just kind of went into this meeting like Hi, here's what I think, and here's what I would do, and here's you know, why I think I would be good at this, and here's how I see these very specific things, and here's how I think the comedy should be.

And it's a subject matter that is.

Like a hard R comedy dealing with something actually very serious and very real in America, which is like lack of access to contraception for women and women's rights in this country.

And I was like, here's how I think it could work.

Here's how I think we could give people sugar with their medicine and not prec to the choir and not make it like this. And I left her and I was like okay, And then they called me right after and told me I got the job, which blew me away, and I was like, what, this is crazy.

So this time you're little like before you're like, I'm going to get that job.

I did not think I was.

You were like still bravado, right.

Well, I just was like, I risk nothing by telling them everything I think because I'm not going to get this is what I thought. So then they had to pitch me to Hulu as somebody, and so I was terrified of that accent, which.

Is really hard because when you're talking to network exacts, the most risk averse people on the plan, yes, and they're like, so you want us to give like a couple million bucks or however, I don't know how big the bug it was To someone who's never directed a feature.

Film before COVID, it was like eight million.

An eight million dollar movie. To Natalie Morales who's never directed.

We love her. We love Natalie, Yeah, we love her.

She's a fantastic or it's like, who who is the woman from the Today Show?

Do we is there someone maybe who I don't know? Have you considered this white guy?

So I had to.

I had to sit at this table, terrified meeting all these people who then became very lovely and friendly and wonderful to me and had to pitch myself again to Hulu and somehow I made that happen.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I think that was more like, okay, we trust you.

John Hayden.

I don't know. So you convinced these Zulu people.

Yeah, I convinced that Hulu people and now and then we're going to make a movie.

And then they're like, oh yeah, IRUs we were like fully prepping.

Our shoot date was like March fifteenth, twenty twenty. We got shut down the friday before the Monday when we were going to start, and like, you know, people's hair had been bleached, houses had been painted. We were ready to go, and yeah, we got shut down, which was very depressing for me, but like also, you know, where were we going to survive? What was going to happen? The whole world was. It was very crazy. And then sometime in June we got totally shut down. And so

And he's like I had the us germ of an idea, what do you think of it.

He's like, I've been taking Spanish classes online and I thought maybe we could make a movie about that. And I was like okay, and he was like, do you speak Spanish? And I was like yeah, and he was like all right, and I was like what else you got. He's like, I don't have anything else. I was like okay, And so we wrote it. We wrote it and then like shot it within like a month and shot it very experimentally. We didn't know what it was going to be,

Like one night.

The whole film.

The whole film, yeah, I know, which is also such a duplas thing, such.

A duplaus thing.

Yes, yeah, I mean the first episode that I shot of Room one A four was a two days shoot wow, which was crazy. I mean, when you watch Language Lessons you'll know why we were able to do it in four afternoons. But yeah, I was alone in my house, you know, making it, and it was really fun.

It was really crazy.

So then while I was editing Language Lessons, which was more of a feat to edit than you might think because there's only two shot in the whole movie.

Yeah.

Then Plan B came back and I was like, really, how how are we gonna what? How how are we going to do that? That doesn't make any sense. We'd like the first production coming back. And so then I was filming Plan B in the fall of twenty twenty and editing Language lessons on the weekend.

Sometimes I think I did a reshoot too on the weekends from the Plan B set.

And then Language lessons went to Berlin and south By Southwest and came out that way, and then Plan B came out on Hulu in May, and then Language Lessons came out in movie theaters right after. So they're very simultaneous. They're like very helixy. The whole helixy is oh, yes.

It's your melancholy and the infinite satur Yes.

But people are always like it was very confusing, and they didn't know which one was my directory debut.

And I was like, I guess it.

It depends where you count, Like do you count when we started or do you count when we finished?

Do you count festivals? Do you count which one the public saw first?

Yeah? Ola, I'm sorry, who are you?

What are you doing in my house?

You're so dead?

