Speaker 1: So you convinced these Zulu people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I convinced the Whola people and now and then
Speaker 2: we're going to make a movie.
Speaker 1: And then they're like, oh yeah, IRUs.
Speaker 2: We were like fully prepping. Our shoot date was like
Speaker 2: March fifteenth, twenty twenty. We were ready to go, and yeah,
Speaker 2: we got shut down, which was very depressing for me,
Speaker 2: but like, also.
Speaker 3: You know where we going to survive? What was going
Speaker 3: to happen, the.
Speaker 1: Whole world was.
Speaker 3: It was very crazy.
Speaker 2: And then sometime in June we got totally shut down.
Speaker 2: And so in May Mark was like, what are you doing.
Speaker 3: I was like, I don't know, sitting in my house,
Speaker 3: what are eating? And He's like, I had this germ
Speaker 3: of an idea. What do you think of it.
Speaker 2: He's like, I've been taking Spanish classes online and I
Speaker 2: thought maybe we could make a movie about that. And
Speaker 2: I was like okay, And so we wrote it. We
Speaker 2: didn't know what it was going to be, but we
Speaker 2: were like, let's figure this out and we shot it
Speaker 2: in four afternoons in.
Speaker 3: Like one night.
Speaker 1: The whole film.
Speaker 3: The whole film, Yeah, I know.
Speaker 4: Welcome to more than a movie, a podcast that gives
Speaker 4: you a behind the scenes look at your favorite movies.
Speaker 4: I'm your host, Alex Fumeroro. Last season we did a
Speaker 4: deep dive on American met This season, I'll focus on
Speaker 4: a different movie. Each episode, feature interviews with the biggest actors, directors, writers,
Speaker 4: and producers behind them, and tap into the history of
Speaker 4: Latinos in film. It's twenty twenty one and the world
Speaker 4: is shut down by COVID. A lot of us get
Speaker 4: really good at baking bread and killing plants, but my
Speaker 4: guest today had a much busier year than most. In fact,
Speaker 4: she did something that I've kind of never heard of before.
Speaker 4: She had a dual directorial debut. It's kind of like
Speaker 4: when back in the day people would release double albums
Speaker 4: like The Wall by Pink Floyd or Melancholy and the
Speaker 4: Infinite Sadness, Except Natalie Morale is a lot less emo
Speaker 4: than Billy Corgan, and from what.
Speaker 1: I've heard, a lot easier to work with.
Speaker 4: I asked her here today to talk about those two movies,
Speaker 4: language lessons and Plan B and how the fuck she
Speaker 4: managed to make two movies in one year.
Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 3: Hi, I'm Natalie.
Speaker 4: Hi, Hi Natalie, what's up? You and I have some
Speaker 4: things in common?
Speaker 2: We do?
Speaker 4: You are from Miami. Yes, I'm also from Miami. Where
Speaker 4: did you grow up in Miami?
Speaker 3: Westchester? That's how I say.
Speaker 2: I spent a lot of although, like, listen, whoever is
Speaker 2: updating Miami?
Speaker 3: Not Miami?
Speaker 2: Be my Wikipedia, which I don't know who it is
Speaker 2: and I don't know how to do it, says Kendall.
Speaker 2: And so everyone thinks I'm from Kendall and I'm not
Speaker 2: from Kendall.
Speaker 1: So you're growing up in Westchester?
Speaker 4: Was it like, from a little girl you wanted to
Speaker 4: be an actress?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: No, No, I didn't know even that I could, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think there was always a performance aspect
Speaker 2: to me. I used to do magic for my family,
Speaker 2: used to make them sit and watch me do magic.
Speaker 2: And I remember begging my mom. I saw like something
Speaker 2: for an audition for some kids show. I don't know
Speaker 2: if it was a live show at play, I don't
Speaker 2: know what it was, but I saw a poster somewhere
Speaker 2: that said like kids show auditions whatever, and I begged
Speaker 2: my mom to take me. And then my mom's not
Speaker 2: a show mom. She was like, okay, it's at this time,
Speaker 2: we'll go there. And they were like, okay, what song
Speaker 2: are you going to sing? And I was like what
Speaker 2: and they were like, did you not prepare any song?
Speaker 2: And I was standing on this stage and I think
Speaker 2: I was like seven or eight, and I didn't know
Speaker 2: that you had.
Speaker 3: I didn't know. I had no idea that. I just
Speaker 3: was like, I'm here, what do you want me to do?
Speaker 3: I'm funny with my family.
Speaker 2: And they were like, okay, you don't have anything prepared,
Speaker 2: and they told me some Spanish song that I didn't know,
Speaker 2: and then they were like, okay, why don't you just
Speaker 2: sing I will love Youse Love.
Speaker 3: You by Whitney Houston.
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, just that okay, And of
Speaker 2: course I didn't remember it and botched it.
Speaker 3: I was like seven, I'm not a singer.
Speaker 2: And they were like okay, thanks, And I remember that
Speaker 2: being like, I guess I'm not a performer. I guess
Speaker 2: that's not for me. But that was like the extent
Speaker 2: of it when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what a way to like almost ruin your entire life.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I just set the bar super well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah exactly.
Speaker 4: And then so I read that you eventually go to
Speaker 4: a high school that has like a performing arts program
Speaker 4: or just I went to Southwest Southwest Okay, yeah, what
Speaker 4: school did you go to? I went to Ransom Everything.
Speaker 4: Yes you did, yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: We all wore ascots.
Speaker 4: So you went to Southwest But like you did productions there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, they did. They.
Speaker 2: I was never cast in anything. I mean that's not true.
Speaker 2: Not for a while, not for a long time. I
Speaker 2: had to beg to be cast in things. I was
Speaker 2: never cast in anything at FYU when I was at
Speaker 2: FIU Theater ever, So.
Speaker 4: Like, do you have formal training or are you just
Speaker 4: one of those horribly obnoxious people with innate talent training?
Speaker 3: And what film? It's going to be the latter, But filmmaking, No,
Speaker 3: I don't acting.
Speaker 4: I feel like you could just be talented. But like filmmaking,
Speaker 4: there's like a lot of elements to that. Ye that
Speaker 4: are technical. Yeah, so how do you When do you
Speaker 4: start to learn those elements?
Speaker 2: It was really just being on set as an actor
Speaker 2: and just paying attention and watching and honestly reading books
Speaker 2: and being a really big Buster Keaton fan and learning
Speaker 2: a lot about the history of film. And yeah, I
Speaker 2: just like for so long was like always asking questions
Speaker 2: on every department of why they did things and what
Speaker 2: they did things. And there's still a lot I don't know,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, I need to know that. There's things
Speaker 2: that I'm like, yeah, you got that. I'm focusing on
Speaker 2: this other stuff and I'm fine with it. I don't
Speaker 2: really feel like my lack of knowledge in some technical
Speaker 2: parts that are not my department prohibits me from directing.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: I mean clearly not thank you, thank you, But people
Speaker 2: will make you feel that way. People will make you
Speaker 2: feel that way, especially if you're a woman, especially if
Speaker 2: you're young, especially if you didn't go to film school.
