No one could say Paul Feig has been unproductive during isolation.
The acclaimed director of Bridesmaids has kept busy by filming a daily cocktail-making program on his Instagram account called Quarantine Cocktail Time!, and in between the drinks he's been doing press for the new show Love Life, which premieres on Stan today.
Feig serves as an executive producer on the show, which got early buzz because it's Anna Kendrick's first role in a scripted series. The show is an anthology series that follows one person's love life over the course of a season, with each episode focusing on a specific relationship, whether it's a long(ish)-term partner or a one-night stand. It also plays out in a non-linear way, leaving viewers to guess who the central person ends up with.
The first season centres on Darby (Kendrick), a young woman who works at a gallery in New York and lives in a share house. She goes to bars, she loves to hang and party with her friends, and she's trying to make it in the big city. Feig was thrilled they were able to secure Kendrick for the role.
"I had just worked with Anna Kendrick on A Simple Favour and absolutely fell in love with her — her comedy and her talent — and I remember going, 'This would be perfect for Anna, but I wonder if she'd ever want to do it, especially because it's TV, which she hasn't done before,'" Feig tells 9Entertainment over the phone from his home.
"We told her about it, let her read it, and she loved it and wanted to come on board. It really just fell together in the most perfect way that things in showbiz never tend to do. You always go, 'I wish we could get this person', and you can never get that person, then it's this whittling down of trying to find somebody else that you're as excited about as they are. We really got our first choice right out the gate, so that was very exciting."
Aside from Kendrick's talent, Feig says it was her relatability that made her the perfect person to play Darby, and kick off the anthology series.
"She's the perfect mix of comedy, great acting, very emotional in her portrayals, and just very relatable — she's a very relatable person," he explains. "You're not intimidated by her on the screen, even though you admire her and you're attracted to her on screen. You don't feel she's like this creature that's above humanity — she's like everybody's best friend, the person everybody wants to be best friends with. And she's just very funny and she brings such a humanity to the role."
Feig says he and showrunners Sam Boyd (who created the show) and Bridget Bedard didn't just want their heroine to be relatable, but for audiences to recognise their own experiences in the kinds of relationships she has. In the first three episodes, Darby has very different romantic liaisons with two guys she meets at parties and a former boss, who's much older than her. The way she conducts herself in each relationship is also telling of her personal development.
"The most relatable thing in the world is somebody looking for love," says Feig. "What we loved about this was the idea that you're not just exploring one love, you're really getting the chance to do a deep dive each week into a different relationship, and how those relationships change you, and how you keep evolving throughout these relationships."
It was for this reason that producers wanted to nail the tone; they didn't want it to come across as an extended romantic comedy, though there are certainly some laugh-out-loud moments.
In the second episode, Darby accompanies her older boyfriend to his father's funeral but doesn't know how to handle herself. It's her first time meeting his family, and to make matters worse his annoyingly perfect ex-wife also shows up. Darby ends up getting drunk, which leads to some embarrassing situations.
"While we always wanted to be funny, we wanted to be realistic first and foremost," says Feig. Some of the events in the second episode do tip a little more comedic, but it's more about Darby's emotions and vulnerability.
"We were all united in the idea of just loving the awkwardness of life, and that the comedy of this show — as with all really good relatable movies and TV shows — comes out of that awkwardness, comes out of the mistakes you make in trying to do the right thing," he continues.
"Again, that episode of her going to the wake is the perfect crystallisation of that, because it's so painful to have someone who's so out of their emotional depth, who's younger than the person involved and doesn't know how to deal with the death of a parent, is trying to be an empathetic, older, supportive person, and is just literally almost like play-acting things she's seen in TV and movies of how adults act in those situations, and how that all spirals out of control and how she gets so uncomfortable and starts drinking."
Love Life's future seasons will centre around different leads and while Feig couldn't say much, he hinted at exploring a more diverse range of characters and relationships. "The mission statement of my company is to create great roles for women, but also to service everybody who is not served on screen by Hollywood in the past," he says proudly.
As for how he met his own wife, Laurie, who has made plenty of appearances in his cocktail Instagram show?
"My wife was my manager. When I was a stand-up comedian and an actor, back in 1990, I met her and she wanted to work with me," he recalls with a laugh. "Two weeks later we were a couple, but nobody knew, and four years later I proposed to her and fired her on the same day."
The first three episodes of Love Life are available on Stan from 7pm today, with new episodes dropping weekly.
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Nine Entertainment Co (the publisher of this website) owns and operates the streaming service Stan.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMihQFodHRwczovL3d3dy5uaW5lLmNvbS5hdS9lbnRlcnRhaW5tZW50L2xhdGVzdC9sb3ZlLWxpZmUtdHYtc2hvdy1wYXVsLWZlaWctaW50ZXJ2aWV3LWFubmEta2VuZHJpY2svNjQ0N2Q2YjctMTgwMi00ZGNlLWI5Y2QtNzcwZDc1MTUwMzBl0gFEaHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAubmluZS5jb20uYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS82NDQ3ZDZiNy0xODAyLTRkY2UtYjljZC03NzBkNzUxNTAzMGU?oc=5
2020-05-27 06:07:14Z
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