Such a dramatally I'm mad, I won you.

Who are you again?

I'm your Spanish teacher, so I have to speak Spanish one day?

Well, I actually bought thee hundred lesson package.

Well did you buy me a hundred Spanish lessons?

Yeah?

Why because you wanted to dummy?

Oh?

That was a clip from the trailer to Language Lessons, written by and starring Mark Duplas and Natalie Morales and directed by Natalie. At the height of the COVID nineteen pandemic, I asked Natalie to walk me through the difficulties of directing your first film at a time when getting together with your team is impossible. So let's I mean, I'd love to dig into language us a little bit. Can you walk me through a little bit? Like I'm fascinated by the writing process. So he comes to you with

Yes, So how do you come up with that?

So we tried this thing.

I had this idea for how to start writing it that I really like and I'm going to keep doing it for other things, which is that we knew we were going to play these two characters. I was going to be this teacher, he was going to be this guy, and that's all we knew. We didn't know where the story was going to go. We didn't know where the conflict would come. We kind of knew we didn't want it to be romantic, and we were like, how can we make these characters collide in a way that's interesting

Something to do. And that's what we did.

So we each went off and wrote who our characters were, and.

I just kind of like, let something come to me.

And I named it after a friend of mine who had died of COVID, and I just kind of let whatever inspiration came to me about this character come and then we became to bet it and we tweaked a little bit, but that inspired the rest of the story really and we shot the end first before we finished

We're gonna hear one of my favorite scenes from this film, the scene where she calls him drunk drunk in the middle of the night.

You're nice.

I like talking to you.

You're always trying to get me to talk to you.

And it was a little suspect at first, but then I don't know. I guess you're just a nice person who knew those existed?

Can I Can I tell you a secret?

Yeah, it's really nice.

To listen to you talk.

First of all, you play an excellent trump thank you to the point where I was like, did you get a little drunk?

No?

No, thank you? But how much of that was improvised?

Because it felt so flowing and free and it really fell off the cuff, So how much of that was improvised? And then can you talk a little bit just about improvisation versus sticking to the script.

You know what's funny is that's the one evening that we shot besides the four afternoons, right and we wrote that scene that afternoon. We did not know what was going to happen in that scene. And I would say that scene is probably like seventy percent written, thirty percent improv And I think for me and Mark, what we share really and we get along so well professionally.

We're both lit up by these ideas. Although we work really differently.

He and I really like to get to the truth of something, and we're not scared to go there with each other, and we're not scared of what the other person might think. And also, I think he and I both know that we'll never fake it, will never go like, yeah, that sounds good, because if I don't like it, I'll say I don't like it, and he will say the same thing, which is a great way to work with someone because you know that they are truly excited by something.

And so for us, the improving.

Was just getting because it's not necessarily like what you think of as improv in like a comedic way. It's just like you know, someone says something and you respond, and much of it is dramatic. But yeah, that scene in particular was I think mostly written and somewhat like just a little in betweens, a little like something to bring it life and yeah, yeah.

And how did you decide which scenes would be more sort of set in that way and this would be more free.

The ones that are, particularly because Mark knows some Spanish but not a lot.

He was Yeah, he's really good.

Yeah, we really wrote those out, the lesson ones where he's like learning more. It was kind of like really structured, and then all the bits in between were imprised, you know.

But it also sounds like maybe the pace at which you wrote and then performed sort of still added some of that like vitality. Yeah, yeah, because it's like you don't really have that much time to like polish and edit and rethink.

Yeah, and we also with the openness and freeness of trying anything, Like you said, that pace of writing it and then almost immediately performing it was like just testing out what you were writing. You know. It was like if two actors are writing something, they kind of like act it out while they're writing it anyway, So that was.

What it was. It was a really fascinating experiment. Also, because it was like, you know, very virtual. Yeah, most of the time. So it was interesting.

Natalie's character in the movie, Garino is really charming and nice on the surface, but she'll so has this darker side that she's very protective of, especially when Mark Duplas's character Adam starts to pry.