Speaker 2: And I really think that like good directing, it doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that you know every single lens and exactly what
Speaker 2: it looks like without looking through you know what I mean. Like,
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean that it's a lot more to it,
Speaker 2: but it's a craft.
Speaker 4: And it sounds like you learned not only by doing,
Speaker 4: but also by just being on set and being curious.
Speaker 4: Talk to me about those early I mean, you were
Speaker 4: on some pretty cool shows fairly early on, right eventually,
Speaker 4: I mean like Parks and rec you know, but there's
Speaker 4: like The Grinder, Santa Clarita, diet films like Wall Street, Money,
Speaker 4: Never Sleep, Yeah please, So you're on these sets with
Speaker 4: incredibly talented people, I mean, including Frekin Oliver Stone. Talk
Speaker 4: us for someone that doesn't know how the evolution of
Speaker 4: an acting career works. How did you go from someone
Speaker 4: who wasn't getting roles at FIU to like, suddenly your
Speaker 4: parks and rec Bravado, Bravado just walk in and you're like, yeah.
Speaker 3: Flag that Bravado.
Speaker 2: I will say that Bravado has gotten me a lot
Speaker 2: in my life. But I really did have like a
Speaker 2: why not?
Speaker 3: Why not me?
Speaker 2: And then I really did fake it till I made it.
Speaker 2: I guess I lied up and down on my resume.
Speaker 2: Any anything I could exaggerate on my resume I did.
Speaker 3: I was like, I just need to get.
Speaker 2: In the door. I just need to get in the door.
Speaker 2: Once I'm there, I can do the thing. But if
Speaker 2: anything's going to prevent me from getting in that door,
Speaker 2: that I could change that, No one's gonna double check
Speaker 2: why not do it?
Speaker 5: Sure?
Speaker 2: I can parachute, Sure I can I skate, Sure?
Speaker 3: Why not? I never got those jobs?
Speaker 2: But I think everyone does that on the resume. But yeah,
Speaker 2: my best friend Serena and I moved out here. She's
Speaker 2: still my writing partner and my performing partner, and you know,
Speaker 2: my life partner and anyways, but we moved out here
Speaker 2: together and I had this really absurd sense of confidence
Speaker 2: where I was like, Okay, we get out there, within
Speaker 2: a month, we'll have agents, and then another month we'll
Speaker 2: be on TV and then it'll be fine. And it
Speaker 2: didn't exactly work out that way, but I did book
Speaker 2: The first thing I ever auditioned for, the first audition
Speaker 2: I did was a McDonald's commercial, and I booked it,
Speaker 2: which really kind of was like, Hey, this mentality is
Speaker 2: not far off.
Speaker 3: You're gonna do.
Speaker 1: This coming up.
Speaker 4: Natalie Morales tells us how Bravado took her from selling
Speaker 4: mattresses on Craigslist to starring in her own TV show
Speaker 4: on NBC. One thing Bravado can't do, though, is get
Speaker 4: rid of commercials.
Speaker 1: Nope, we'll be.
Speaker 4: Putting those in these podcasts until mister iHeart says I've
Speaker 4: paid him back for that thing I owe him.
Speaker 1: Until then, We'll be right back. Welcome back.
Speaker 4: We're talking with Natalie Morales about her start in Hollywood
Speaker 4: and how she landed her first leading role on a
Speaker 4: show created by Mike Shure, the same guy who did
Speaker 4: The Office, Parks and rec.
Speaker 2: And The Good Place so yeah, I mean I did
Speaker 2: have lots of weird jobs for a long time. I
Speaker 2: was a bartender and a waiter and sold mattresses on Craigslist,
Speaker 2: and I took headshots of people like I just I.
Speaker 1: Was like, hustled.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hustled. I hustled a lot. And then yeah,
Speaker 3: I just did commercials and.
Speaker 2: I got my first guest star spot, and then I
Speaker 2: got this show called The Middleman, which was a huge
Speaker 2: break for me, and also was a thing where I
Speaker 2: was like, this is mine. Like I saw that come
Speaker 2: in and I was like, this is mine, and I
Speaker 2: was like, there's no way I'm not getting this.
Speaker 3: And I felt that way about a few roles.
Speaker 2: I felt that way about Abby's too, where I was like,
Speaker 2: obviously a role named Abby was not written for a
Speaker 2: Latina woman or me. No, but I was like, that
Speaker 2: is mine. That is a new mic Sure show. I
Speaker 2: am taking this, I am auditioning for this. This is mine.
Speaker 1: It's interesting you say that.
Speaker 4: I mean, well, first I really want to talk about Abby,
Speaker 4: so I also want to talk about roles that are
Speaker 4: quote unquote meant for you. Right, You've talked in interviews
Speaker 4: about having to having a feeling of having to like
Speaker 4: neutralize your accent. I ask about that because I feel
Speaker 4: like there was a time in Hollywood, and maybe it's
Speaker 4: still going on, maybe it isn't, and maybe there's something
Speaker 4: you can talk about, but there was very much a
Speaker 4: time where like hiding your identity almost trying to find
Speaker 4: proximity to whiteness.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, if you could.
Speaker 2: You had definitely something I discovered, and I know exactly
Speaker 2: what you're talking about. That's definitely something I realized about myself. Honestly,
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, I had this huge realization that I
Speaker 2: had been unconsciously or consciously sort of like code switching
Speaker 2: and making myself palatable and honestly, to be kinder to myself.
Speaker 3: It was the only way to get a job.
Speaker 2: Even though, like I knew that there were people from
Speaker 2: my community who are funnier than me, who are more
Speaker 2: brilliant than I am. But I would look at them
Speaker 2: and I'd go, you're dumb because you're not doing what
Speaker 2: they want you to do and you're not going to
Speaker 2: get this job. And instead of going, oh, the people
Speaker 2: that are casting don't have the breast of experience to
Speaker 2: know that these people are funnier, better and more interesting
Speaker 2: because always the people that are casting are white, and
Speaker 2: you know, I knew comedy, and I knew specifically, like
Speaker 2: how to land the joke in the way that they wanted.
Speaker 2: Is it necessarily the way that I would do it?
Speaker 2: Is it my comedy? Did I lose some of myself
Speaker 2: in that?
Speaker 3: For sure?
Speaker 2: Did I wear the color red ever to an audition
Speaker 2: for the first like twelve years of me being here? No,
Speaker 2: because I thought I looked to Latina, no hoop earings,
Speaker 2: no red, specifically because I didn't want to get type
Speaker 2: cast and I don't fit into the types that Latinas
Speaker 2: were cast in. I was like, Okay, how can I
Speaker 2: be this more palatable version of a Latina? I think
Speaker 2: that there are people who can get away with being
Speaker 2: absolutely themselves and uncompromising and still sneak into these like
Speaker 2: great comedies, but it is so rare is and you
Speaker 2: can't do it if you're not playing some big character.
