Interview: Jenny Slate, Director Gillian Robespierre of ‘Obvious Child’

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CHICAGO – An authentic voice in the film category of “romantic comedy” has emerged, and it is represented by lead actress Jenny Slate (“Saturday Night Live”) and writer/director Gillian Robespierre. One night stands, its consequences and yes, love is explored in the excellent new rom-com “Obvious Child.”

The genesis of “Obvious Child” came from a short film version in 2009, co-written and directed by Robespierre and featuring Slate. The feature length film is a clear-eyed exploration of a wacky stand-up comic (Slate), as she navigates her own relationship destiny – which includes a visit to the abortion clinic – after an errant and totally plausible one night stand. How the Robespierre/Slate team approach the material is totally charming and honest, which softens any debate and makes it mostly a funny and warm time-of-life story.

Jenny Slate
Jenny Slate in ‘Obvious Child’
Photo credit: A24

Comic actress Jenny Slate is on a hot streak. Born in Massachusetts, she graduated in 2004 from Columbia University in New York City, and immediately began working in cabaret comedy with her act, “Gabe (Liedman) & Jenny.” This led to a gig in 2009 on “Saturday Night Live,” on which Slate joined the show’s infamous history by dropping the F-bomb on live TV in her very first sketch. After leaving the show after one season, Slate started making her mark with recurring roles on HBO’s “Bored to Death” and NBC-TV’s “Parks and Recreation.” She is also a YouTube sensation and children’s book author with “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On,” and recently joined the cast on the new TBS Network sitcom, “Married.”

HollywoodChicago.com talked to Gillian Robespierre and Jenny Slate about “Obvious Child,” and the road to creating their twist on the “rom-com.”

HollywoodChicago.com: Gillian, what event or revelation inspired the writing of the short film, and what was the process to expand it into a feature?

Gillian Robespierre: I wrote the short with my best friends Anna Bean and Karen Maine, and we wrote it because we were a bit frustrated about how young women are portrayed in movies. That young twenties age group didn’t ring true to us, weren’t relatable or even likable, and film after film seems to get it wrong. We wanted to show a woman struggling in her early twenties, how she deals with an unplanned pregnancy and her own confidence. When we wrapped the short, which we shot in four days, we got into a couple of film festivals and got some very positive feedback from film blogs.

We posted the film on Vimeo, and a bunch of other publications were excited about it, which encouraged me to expand it into a feature for Jenny, because Jenny is a fabulous actor, stand-up comedian and inspirational woman, and has a face that needs to be in every single frame of a feature film.

HollywoodChicago.com: Since the film is an honest assessment of one woman’s abortion journey, what do you think the film communicates, that the national debate about the issue does not?

Jenny Slate: I would say that even if you’re sure about your choice, sometimes you are made to feel that you have to stand by that choice, and your feelings about it afterward can’t be complicated. I feel that something that has been lost in the debate is the right to a complex and individual experience, just because the issue is large and the sides seem distinct. That’s just the general map that the media uses to give shape to the issue.

Robespierre: It’s a private experience that you deal with yourself, and maybe your friends or family if you want to tell them. Jenny’s character Donna has questions and she has a need for answers. For example, when she finally tells her mother, she finds out that even her mother had an experience with an abortion. It’s still a personal story, and what is encouraging about Donna’s story is that she tells everyone close to her, and it’s not taboo. It normalizes a situation that is not so cut and dried.

HollywoodChicago.com: What do you think Jake Lacy understood about the role of Max that other men you auditioned didn’t understand, and Jenny what was the key to your chemistry with him?

Slate: For me, chemistry is about the kindness of the performer, and if they like to laugh a lot. When I first met him, it was very easy to joke around with him. If that happens that’s pretty much it for me. Chemistry in performance is an odd thing, because it’s completely different from meeting someone in life that you choose to partner with – you’re not saying your own thing, it’s something in a script and in character. There is a lot of focus, and because it’s a film set and a lot of crew are around, you don’t want to look gross when you’re kissing. [laughs]

Robespierre: It was a humor chemistry they had, a real respect for the comedy. They also knew how to take care of each other, once we started rolling.

Jenny Slate
Chemistry: Jake Lacy and Jenny Slate in ‘Obvious Child’
Photo credit: A24

HollywoodChicago.com: The world of stand-up comedy is depicted in the film. Jenny, since your ‘act’ in the movie is based on total honesty, how do you think it reflects on the success and appeal of Donna’s approach to life?

Slate: Just do it? [laughs] Donna is able to be reveal everything on stage, and she knows that to some it might be shocking, but I think for most part she is aware on how delightful and refreshing it is for most of her audience. She doesn’t think of herself as a deranged person or a compulsive person, she’s just a storyteller and stand-up comedy is how she tells stories.

HollywoodChicago.com: Is there a similarity between her stand-up style and your own?

Slate: The style is the same, in a rambling and over sharing way of storytelling, and I also use it to work out who I am, and how I introduce myself to the audience.