What uh huh, okay, what's what's the what's the narrative you've created?

I don't have a narrative I've created because I don't.

I'm an adorable.

Little free spirit with a with an abusive ex husband.

Is that it?

I don't know. Because you don't share with me. I only have bits and pieces.

But because you're.

Not my friend, you're my student, I don't need to share anything with you except for some verbs in Spanish.

You know, I've read you right that you don't love talking about your personal life or didn't for like a long time, that you're not really you're not interested in fame, but that you seem to be more of a private person. Kaarino is similar, like she's holding back the whole time, and you can feel it, you know. Is that something that you brought to the story sort of consciously?

I think we were really aware of making a white savior story at least I was, and Mark became aware of that also, and so we really wanted to subvert that in a way and go like, she's aware of that, and she's also mistrustful of people and men and rich people. I'm mistrustful of rich people, so that probably comes from me. But she's also right, like, she also doesn't owe this

Just my student.

Back the fuck up, like I'm sorry that I happened to catch you after your husband died, but doesn't mean we're best friends. I was just there for you like a decent human, and don't attach yourself to me like that, you know. But does she give into that side of herself that is soft, that wants that connection with him and that.

Will allow herself to be helped, right, Because That's what I think makes it for such a great dramatic premise and scene, is that you have the other actor also making great points.

Right.

It's not that scene where it's just like the inversus a white savior, where you have like the wise brown person who's going to tell you how it is. He's like, no, quit that bullshit. You don't want help, you don't want to let me in. Yeah, and that's the problem, and it's going to kill you.

Yeah. I think that, you know, for women in particular, at least for me. But the optics of a situation are always important. Yeah, and the optics have to do with your own experience. I think the scariest thing for a woman is trusting that a man will help her in the way that she.

Needs to be helped.

Yeah, that's very, very scary, Like it literally is so scary to go, Okay, I relinquished, I relinquish everything. Fuck, it's up to you. And the reason that is scary is from experience.

Yeah, you know.

Unfortunately, I don't mean anything against you. I just mean it. I doesn't mean it is.

It is scary, and I think, especially like.

With a strange, white rich man who lives in another country, why the fuck would she trust that, you know?

And I think it also.

Gives her depth because I was like, you don't know what she's been through before that moment. And I think that so many people have these assumptions of like little sweet Latino women and that they are you know.

It's either that or they're complete, like just blow torches right right.

And I think that you know, if she's like this teacher who wears braids in her hair and wears little flowers on her clothes, you kind of assume that she's a sweetheart. And I liked the idea that she was like a drunk who like didn't give a fuck. And as a writer or as a creator, I'm interested in the things that I haven't seen a bunch of times, and characters that might connect to people that haven't seen themselves on screen before.

That's that's evident in you in your work. And yet I love that it never feels preachy, thank you, because I think it can.

Right.

It's actually really hard to not make it sound preachy. I want to talk about this stuff, but like, yeah, how do you Is it something you're cognizant of going in directing and writing completely?

Yeah, so Cognizantough, how do you fight against it?

Anxiety? I hate things that are preachy. I hate things that preach to the choir. I don't need to see things that isolate people. You know, I've talked to my friends about this, which is like a heady question, But I have these like lists of questions on my phone that I just ask people when we're bored that I just like write down. And one of the questions is what is your purpose? Like what do you think you're here to do? And if I really think about it, what I really boil it down is that one of

All those things that want.

So I really do believe that they can all be in one movie, because one day of your life can be all those things, you know, And as long as I know that that character feels real, then I know I can get away with everything.

Plan B is full of this kind of realness, for better and for worse. This next clip from the movie represents an all too real experience teenage girls across the country are still facing today, especially since the repeal of Roe versus Wade.

Okay, what can I do for you, my dear?

I need the Plan B pill. I love you the Plan B pill. Do you have any ID?

Yeah?