Speaker 3: And I was like, I want to be the girl
Speaker 3: in this.
Speaker 2: I want to be whatever I can do in this,
Speaker 2: and to do that, I have to know what they want,
Speaker 2: and what they want isn't authentically me. But I'm an actor,
Speaker 2: so I'm gonna do it. Anyway, because I know what
Speaker 2: they want. And it was this really weird realization that
Speaker 2: I had because I felt sad about it, and I
Speaker 2: felt that it was something that was necessary for me
Speaker 2: to do in order to get to where I am,
Speaker 2: and that also was necessary for me to realize I
Speaker 2: was doing it so that I could stop doing it
Speaker 2: now that I feel like I am well known enough
Speaker 2: at least among my peers. And by the way, it's
Speaker 2: not a huge difference. I'm not putting on a voice
Speaker 2: right now. This is how I actually talk. But like
Speaker 2: I wear red and I wear Hooper rings all the time,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, you're wearing red right now.
Speaker 3: Yes, I am wearing red right now, and I'm wearing
Speaker 3: hoop peers.
Speaker 2: And I'm not afraid to be you know, quote unquote
Speaker 2: to Latina because that's not a thing for me or
Speaker 2: for anybody. And I want to sort of trojan horse
Speaker 2: that into Hollywood and into the roles that I've had.
Speaker 2: I've like snuck in here and been like in all
Speaker 2: these mainstream comedies as the you know, hap to be
Speaker 2: Latina actor.
Speaker 1: Right, So that's kind.
Speaker 4: Of what I want to talk about, is like in
Speaker 4: that trojan horsing you find your way in how then
Speaker 4: do you go?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 4: We wrote this role Abby for someone who was not
Speaker 4: like me. I would like this to be more like me.
Speaker 4: How does that work?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean luckily.
Speaker 2: The people that I worked with on that show were
Speaker 2: awesome and Josh Melmouthen and Mike sure like, we're so
Speaker 2: responsive to making this character real. For example, there's an
Speaker 2: episode where where they find Abby's male and they realize
Speaker 2: what her real name is, because again, Abi Gail is
Speaker 2: not a.
Speaker 3: Name you would really hear, but if you did. For Cubans,
Speaker 3: that's how it would be pronounced, which is awful.
Speaker 2: So they had written this storyline about her dad and
Speaker 2: her having a fraught relationship with her dad, and I
Speaker 2: was like, I love the idea that he named her
Speaker 2: after himself, and he has arguably one of the funniest
Speaker 2: Cuban names, which is Abe Laddo. And I was like,
Speaker 2: if her name is Abe lad that's so funny to me,
Speaker 2: and I think that that's a hilarious name to find
Speaker 2: out that your friend Abby is named Abe Ladda, which
Speaker 2: is what we named it. They were awesome and I
Speaker 2: did audition for the part. It wasn't written for me,
Speaker 2: nor was it offered to me. But I think once
Speaker 2: they pictured me in it, they wanted to make it
Speaker 2: as me as possible. And they also saw it in
Speaker 2: the same way that I did, which is like, it's
Speaker 2: just one part of her, just like the character was
Speaker 2: also by. It was the first by lead character of
Speaker 2: a show openly by, and it was like that was
Speaker 2: just one part of her. She's also a veteran, that's
Speaker 2: just one part of her. But mostly she's just Abby,
Speaker 2: a friend to these people at this bar. And I'm
Speaker 2: glad that they saw it like that because I think
Speaker 2: so often, especially honestly, when it's white creators of a
Speaker 2: show making a show about LATINX people or about non
Speaker 2: white people, the stereotyping and the like extraness of like
Speaker 2: how to overdo the Latinidad of them is grading to metally.
Speaker 2: I'm very glad that they saw it.
Speaker 3: Like I did.
Speaker 4: Do you feel like I mean the show was camped unfortunate? Yes,
Speaker 4: and de for Crystal A. Lonzo talk about this, I've
Speaker 4: heard other people talk about like they make these shows
Speaker 4: and then they don't necessarily get the same promotional support.
Speaker 3: Well, they did, it just got no promotional support.
Speaker 2: So the person who bought the show, the president of
Speaker 2: NBC at the time, left and then two new people
Speaker 2: came in, and they didn't want the stuff that the
Speaker 2: old guy bought, so they kind of like buried it
Speaker 2: and let it die, essentially, as like they couldn't immediately
Speaker 2: cancel something Mike sure did, but that was it.
Speaker 3: They didn't give it a shot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm curious.
Speaker 4: So you have this imaginably frustrating experience being the lead
Speaker 4: actor of a show. Did this in any way kind
Speaker 4: of drive you to focus more on wanting to be
Speaker 4: behind the camera and making your own work, directing, writing,
Speaker 4: controlling that aspect of it.
Speaker 3: I mean I always wanted to do that.
Speaker 2: I was always working towards that, but certainly, I mean,
Speaker 2: certainly it did, and then twenty twenty hapned. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: but yeah, it's always been part of the plan.
Speaker 3: I think, you know, I was directing before that.
Speaker 2: I started directing some short films, music videos and funnier
Speaker 2: die stuff, and then I did TV. I did some
Speaker 2: episodes of Room one O four on HBO before Abby's,
Speaker 2: so I was already going in that direction. But certainly
Speaker 2: this made me go, like, Okay, what else can I
Speaker 2: do here? Although like, I don't want to be an
Speaker 2: executive at a studio. I don't want to be a
Speaker 2: studio head. I want to create things, but what we
Speaker 2: need is people.
Speaker 4: But how do we get from that kind of state
Speaker 4: of like I'm directing TV, I'm sort of propelling myself
Speaker 4: towards a directing career to like, finally I'm attached to
Speaker 4: a project that I'm excited about.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I got the script for Plan B and I
Speaker 2: was like, there's something really good in here, and I
Speaker 2: think I can make And it was all honestly the
Speaker 2: first script that I got to consider to direct, the
Speaker 2: very first one, huh, And I had never gotten anything
Speaker 2: like that. It was like, you have to meet with
Speaker 2: the producers. And I told my agents and my manager.
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't have the experience for this.
Speaker 2: This is a big movie and it was going to
Speaker 2: be Hulu's first theatrical release actually, and so they were like,
Speaker 2: just take the meeting. It's good for you to meet them,
Speaker 2: even if you're not like qualified. Maybe they'll remember you
Speaker 2: for the next thing, or you know, keep you in mind.
Speaker 2: And they met with me before I went, and I
Speaker 2: was like, there's no way I'm going to get this.
Speaker 2: So what I'm going to do is going to I'm
Speaker 2: going to say everything I would actually do and like
Speaker 2: really pitch it.
Speaker 3: And it's critical of what's.
