So Lea Thompson is in the movie. I’m kind of curious how that happened. Is that someone having a connection with her? What was what was the story of that?
AR: Lea was interested in the role. I talked to her on the phone. I remember she was like, ‘But I don’t want to be an old hag.’ I was like, you’re not going to be an old hag. He picks you over the daughter. She was like, okay, I’ll do it.
KG: No, she’s the best.
AR: Really smart. I mean, obviously, iconic for my generation as she was, but just really fun to have her come in. She’s a director and stuff too. So she was talking ideas and talking, she wanted to know about the design of the movie and all sorts of other things. So, I think she was looking at the whole big picture. So I respect the hell out of her for that. She was literally a dream to work with. It was fast and furious.
Well, we shot that scene, which was most memorable because when we did it, it was over two days and the turkey and the spread was too big to put away. Francesca, our production designer, she just covered it up with plastic and left it overnight. In the meantime, this turkey just basted in its own filth overnight. It just increasingly grew stinkier.
So that scene where Kyle hits Sean, who plays Bobber, he hits him with the turkey. That thing was so fucking rancid when it hit him. It exploded all over the place. There was juice on the walls and the carpet. It was actually Sean’s birthday. I remember that we had the most horrible bowl-cut Prince Valiant-looking haircut, with that jersey.
KG: He-man, He-man looking.
AR: Seriously, and he had to get hit with the turkey on his birthday.
That’s great. Emily, I’m interested to hear how you came to this project. I know you have some of the theater background. What brought you to this film?
ES: Yeah, I got an audition, got sent the script from my team and immediately was really connected to Patty, and she’s kind of a character we don’t usually see, and I don’t get the opportunity to play very often. So, I was really excited about that. I got really excited when we started working, Kyle, Adam, and I, and we kind of immediately clicked as a trio.
We had two weeks of rehearsal before we shot, which I think was crucial and coming from a theater background. I don’t really understand why film and TV doesn’t do that more. It just like sets you up for success. You gain a common language together, you get to know each other, you gain trust.
And Patty, for me, is sort of, I guess, a version of myself. I kind of drew from my own life crafting Patty, and which was like vulnerable and scary, But there was no question in my mind that Kyle and Adam had my back all the time, and vice versa.
Do you have the Dinner in America poster up all the time, or do you just put it up when you’re doing interviews?
ES: Oh, I have it all the time, and I actually have the Japanese poster on the other wall.
KG: WHAT?
ES: I have the glasses over there. I’ve like kind of, my whole house is like a shrine to DIA. For Halloween, the fans were so excited and doing all these amazing costumes, so I actually bought a Chomby, and cut him open, and cut a little hole in his face, and wore him as a suit for a little bit. Yeah, I’m pretty obsessed with my own movie, which might be weird, but I don’t care.
AR: A lot of everyone’s creativity and everything went into it all. So it was a very collaborative project that way.
So I really enjoyed Snack Shack as well. I thought that was really well done. I’ve been recommending that to people too. So what do you guys have coming up next? Do you know what your next projects are?
AR: I just did a movie with Kyle called Carolina Caroline. So that is the next thing. I’m still working on it. I’m still in the middle of it. So just getting the editorial buttoned up and then into color and sound and score and all of that. But it’s kind of a country Western, back roads Americana, con man, con woman, rifty, a little romantic movie. So Kyle, and Samara Weaving together.
KG: A lot of denim.
AR: Just a lot of Canadian tuxedos in this movie.
KG: I’ve got that, and then I’ve got a smaller film than that called Cotton Fever, Cotton Fever that, you know, is in post production. But in terms of what’s up next, all that stuff sort of ended towards the end of the year. So I’m just waiting to see what’s coming down the pipe at this point.
ES: I’ve become really entrenched in the local LA theater scene, which is surprisingly really thriving right now. There’s a lot of amazing new work happening and a lot of crossover. You know, like people who write TV shows are also writing plays and musicals and it’s really crackling here. So we’ve got a lot of stuff kind of down the pipeline.
And I do a monthly show at UCB and Dynasty Typewriter called Mamma Mia, But Different. And every month it’s a new musical, all apossons, but the only rule is it can’t be Mamma Mia. So we’ve had like Neonatal Warring Gangs in the NICU. It’s really wild and got some shorts coming up that I’m shooting. So yeah, lots of fun little stuff.
Were you affected at all by the fires, or are you okay?
ES: We’re okay, we’re okay. You know, it’s like kind of on either side of us. It’s so true that like no one in LA is unaffected. Like we all know someone who lost their house. So it’s like pretty scary. And I also grew up in New York and was there for 9/11 and it just feels pretty similar in this way. So, but we’re okay, we’re okay.