Yeah, oh you're seventeen. I'm sorry, but I declined to offer you the Plan B pill. I have a nice day.

What why you can't do that?

Yes I can. It's a little thing called the conscience clug. I'm sorry, but my hands are tied morally speaking.

Loupe, played brilliantly by Victoria Moroles, deals with fears of coming out as queer, yes, and a conservative Christian family.

Yeah.

In twenty seventeen, you wrote a piece for Smart Girls mm hm amy polish website coming out publicly at least as queer. Can we talk about what that moment meant for you and what sort of the reaction of your people was back home?

So I was out to everybody for many many years that were my friends and people out in LA and I was just living my life normally. My mom didn't know, and like my family really didn't know, but I didn't.

Think they needed to unless I, like, I don't know.

I had this idea that I was like, oh, unless I really end up in a very serious, long term relationship with a woman or with someone who's not a man, then I'll tell them. And I had instances where I came sort of close to it, but it never got there.

No one needs to know who I'm dating.

And then I thought about myself as a kid and Latino people and just stuff that I had gone through and been like, I wish that I had someone to point to to my family and be like, she's.

Fine, She's doing okay, nothing bad, it's happening in her.

She seems stable and like good and she's living her life and that's okay. And so I thought, Okay, I'm not going to tell people who I'm dating, but I'm gonna be open about this because I think if it helps anybody, a child, a parent, a friend, anybody to feel a little more understood or a little more understanding, than it's worthwhile. And it'll also relieve me from feeling disingenuous when I talk about queer things, you know, which I think are increasingly more important.

To talk about, and to normalize.

You're creating connection, which is right.

Right, And so what I did was I wrote that and before it was published, like the week before I was published, I sent it to my family and.

That's how they found out via email.

Yeah. I was like, I'm sending you something you need to read, and they all were so supportive without sounding preachy and like self serving. I hope I've gotten so many responses to that throughout the years. I still get people writing to me, parents and kids writing to me about that and talking about like what it.

Did for them.

Some people were like, I made my parents read this and then I came out to them.

Yeah.

And some people were like, I'm never going to come out to my.

Family, but I'm glad someone gets what I'm going through. And some people were like, I live in New York, this is not even an issue anymore. And I was like, well, you don't understand the rest of the world. Maybe you know when people may LGBTQ, queer media or characters like that. I think in LA and New York were kind of like, is it that crazy to come out to your parents?

I think.

Yeah, So, how did these personal experiences influences some of the characters in Plan B the Father right, Like, yeah, the writing is sort of one thing, and I'm curious at how you get that into the script. But when you're directing, right, when you're directing Loupe, how do you communicate these things? How do you have these discussions, how do you communicate them? How do you bring those to life in scene?

You know, I think it was I'll be very candid. I wrote all of Lupe because we had to recast.

It was sunny and ling ling.

It was an Asian character, and so we recast because we lost our actress in Covid not she's fine, she just had another job, yeah, and she's wonderful. But we cast Victoria and she was incredible. But they were like, we don't have any money to hire a new writer and you're a Latino, and so I wrote all of Lupe like you couldn't tell Yeah, So I think that it was on the page, and I think that, I mean, Victoria is incredible, and really there's there's two parts.

In that movie.

There's a few parts in that movie that I make her cry still Sonny asking for her mom, Lupe talking to Logan in the car and going like, fuck it, I'm just gonna kiss you. It's such an expression of joy that I know so many people like desired and wanted.

And she's so dynamic and charming that like when she says it, you're like rooting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're really rooting for her.

And then when her dad says a nice pin to her, it wasn't in the script, and at the last minute, I was like, hey, can you just say that's real quick and just say it because I just want to see if it'll work. And then it like breaks my heart because it kind of leaves it open. If you're like, does he know what that means? I think he knows what that means, and he's kind of leaving the door open for her whenever she might want.

Let's listen to a little bit of that heartfelt interaction between them. I think you kind of have to hear it to understand why it's so special.