Speaker 2: Here, but it's hopeful of what could be here, and
Speaker 2: like I have ideas for it that aren't necessarily what
Speaker 2: they want to do, and I have other things. And
Speaker 2: it was like a really high reaching thing where I
Speaker 2: just kind of went into this meeting like Hi, here's
Speaker 2: what I think, and here's what I would do, and
Speaker 2: here's you know, why I think I would be good
Speaker 2: at this, and here's how I see these very specific things,
Speaker 2: and here's how I think the comedy should be.
Speaker 3: And it's a subject matter that is.
Speaker 2: Like a hard R comedy dealing with something actually very
Speaker 2: serious and very real in America, which is like lack
Speaker 2: of access to contraception for women and women's rights in
Speaker 2: this country.
Speaker 3: And I was like, here's how I think it could work.
Speaker 2: Here's how I think we could give people sugar with
Speaker 2: their medicine and not prec to the choir and not
Speaker 2: make it like this. And I left her and I
Speaker 2: was like okay, And then they called me right after
Speaker 2: and told me I got the job, which blew me away,
Speaker 2: and I was like, what, this is crazy.
Speaker 4: So this time you're little like before you're like, I'm
Speaker 4: going to get that job.
Speaker 3: I did not think I was.
Speaker 1: You were like still bravado, right.
Speaker 2: Well, I just was like, I risk nothing by telling
Speaker 2: them everything I think because I'm not going to get
Speaker 2: this is what I thought. So then they had to
Speaker 2: pitch me to Hulu as somebody, and so I was
Speaker 2: terrified of that accent, which.
Speaker 4: Is really hard because when you're talking to network exacts,
Speaker 4: the most risk averse people on the plan, yes, and
Speaker 4: they're like, so you want us to give like a
Speaker 4: couple million bucks or however, I don't know how big
Speaker 4: the bug it was To someone who's never directed a feature.
Speaker 3: Film before COVID, it was like eight million.
Speaker 4: An eight million dollar movie. To Natalie Morales who's never directed.
Speaker 1: We love her. We love Natalie, Yeah, we love her.
Speaker 2: She's a fantastic or it's like, who who is the
Speaker 2: woman from the Today Show?
Speaker 4: Do we is there someone maybe who I don't know?
Speaker 4: Have you considered this white guy?
Speaker 3: So I had to.
Speaker 2: I had to sit at this table, terrified meeting all
Speaker 2: these people who then became very lovely and friendly and
Speaker 2: wonderful to me and had to pitch myself again to
Speaker 2: Hulu and somehow I made that happen.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think that was more like, okay, we trust you.
Speaker 4: John Hayden.
Speaker 1: I don't know. So you convinced these Zulu people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I convinced that Hulu people and now and then
Speaker 4: we're going to make a movie.
Speaker 3: And then they're like, oh yeah, IRUs we were like
Speaker 3: fully prepping.
Speaker 2: Our shoot date was like March fifteenth, twenty twenty. We
Speaker 2: got shut down the friday before the Monday when we
Speaker 2: were going to start, and like, you know, people's hair
Speaker 2: had been bleached, houses had been painted. We were ready
Speaker 2: to go, and yeah, we got shut down, which was
Speaker 2: very depressing for me, but like also, you know, where
Speaker 2: were we going to survive? What was going to happen?
Speaker 2: The whole world was. It was very crazy. And then
Speaker 2: sometime in June we got totally shut down. And so
Speaker 2: in May, which was I guess exactly three years ago. Now,
Speaker 2: Mark was like what are you doing? I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, sitting in my house, what are you eating?
Speaker 3: And he's like I had the us germ of an idea,
Speaker 3: what do you think of it.
Speaker 2: He's like, I've been taking Spanish classes online and I
Speaker 2: thought maybe we could make a movie about that. And
Speaker 2: I was like okay, and he was like, do you
Speaker 2: speak Spanish? And I was like yeah, and he was
Speaker 2: like all right, and I was like what else you got.
Speaker 2: He's like, I don't have anything else. I was like okay,
Speaker 2: And so we wrote it. We wrote it and then
Speaker 2: like shot it within like a month and shot it
Speaker 2: very experimentally. We didn't know what it was going to be,
Speaker 2: but we were like, let's figure this out. And we
Speaker 2: shot it in four afternoons, in.
Speaker 3: Like one night.
Speaker 1: The whole film.
Speaker 4: The whole film, yeah, I know, which is also such
Speaker 4: a duplas thing, such.
Speaker 3: A duplaus thing.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I mean the first episode that I shot
Speaker 2: of Room one A four was a two days shoot wow,
Speaker 2: which was crazy. I mean, when you watch Language Lessons
Speaker 2: you'll know why we were able to do it in
Speaker 2: four afternoons. But yeah, I was alone in my house,
Speaker 2: you know, making it, and it was really fun.
Speaker 3: It was really crazy.
Speaker 2: So then while I was editing Language Lessons, which was
Speaker 2: more of a feat to edit than you might think
Speaker 2: because there's only two shot in the whole movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Then Plan B came back and I was like, really,
Speaker 2: how how are we gonna what? How how are we
Speaker 2: going to do that? That doesn't make any sense. We'd
Speaker 2: like the first production coming back. And so then I
Speaker 2: was filming Plan B in the fall of twenty twenty
Speaker 2: and editing Language lessons on the weekend.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I think I did a reshoot too on the
Speaker 3: weekends from the Plan B set.
Speaker 2: And then Language lessons went to Berlin and south By
Speaker 2: Southwest and came out that way, and then Plan B
Speaker 2: came out on Hulu in May, and then Language Lessons
Speaker 2: came out in movie theaters right after. So they're very simultaneous.
Speaker 2: They're like very helixy. The whole helixy is oh, yes.
Speaker 1: It's your melancholy and the infinite satur Yes.
Speaker 2: But people are always like it was very confusing, and
Speaker 2: they didn't know which one was my directory debut.
Speaker 3: And I was like, I guess it.
Speaker 2: It depends where you count, Like do you count when
Speaker 2: we started or do you count when we finished?
Speaker 3: Do you count festivals? Do you count which one the
Speaker 3: public saw first?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Ola, I'm sorry, who are you?
Speaker 3: What are you doing in my house?
Speaker 2: You're so dead?
Speaker 5: Such a dramatally I'm mad, I won you.
Speaker 1: Who are you again?
Speaker 3: I'm your Spanish teacher, so I have to speak Spanish
Speaker 3: one day?
Speaker 2: Well, I actually bought thee hundred lesson package.