Robespierre: Both Donna and Jenny are hilarious, heartfelt and non-sarcastic in their approach.

Slate: Donna talks a bit more about her personal life, but we both talk about our p*ssies. [laughs] I just talk about mine in a different way. But I would never talk about my husband on stage, for example. Maybe it’s because I don’t have much to work out in that relationship.

HollywoodChicago.com: You had to do a sex scene, albeit a funny one. Obviously, you didn’t want to do nudity in the film. What do you think are the politics of nudity for females in movies?

Slate: I only know what my experience is, and for me I would only do it if I felt comfortable enough…

Robespierre: It also wasn’t a traditional sex scene.

Slate: Yes, it was much more comical, and a flashback to what Donna thought the sex was like. It was all vague…he couldn’t get his shirt off, she couldn’t get her bra off..

Robespierre: If I’m flashbacking to sex, it isn’t necessarily bare breasts out. [laughs] There is an unplanned pregnancy, of course there is sex, but we chose to delve into the comic foreplay of two strangers connecting. When I wrote the scene, I knew what I wanted to show and not show.

HollywoodChicago.com: One of the characteristics in observing Jewish culture in the film, is their casual honesty and acceptance of life’s circumstances, especially regarding the abortion. What lessons about Jewish culture can we derive from this type of acceptance?

Slate: First off, I don’t think our film is a ‘lessons’ film. [laughs] Think of it as a funny rom-com. I guess to play the character I had to forget the adornments in her life, including that she is Jewish.

Robespierre: It’s a non-issue for us, even though people might think it could be a lesson or something.

HollywoodChicago.com: I found it refreshing that family members could talk about the issues without judgment, and because the family was Jewish I thought it was a type of characteristic…

Gillian Robespierre, Jenny Slate
Gillian Robespierre and Jenny Slate in Chicago, May 28, 2014
Photo credit: Patrick McDonald for HollywoodChicago.com

Slate: More than Jewish, they’re like New York to me. What you see in that is their spaces are open to each other. There spaces may be small compartments, but it’s all open. It’s very intimate to let someone in your space.

Robespierre: It was another part of telling the story, a closeness to family.

HollywoodChicago.com: You include the process that Donna goes through in setting up the abortion, again a world that is not really talked about, much less depicted in a movie. How much of a debate was it as to what to include, and were you making a statement regarding what you chose to include?

Robespierre: I think ultimately we wanted to tell the story this way, because it isn’t generally depicted in cinema, and there are many choices to be made. We’ve just seen the same one over and over in films – either it’s horrific, or filled with regret, or they keep the baby, they give it up for adoption or there is even death. All of those scenarios are plausible, and have happened in the movies. We’d just never seen this story told in a way that made sense to us.

HollywoodChicago.com: Jenny, people generally know about your defining moment on your year at ‘Saturday Night Live.’ What is your personal defining moment – either positive or negative – regarding that one season you were there?

Slate: I did write a lot that got on the air that year, but as a defining moment there are two that are equal – getting hired and getting fired. Getting accepted and being released. Those both meant a lot to me, and I wouldn’t have such a respect for my work, my personal life and my inner life, if I hadn’t been lucky enough to be hired and lucky enough to be fired.

HollywoodChicago.com: Jenny, what experiences did you take from your past TV work to apply to your new sitcom ‘Married’? Is it different when you’re asked to support a show as part of the ensemble?

Slate: What I didn’t want to do was use my usual comic ‘crutches,’ the stuff that I do that I know makes people laugh, because none of them applies to this role. Everybody around me is very funny, and I wanted to make them laugh, so I went in being aware of what is really easy for me, and to shelve those to draw from the confidence and patience I’ve developed with myself, while we were making ‘Obvious Child.’

I wanted Donna to be a real person, and she isn’t me and I didn’t want her to be me. But I wanted to take enough from myself that I needed to put in. I feel the same about the character i play on ‘Married.’ She isn’t like me at all, she’s really destructive, tacky and doesn’t have a filter. She dresses inappropriately for being a mother of a two year old. So what I took with me from the film was an acknowledgement that I want to do something different with the characters I get to portray.

HollywoodChicago.com: In both of your opinions, where do Donna and Max end up one year after the final scene?

Robespierre: It has evolved for me, through the writing, directing and viewing of it, even my mood that day. For example, I woke at 5am today. [laughs] I think they are meeting for a drink tonight after work. They’re together.

Slate: I think they are together as well. I’m a romantic, though. [laughs]

“Obvious Child” continues its limited release in Chicago on June 13th. See local listings for theaters and show times. Featuring Jenny Slate, Jake Lacy, Gaby Hoffman, Gabe Liedman, Richard Kind and Polly Draper. Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre. Rated “R”

HollywoodChicago.com senior staff writer Patrick McDonald

By PATRICK McDONALD
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

© 2014 Patrick McDonald, HollywoodChicago.com

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