Dad.

Yeah, promise me you'll never kick me out?

What what do you mean? Why would I do that? I don't know. Just you know sometimes parents do that. Oh me, you, my little Lokita. It's not my job to judge you.

It's my job to be your dad, no matter what's Dad.

I love you to me, nice pin.

It just meant a lot to me.

Like I said before, it's to just show parents that it actually could be this easy, you actually could be accepting. And the same thing for the sunny storyline, when you know she's so scared that her mom is going to be so upset with her, and her mom's like, wait, someone said no to you. No, you know, like she's like, you're still in trouble, but I'm going to protect you and I'm going to fight for you.

That was more important to me than I think.

There's so many sob stories about minorities, of course, and I didn't want this to be one of them.

Yeah, and to show that there's like a possible model for how to deal with these things without ignoring the obstacles.

Right coming up.

I asked Natalie Morales about representation and how sometimes just keeping things very personal is all you need. For example, I personally did not want to make you listen to an ad, but I also very personally like to get paid. So listen to this commercial.

And we'll be right back.

We're back with more from my interview with Natalie Morales, and we're talking about what it's like to direct the teen comedy led by two women of color. So the like teen comedies or like teen kind of sex comedies is like a it's like a subgenre, but it's rare to see like a female led I mean you have like mean girls, clueless, book smart, but like in this one. You know what stands out to me is you have to you know, non white girls correct, yeah, to minority leads.

Like how do you sort of address that? You know?

Well, the writers of the script, one of them prothey was Indian, so she wrote Sonny very much after her own experience. But then also I really conference with Cuhoo and with anybody else who was South Asian and was like, does this feel real to you? Like does it feel authentic? Would it make you know your people laugh? Or would it feel like stereotypical? You know, like like how how do you feel about this? I think that's really important to do.

So you're the Mike Suore.

Yeah, So back to talking about the teen comedy elements. So a lot of these classics in this genre, there's like, you know, they throw crazy party, there's like getting the data problem, losing your virginity. The stakes and like the driving force of this movie are a little more political, yeah, right, but they're still grounded in these very real teen situations. When you're thinking about the story and the scenes, like how do you just balance like Okay, we're talking about

Is it sort of intuitive or yeah, people are not macro political, right, you make it very personal and all these issues reach these people personally, but also thinking about it on a broader scale. All these movies that you talked about, for the most part, are set in la or New York or somewhere wealthy, and the people have money and they're mostly white, right, And so I loved

All my other rich friends got into a greade school. I want to party.

It's great to see on screen, but I was like, Okay, this is a real concern. This is the thing that people actually need, and if they're in South Dakota where this law is a real law, and this law is in many states where it's a conscience clause law, which means that like any pharmacist can deny you any medication based on their religious beliefs, so you just can't buy it anywhere. And if you live in a state that has a predominantly conservative culture that doesn't believe in that, you're going.

To have a hard time getting what you need.

And that's not even talking about abortion, right, that's just talking about contraception, Yeah, which has always baffled me that people who are against abortion are also against contraception.

Makes no sense.

Ye, But I love the idea of setting it not only with two girls who were not white, but in a place that wasn't coastal, that was the rest of America, where the parties are not at a fancy house, they're at like a bowling alley, and they don't have all the money in the world to solve these problems, and their problems are real, so.

It's like, how do we make you know, super bad?

But instead of looking for alcohol, they're looking for the Plan B pill, and there's gonna be real reality in that, you know.

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.

Well, look, congratulations because I think you made an amazing movie.

Thank you.

It really makes me want to, you know, see what you work on next. Yeah, thank you, so yeah. Natalie Morales, thank you so much for being here. That's all we got this week for more than a movie. If you like what you heard, please subscribe, follow, like, review all that stuff, and follow me on Instagram at Angry Yuka and tell your friends to listen. Finally, Finally, after hearing the word zoot suit so many times on this podcast, it starts to sound like you're drunk uncle demanding to