Speaker 5: Well did you buy me a hundred Spanish lessons?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Why because you wanted to dummy?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: That was a clip from the trailer to Language Lessons,
Speaker 4: written by and starring Mark Duplas and Natalie Morales and
Speaker 4: directed by Natalie. At the height of the COVID nineteen pandemic,
Speaker 4: I asked Natalie to walk me through the difficulties of
Speaker 4: directing your first film at a time when getting together
Speaker 4: with your team is impossible. So let's I mean, I'd
Speaker 4: love to dig into language us a little bit. Can
Speaker 4: you walk me through a little bit? Like I'm fascinated
Speaker 4: by the writing process. So he comes to you with
Speaker 4: this kind of loose idea. Yeah, I mean that story
Speaker 4: is it's about much more than just yes, language license.
Speaker 1: Yes, So how do you come up with that?
Speaker 3: So we tried this thing.
Speaker 2: I had this idea for how to start writing it
Speaker 2: that I really like and I'm going to keep doing
Speaker 2: it for other things, which is that we knew we
Speaker 2: were going to play these two characters. I was going
Speaker 2: to be this teacher, he was going to be this guy,
Speaker 2: and that's all we knew. We didn't know where the
Speaker 2: story was going to go. We didn't know where the
Speaker 2: conflict would come. We kind of knew we didn't want
Speaker 2: it to be romantic, and we were like, how can
Speaker 2: we make these characters collide in a way that's interesting
Speaker 2: besides just taking lessons? And so I was like, I
Speaker 2: think here's the first step, Mark, why don't we both
Speaker 2: go off separately, just knowing only that about each other
Speaker 2: and about our characters, and write a bio of our
Speaker 2: characters without discussing it with each other, and then we'll
Speaker 2: come back and share those bios and where those things
Speaker 2: like butt heads is where we'll find.
Speaker 3: Something to do. And that's what we did.
Speaker 2: So we each went off and wrote who our characters were, and.
Speaker 3: I just kind of like, let something come to me.
Speaker 2: And I named it after a friend of mine who
Speaker 2: had died of COVID, and I just kind of let
Speaker 2: whatever inspiration came to me about this character come and
Speaker 2: then we became to bet it and we tweaked a
Speaker 2: little bit, but that inspired the rest of the story
Speaker 2: really and we shot the end first before we finished
Speaker 2: the script. I didn't know what was going to happen
Speaker 2: in the middle, but I knew that I wanted it
Speaker 2: to end that way, but we wanted to keep it
Speaker 2: as real feeling as possible, so then we would improvise
Speaker 2: around those things for a lot of the scenes as well.
Speaker 1: We're gonna hear one of my favorite scenes from this film,
Speaker 1: the scene where she calls him drunk drunk in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night.
Speaker 5: You're nice.
Speaker 1: I like talking to you.
Speaker 3: You're always trying to get me to talk to you.
Speaker 5: And it was a little suspect at first, but then
Speaker 5: I don't know. I guess you're just a nice person
Speaker 5: who knew those existed?
Speaker 2: Can I Can I tell you a secret?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really nice.
Speaker 1: To listen to you talk.
Speaker 4: First of all, you play an excellent trump thank you
Speaker 4: to the point where I was like, did you get
Speaker 4: a little drunk?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: No, thank you? But how much of that was improvised?
Speaker 4: Because it felt so flowing and free and it really
Speaker 4: fell off the cuff, So how much of that was improvised?
Speaker 4: And then can you talk a little bit just about
Speaker 4: improvisation versus sticking to the script.
Speaker 2: You know what's funny is that's the one evening that
Speaker 2: we shot besides the four afternoons, right and we wrote
Speaker 2: that scene that afternoon. We did not know what was
Speaker 2: going to happen in that scene. And I would say
Speaker 2: that scene is probably like seventy percent written, thirty percent
Speaker 2: improv And I think for me and Mark, what we
Speaker 2: share really and we get along so well professionally.
Speaker 3: We're both lit up by these ideas. Although we work
Speaker 3: really differently.
Speaker 2: He and I really like to get to the truth
Speaker 2: of something, and we're not scared to go there with
Speaker 2: each other, and we're not scared of what the other
Speaker 2: person might think. And also, I think he and I
Speaker 2: both know that we'll never fake it, will never go like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that sounds good, because if I don't like it, I'll
Speaker 2: say I don't like it, and he will say the
Speaker 2: same thing, which is a great way to work with
Speaker 2: someone because you know that they are truly excited by something.
Speaker 3: And so for us, the improving.
Speaker 2: Was just getting because it's not necessarily like what you
Speaker 2: think of as improv in like a comedic way. It's
Speaker 2: just like you know, someone says something and you respond,
Speaker 2: and much of it is dramatic. But yeah, that scene
Speaker 2: in particular was I think mostly written and somewhat like
Speaker 2: just a little in betweens, a little like something to
Speaker 2: bring it life and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: And how did you decide which scenes would be more
Speaker 4: sort of set in that way and this would be
Speaker 4: more free.
Speaker 2: The ones that are, particularly because Mark knows some Spanish
Speaker 2: but not a lot.
Speaker 3: He was Yeah, he's really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we really wrote those out, the lesson ones where
Speaker 2: he's like learning more. It was kind of like really structured,
Speaker 2: and then all the bits in between were imprised, you know.
Speaker 4: But it also sounds like maybe the pace at which
Speaker 4: you wrote and then performed sort of still added some
Speaker 4: of that like vitality. Yeah, yeah, because it's like you
Speaker 4: don't really have that much time to like polish and
Speaker 4: edit and rethink.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we also with the openness and freeness of
Speaker 2: trying anything, Like you said, that pace of writing it
Speaker 2: and then almost immediately performing it was like just testing
Speaker 2: out what you were writing. You know. It was like
Speaker 2: if two actors are writing something, they kind of like
Speaker 2: act it out while they're writing it anyway, So that was.
Speaker 3: What it was. It was a really fascinating experiment. Also,
Speaker 3: because it was like, you know, very virtual. Yeah, most
Speaker 3: of the time. So it was interesting.
Speaker 4: Natalie's character in the movie, Garino is really charming and
Speaker 4: nice on the surface, but she'll so has this darker
Speaker 4: side that she's very protective of, especially when Mark Duplas's
Speaker 4: character Adam starts to pry.
Speaker 2: What uh huh, okay, what's what's the what's the narrative
Speaker 2: you've created?
Speaker 1: I don't have a narrative I've created because I don't.
Speaker 3: I'm an adorable.
Speaker 5: Little free spirit with a with an abusive ex husband.
Speaker 2: Is that it?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Because you don't share with me. I
Speaker 1: only have bits and pieces.
Speaker 3: But because you're.
Speaker 2: Not my friend, you're my student, I don't need to
Speaker 2: share anything with you except for some verbs in Spanish.
Speaker 4: You know, I've read you right that you don't love
Speaker 4: talking about your personal life or didn't for like a
Speaker 4: long time, that you're not really you're not interested in fame,
Speaker 4: but that you seem to be more of a private person.
Speaker 4: Kaarino is similar, like she's holding back the whole time,
Speaker 4: and you can feel it, you know. Is that something
Speaker 4: that you brought to the story sort of consciously?
Speaker 2: I think we were really aware of making a white
Speaker 2: savior story at least I was, and Mark became aware
Speaker 2: of that also, and so we really wanted to subvert
Speaker 2: that in a way and go like, she's aware of that,
Speaker 2: and she's also mistrustful of people and men and rich people.
Speaker 2: I'm mistrustful of rich people, so that probably comes from me.
Speaker 2: But she's also right, like, she also doesn't owe this
Speaker 2: person anything and he's just her student. I liked exploring
Speaker 2: the kind of thing of like a relationship, where a
Speaker 2: friendship only happens if you actually give in to it,
Speaker 2: and she's well within the rights to be like, you're.
Speaker 3: Just my student.
Speaker 2: Back the fuck up, like I'm sorry that I happened
Speaker 2: to catch you after your husband died, but doesn't mean
Speaker 2: we're best friends. I was just there for you like
Speaker 2: a decent human, and don't attach yourself to me like that,
Speaker 2: you know. But does she give into that side of
Speaker 2: herself that is soft, that wants that connection with him
Speaker 2: and that.
Speaker 4: Will allow herself to be helped, right, Because That's what
Speaker 4: I think makes it for such a great dramatic premise
Speaker 4: and scene, is that you have the other actor also
Speaker 4: making great points.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: It's not that scene where it's just like the inversus
Speaker 4: a white savior, where you have like the wise brown
Speaker 4: person who's going to tell you how it is. He's like, no,
Speaker 4: quit that bullshit. You don't want help, you don't want
Speaker 4: to let me in. Yeah, and that's the problem, and
Speaker 4: it's going to kill you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that, you know, for women in particular,
Speaker 2: at least for me. But the optics of a situation
Speaker 2: are always important. Yeah, and the optics have to do
Speaker 2: with your own experience. I think the scariest thing for
Speaker 2: a woman is trusting that a man will help her
Speaker 2: in the way that she.
Speaker 3: Needs to be helped.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very, very scary, Like it literally is so
Speaker 2: scary to go, Okay, I relinquished, I relinquish everything. Fuck,
Speaker 2: it's up to you. And the reason that is scary
Speaker 2: is from experience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, I don't mean anything against you. I just mean it.
Speaker 2: I doesn't mean it is.
Speaker 3: It is scary, and I think, especially like.
Speaker 2: With a strange, white rich man who lives in another country,
Speaker 2: why the fuck would she trust that, you know?
Speaker 3: And I think it also.
Speaker 2: Gives her depth because I was like, you don't know
Speaker 2: what she's been through before that moment. And I think
Speaker 2: that so many people have these assumptions of like little
Speaker 2: sweet Latino women and that they are you know.
Speaker 4: It's either that or they're complete, like just blow torches
Speaker 4: right right.
Speaker 2: And I think that you know, if she's like this
Speaker 2: teacher who wears braids in her hair and wears little
Speaker 2: flowers on her clothes, you kind of assume that she's
Speaker 2: a sweetheart. And I liked the idea that she was
Speaker 2: like a drunk who like didn't give a fuck. And
Speaker 2: as a writer or as a creator, I'm interested in
Speaker 2: the things that I haven't seen a bunch of times,
Speaker 2: and characters that might connect to people that haven't seen
Speaker 2: themselves on screen before.
Speaker 4: That's that's evident in you in your work. And yet
Speaker 4: I love that it never feels preachy, thank you, because
Speaker 4: I think it can.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: It's actually really hard to not make it sound preachy.
Speaker 4: I want to talk about this stuff, but like, yeah,
Speaker 4: how do you Is it something you're cognizant of going
Speaker 4: in directing and writing completely?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Cognizantough, how do you fight against it?
Speaker 2: Anxiety? I hate things that are preachy. I hate things
Speaker 2: that preach to the choir. I don't need to see
Speaker 2: things that isolate people. You know, I've talked to my
Speaker 2: friends about this, which is like a heady question, But
Speaker 2: I have these like lists of questions on my phone
Speaker 2: that I just ask people when we're bored that I
Speaker 2: just like write down. And one of the questions is
Speaker 2: what is your purpose? Like what do you think you're
Speaker 2: here to do? And if I really think about it,
Speaker 2: what I really boil it down is that one of
Speaker 2: the things I feel really called to do. That's always
Speaker 2: a primary important thing to me is to make this
Speaker 2: group of people understand this group of people and vice versa.
Speaker 2: I want to facilitate connection, which is so important. In
Speaker 2: the last few years, it's really tested that for me
Speaker 2: is that I know that we are more connected than
Speaker 2: we are divided, and so that is always what I'm
Speaker 2: thinking of. I'm always going like, I don't want to
Speaker 2: just be like I'm only talking to the people who
Speaker 2: agree with me. I'm talking to everybody, and there are
Speaker 2: points all around that need to be talked about and said.
Speaker 2: There are points that I agree with, and there are
Speaker 2: points that I don't agree with, but there's still people
Speaker 2: and there's still a way of thinking. And so that's
Speaker 2: how I try to fight it. How I do it
Speaker 2: in movies is I really make sure that the actors
Speaker 2: and the characters feel real. They would react the way
Speaker 2: that anybody would react, and so then they can go
Speaker 2: on all series of adventures because life itself has different tones,
Speaker 2: and life itself is tragic and funny and sad and
Speaker 2: weird and sexy and.
Speaker 3: All those things that want.
Speaker 2: So I really do believe that they can all be
Speaker 2: in one movie, because one day of your life can
Speaker 2: be all those things, you know, And as long as
Speaker 2: I know that that character feels real, then I know
Speaker 2: I can get away with everything.
Speaker 4: Plan B is full of this kind of realness, for
Speaker 4: better and for worse. This next clip from the movie
Speaker 4: represents an all too real experience teenage girls across the
Speaker 4: country are still facing today, especially since the repeal of
Speaker 4: Roe versus Wade.
Speaker 6: Okay, what can I do for you, my dear?
Speaker 1: I need the Plan B pill. I love you the
Speaker 1: Plan B pill. Do you have any ID?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Yeah, oh you're seventeen. I'm sorry, but I declined to
Speaker 6: offer you the Plan B pill. I have a nice day.
Speaker 1: What why you can't do that?
Speaker 6: Yes I can. It's a little thing called the conscience clug.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry, but my hands are tied morally speaking.
Speaker 4: Loupe, played brilliantly by Victoria Moroles, deals with fears of
Speaker 4: coming out as queer, yes, and a conservative Christian family.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: In twenty seventeen, you wrote a piece for Smart Girls
Speaker 4: mm hm amy polish website coming out publicly at least
Speaker 4: as queer. Can we talk about what that moment meant
Speaker 4: for you and what sort of the reaction of your
Speaker 4: people was back home?
Speaker 2: So I was out to everybody for many many years
Speaker 2: that were my friends and people out in LA and
Speaker 2: I was just living my life normally. My mom didn't know,
Speaker 2: and like my family really didn't know, but I didn't.
Speaker 3: Think they needed to unless I, like, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I had this idea that I was like, oh, unless
Speaker 2: I really end up in a very serious, long term
Speaker 2: relationship with a woman or with someone who's not a man,
Speaker 2: then I'll tell them. And I had instances where I
Speaker 2: came sort of close to it, but it never got there.
Speaker 2: But really the reason I did it was because I
Speaker 2: was promoting this movie Battle of Sexes, where I played
Speaker 2: Rosie Casowles, who was as open as you can be
Speaker 2: about being a lesbian in the seventies, and who was
Speaker 2: Billy Jean King's doubles partner, And this movie is about
Speaker 2: Billy jin King discovering her sexuality. And I was about
Speaker 2: to do all this press for it, and I felt
Speaker 2: so disingenuous, being like I'm an ally and I felt
Speaker 2: just kind of like, it's my personal life.
Speaker 3: No one needs to know who I'm dating.
Speaker 2: And then I thought about myself as a kid and
Speaker 2: Latino people and just stuff that I had gone through
Speaker 2: and been like, I wish that I had someone to
Speaker 2: point to to my family and be like, she's.
Speaker 3: Fine, She's doing okay, nothing bad, it's happening in her.
Speaker 2: She seems stable and like good and she's living her
Speaker 2: life and that's okay. And so I thought, Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: not going to tell people who I'm dating, but I'm
Speaker 2: gonna be open about this because I think if it
Speaker 2: helps anybody, a child, a parent, a friend, anybody to
Speaker 2: feel a little more understood or a little more understanding,
Speaker 2: than it's worthwhile. And it'll also relieve me from feeling
Speaker 2: disingenuous when I talk about queer things, you know, which
Speaker 2: I think are increasingly more important.
Speaker 3: To talk about, and to normalize.
Speaker 1: You're creating connection, which is right.
Speaker 2: Right, And so what I did was I wrote that
Speaker 2: and before it was published, like the week before I
Speaker 2: was published, I sent it to my family and.
Speaker 3: That's how they found out via email.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was like, I'm sending you something you need
Speaker 2: to read, and they all were so supportive without sounding
Speaker 2: preachy and like self serving. I hope I've gotten so
Speaker 2: many responses to that throughout the years. I still get
Speaker 2: people writing to me, parents and kids writing to me
Speaker 2: about that and talking about like what it.
Speaker 3: Did for them.
Speaker 2: Some people were like, I made my parents read this
Speaker 2: and then I came out to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And some people were like, I'm never going to come
Speaker 3: out to my.
Speaker 2: Family, but I'm glad someone gets what I'm going through.
Speaker 2: And some people were like, I live in New York,
Speaker 2: this is not even an issue anymore. And I was like, well,
Speaker 2: you don't understand the rest of the world. Maybe you
Speaker 2: know when people may LGBTQ, queer media or characters like that.
Speaker 2: I think in LA and New York were kind of like,
Speaker 2: is it that crazy to come out to your parents?
Speaker 2: That's like what happened in Plan B. Like, I feel
Speaker 2: like so many people feel like it's old news and
Speaker 2: they don't consider the rest of America and how it
Speaker 2: is still crazy for a lot of people, and also
Speaker 2: the rest of the world. It's not super acceptable anywhere.
Speaker 2: Uganda just criminalized it. Yeah, so like it is continuously
Speaker 2: important to, like you said, provide that connection to people
Speaker 2: and talk about it and be an example of it.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, how did these personal experiences influences some of
Speaker 4: the characters in Plan B the Father right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 4: the writing is sort of one thing, and I'm curious
Speaker 4: at how you get that into the script. But when
Speaker 4: you're directing, right, when you're directing Loupe, how do you
Speaker 4: communicate these things? How do you have these discussions, how
Speaker 4: do you communicate them? How do you bring those to
Speaker 4: life in scene?
Speaker 2: You know, I think it was I'll be very candid.
Speaker 2: I wrote all of Lupe because we had to recast.
Speaker 3: It was sunny and ling ling.
Speaker 2: It was an Asian character, and so we recast because
Speaker 2: we lost our actress in Covid not she's fine, she
Speaker 2: just had another job, yeah, and she's wonderful. But we
Speaker 2: cast Victoria and she was incredible. But they were like,
Speaker 2: we don't have any money to hire a new writer
Speaker 2: and you're a Latino, and so I wrote all of
Speaker 2: Lupe like you couldn't tell Yeah, So I think that
Speaker 2: it was on the page, and I think that, I mean,
Speaker 2: Victoria is incredible, and really there's there's two parts.
Speaker 3: In that movie.
Speaker 2: There's a few parts in that movie that I make
Speaker 2: her cry still Sonny asking for her mom, Lupe talking
Speaker 2: to Logan in the car and going like, fuck it,
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna kiss you. It's such an expression of
Speaker 2: joy that I know so many people like desired and wanted.
Speaker 4: And she's so dynamic and charming that like when she
Speaker 4: says it, you're like rooting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're really rooting for her.
Speaker 2: And then when her dad says a nice pin to her,
Speaker 2: it wasn't in the script, and at the last minute,
Speaker 2: I was like, hey, can you just say that's real
Speaker 2: quick and just say it because I just want to
Speaker 2: see if it'll work. And then it like breaks my
Speaker 2: heart because it kind of leaves it open. If you're like,
Speaker 2: does he know what that means? I think he knows
Speaker 2: what that means, and he's kind of leaving the door
Speaker 2: open for her whenever she might want.
Speaker 4: Let's listen to a little bit of that heartfelt interaction
Speaker 4: between them. I think you kind of have to hear
Speaker 4: it to understand why it's so special.
Speaker 1: Dad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, promise me you'll never kick me out?
Speaker 1: What what do you mean? Why would I do that?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Just you know sometimes parents do that.
Speaker 1: Oh me, you, my little Lokita. It's not my job
Speaker 1: to judge you.
Speaker 2: It's my job to be your dad, no matter what's Dad.
Speaker 1: I love you to me, nice pin.
Speaker 3: It just meant a lot to me.
Speaker 2: Like I said before, it's to just show parents that
Speaker 2: it actually could be this easy, you actually could be accepting.
Speaker 2: And the same thing for the sunny storyline, when you
Speaker 2: know she's so scared that her mom is going to
Speaker 2: be so upset with her, and her mom's like, wait,
Speaker 2: someone said no to you. No, you know, like she's like,
Speaker 2: you're still in trouble, but I'm going to protect you
Speaker 2: and I'm going to fight for you.
Speaker 3: That was more important to me than I think.
Speaker 2: There's so many sob stories about minorities, of course, and
Speaker 2: I didn't want this to be one of them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and to show that there's like a possible model
Speaker 4: for how to deal with these things without ignoring the obstacles.
Speaker 1: Right coming up.
Speaker 4: I asked Natalie Morales about representation and how sometimes just
Speaker 4: keeping things very personal is all you need. For example,
Speaker 4: I personally did not want to make you listen to
Speaker 4: an ad, but I also very personally like to get paid.
Speaker 4: So listen to this commercial.
Speaker 1: And we'll be right back.
Speaker 4: We're back with more from my interview with Natalie Morales,
Speaker 4: and we're talking about what it's like to direct the
Speaker 4: teen comedy led by two women of color. So the
Speaker 4: like teen comedies or like teen kind of sex comedies
Speaker 4: is like a it's like a subgenre, but it's rare
Speaker 4: to see like a female led I mean you have
Speaker 4: like mean girls, clueless, book smart, but like in this one.
Speaker 4: You know what stands out to me is you have
Speaker 4: to you know, non white girls correct, yeah, to minority leads.
Speaker 4: Butever you want to describe it, and I think this
Speaker 4: is the happy accident maybe of the casting issue that
Speaker 4: you had is that they end up being from vastly
Speaker 4: different backgrounds. I mean, look, South Asian and East Asian
Speaker 4: are different things. Yeah, but it's like you have a
Speaker 4: Latina of a Mexican background and you have an Indian
Speaker 4: American and they're best friends and they're both children of immigrants.
Speaker 4: You obviously know how to and did navigate the complexities
Speaker 4: of loop based character. But when you're going into a
Speaker 4: culture that's not your own right and you want to
Speaker 4: represent it well.
Speaker 1: Like how do you sort of address that? You know?
Speaker 2: Well, the writers of the script, one of them prothey
Speaker 2: was Indian, so she wrote Sonny very much after her
Speaker 2: own experience. But then also I really conference with Cuhoo
Speaker 2: and with anybody else who was South Asian and was like,
Speaker 2: does this feel real to you? Like does it feel authentic?
Speaker 2: Would it make you know your people laugh? Or would
Speaker 2: it feel like stereotypical? You know, like like how how
Speaker 2: do you feel about this? I think that's really important
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: So you're the Mike Suore.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So back to talking about the teen comedy elements.
Speaker 4: So a lot of these classics in this genre, there's like,
Speaker 4: you know, they throw crazy party, there's like getting the
Speaker 4: data problem, losing your virginity. The stakes and like the
Speaker 4: driving force of this movie are a little more political, yeah, right,
Speaker 4: but they're still grounded in these very real teen situations.
Speaker 4: When you're thinking about the story and the scenes, like
Speaker 4: how do you just balance like Okay, we're talking about
Speaker 4: kind of macro political ideas and interpersonal ideas. How do
Speaker 4: you strike that balance?
Speaker 2: Is it sort of intuitive or yeah, people are not
Speaker 2: macro political, right, you make it very personal and all
Speaker 2: these issues reach these people personally, but also thinking about
Speaker 2: it on a broader scale. All these movies that you
Speaker 2: talked about, for the most part, are set in la
Speaker 2: or New York or somewhere wealthy, and the people have
Speaker 2: money and they're mostly white, right, And so I loved
Speaker 2: Book Smart. I really did love that movie. But it's
Speaker 2: very white and everyone's rich, and the biggest hurdle that
Speaker 2: they have to get over, the big problem in that movie,
Speaker 2: or the instigating thing in that movie, is that they
Speaker 2: studied really hard and didn't party in school so that
Speaker 2: they could get into a good college. But everybody else
Speaker 2: also got into a good college, and so they're like,
Speaker 2: now we have to actually party, which is fine, it's
Speaker 2: a valid concern, but I don't know that that is
Speaker 2: the concern of most teenagers in America. I don't know
Speaker 2: that most teenagers in America are going like, oh.
Speaker 3: All my other rich friends got into a greade school.
Speaker 3: I want to party.
Speaker 2: It's great to see on screen, but I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is a real concern. This is the thing that
Speaker 2: people actually need, and if they're in South Dakota where
Speaker 2: this law is a real law, and this law is
Speaker 2: in many states where it's a conscience clause law, which
Speaker 2: means that like any pharmacist can deny you any medication
Speaker 2: based on their religious beliefs, so you just can't buy
Speaker 2: it anywhere. And if you live in a state that
Speaker 2: has a predominantly conservative culture that doesn't believe in that,
Speaker 2: you're going.
Speaker 3: To have a hard time getting what you need.
Speaker 2: And that's not even talking about abortion, right, that's just
Speaker 2: talking about contraception, Yeah, which has always baffled me that
Speaker 2: people who are against abortion are also against contraception.
Speaker 3: Makes no sense.
Speaker 2: Ye, But I love the idea of setting it not
Speaker 2: only with two girls who were not white, but in
Speaker 2: a place that wasn't coastal, that was the rest of America,
Speaker 2: where the parties are not at a fancy house, they're
Speaker 2: at like a bowling alley, and they don't have all
Speaker 2: the money in the world to solve these problems, and
Speaker 2: their problems are real, so.
Speaker 3: It's like, how do we make you know, super bad?
Speaker 2: But instead of looking for alcohol, they're looking for the
Speaker 2: Plan B pill, and there's gonna be real reality in that,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 4: Well, look, congratulations because I think you made an amazing movie.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 4: It really makes me want to, you know, see what
Speaker 4: you work on next. Yeah, thank you, so yeah. Natalie Morales,
Speaker 4: thank you so much for being here. That's all we
Speaker 4: got this week for more than a movie. If you
Speaker 4: like what you heard, please subscribe, follow, like, review all
Speaker 4: that stuff, and follow me on Instagram at Angry Yuka
Speaker 4: and tell your friends to listen. Finally, Finally, after hearing
Speaker 4: the word zoot suit so many times on this podcast,
Speaker 4: it starts to sound like you're drunk uncle demanding to
Speaker 4: be taken to the zoo. We are going to talk
Speaker 4: about the og play turned fee'ture film that inspired the
Speaker 4: careers of half of Hispanic Hollywood, and we're talking to
Speaker 4: the legend who set it all off, activist and director
Speaker 4: Luis Valdez. More Than a Movie. Season two was produced
Speaker 4: by Chloe taglia Ganbe with the help of Reynolds Gutierres
Speaker 4: and Veronica Hernandez in partnership with Iheart's Michael Dura podcast
Speaker 4: Network hosted by me Alex Flumetto, edited by Rose Red
Speaker 4: and Chloe Taglia GMBE with the help of Cida Caveto.
Speaker 4: Executive producers are Carmen Grattador, Rose Red, Isaac Lee, and
Speaker 4: me Alex Fumetto. Sound designed by Gonzalo Messi, original music
Speaker 4: by Golden Mines, Darko and Ieme recorded at JTB Studios
Speaker 4: and Vaudeville Sound Our. Executive producers at iHeart are Gazelle
Speaker 4: Bansis and Arlene Santana. For more Michael Durda podcasts, listen
Speaker 4: to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 4: your favorite shows.