Moviefone Editorial

Tag: girls

  • ‘Treasure’ Exclusive Interview: Lena Dunham

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    Opening in theaters on June 14th is the tragicomedy ‘Treasure’, which is based on the novel ‘Too Many Men’ by author Lily Brett and was co-written and directed by Julia von Heinz (‘And Tomorrow the Entire World’).

    The film stars Lena Dunham (‘Girls’ and ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’), Stephen Fry (‘Gosford Park’ and ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’), and Zbigniew Zamachowski (‘Proof of Life’).

    Related Article: Moviefone’s 2024 Theatrical and Streaming Summer Movies Preview

    Lena Dunham in 'Treasure'.
    (Center) Lena Dunham in ‘Treasure’. Credit: Bleecker Street and FilmNation.

    Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Lena Dunham about her work on ‘Treasure’, her first reaction to the screenplay, working with Stephen Fry, the relationship between their characters, collaborating on set with director Julia von Heinz and the emotional challenges of filming scenes at Auschwitz.

    You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interviews with Dunham, Stephen Fry and director Julia von Heinz.

    Lena Dunham Talks 'Treasure'.
    Lena Dunham Talks ‘Treasure’.

    Moviefone: To begin with, can you talk about your first reaction to this screenplay, how it affected you emotionally, and what you wanted to explore with this movie?

    Lena Dunham: It’s a great question. I think my first response to the screenplay was that I felt insanely lucky that it was being sent to me. I think anytime that you’re an actor in Hollywood who doesn’t necessarily fit the norm in all kinds of ways, especially in my experience, I’ve often had to write interesting roles for myself. So, it’s so rare for me to be handed a script that isn’t the sassy best friend, or the crazy coworker, or a woman who wants to eat all the buffet. I was just so amazed. I loved Julia’s previous film, ‘And Tomorrow the Entire World’, and I was so touched that she felt that I was someone who could capture this role that’s so dear to her. Growing up with Eastern European Jewish grandparents, it felt to me, like maybe their dream wasn’t necessarily seeing me naked on ‘Girls’, but their dream would’ve been to see me explore something like this. I think that was my first response. Also, because my family on my mother’s side is originally Polish from Łódź, which is one of the places where we shot, I simply wanted to go on the ride. The ride was so incredibly close to the one that my character was taking of going back and learning about a place that was her home in so many ways but was also not her home at all. So, the experience of making the movie fulfilled all the promise of the screenplay and more.

    Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry in 'Treasure'.
    (L to R) Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry in ‘Treasure’. Credit: Bleecker Street and FilmNation.

    MF: Can you talk specifically about Ruth and Edek’s relationship, their journey together on this trip, and what she hopes to gain from it?

    LD: Well, I think what I loved about the script was that it was so subtle in the way that it talked about incredibly serious issues. Edek is a Holocaust survivor, and he is someone who, like many people who have been victims of generational violence and like many immigrants, it’s something he’s really tried to protect his child from, but her experience has been one of him withholding from her. So, it’s all about that subtle push-pull, which is at times comic and at times tragic, of her wanting so deeply to understand where he comes from and him wanting so deeply to protect her from the things that he’s experienced. I loved that Julia was able to capture that with a level of comedy, but also the deep seriousness that it required. I’m such an admirer of Stephen’s and I honestly feel like he does such a heavy emotional lift in this movie, that my job was just to be there, watch him, learn from him, and be the best scene partner to him I could so that he could do the beautiful work that he does. I do think he’s had so many career-defining performances. Watching him play Oscar Wilde (in ‘Wilde’) was an important performance for me growing up. I feel like this is up there with his iconic roles and he’s doing a different kind of character than we’ve seen him do before. I mean, he quite literally learned Polish for this film. He was, by the end of the trip, speaking in such fluent Polish that people thought that I was the only non-native on the set. He is a remarkable mind. He’s a remarkable actor, and my job was just to be there and try to hold up my side of the bargain. I mean, my mom wrote him an email the other day and she said, “I think that should the need arise, you’re a really good replacement father for Lena.”

    Stephen Fry and Lena Dunham in 'Treasure'.
    (L to R) Stephen Fry and Lena Dunham in ‘Treasure’. Credit: Bleecker Street and FilmNation.

    MF: Finally, can you talk about the emotional experience of filming scenes at Auschwitz? What was that like for you both personally and professionally?

    LD: I had been to Poland before, but I had gone to visit friends who were abroad in college. We were young and not necessarily looking to examine the history of the culture, more looking to examine the vodka of the culture. So, this was my first time at Auschwitz. I had done a lot of reading to prepare, but I don’t think any reading can truly prepare you for the experience of being there and the complexity of being there. I was lucky in that our crew had a beautiful dialogue, everyone from Julia to Stephen to Zbigniew, who is an incredible Polish actor who plays Stefan, our taxi driver. We were in a beautiful, open dialogue with each other about the experience and we learned things about each other. Zbigniew’s grandfather had been interned at Auschwitz, not as a Jew, but as a kind of radical who was interned because of his anti-fascist beliefs, and he had never been before. So being there was profound for all of us in different ways, and we were able to support each other through that experience because while there was a lot of emotion, we also had to get through the day-to-day work of making a movie. It was a huge honor to shoot there. They take very seriously who they let in. I think the whole crew felt the weight of wanting to honor the fact that we were being allowed to use the space in that way. I have never seen a film crew be quieter, be more respectful, or be more thoughtful. We all know film crews can be sort of rowdy, quick and fast-paced, and I was amazed by how everybody just honored the location and stayed in dialogue with each other. Everyone was in dialogue with each other about what it was bringing up for them, and that was an unusual and very valuable filmmaking experience. Julia was very insistent in a very loving way about having quiet, especially for Stephen, so that he could take that in because my character’s a tourist. She’s going as someone who wants to understand, and his character is going back to the site of such immense trauma, that Julia was very careful about making sure that the environment was conducive to Stephen being able to play that. I remember at one point she said to me, “I know you and Stephen love to talk, but don’t talk to him right now. Really step back,” and it hurt to do that because my instinct, loving him as his scene partner, loving him as his daughter in the scenes, is to want to go up and hug him and comfort him. But I understood that to be able to do what he was doing, which was a performance that was important to him because of his family history, he needed that quiet and he needed that space, and everybody was so respectful in giving it to him. It is an experience, as painful as it is to see, it is something that I would recommend to any person, not just a Jewish person, because I think that they have done a really amazing job of creating an educational atmosphere that is helpful to anyone who just really wants to understand history, the conditions that create fascism, and think about anti-fascism. It’s a really important place to go and to see.

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    What is the plot of ‘Treasure’?

    Poland, 1990 – American music journalist Ruth (Lena Dunham) takes her father Edek (Stephen Fry), a Holocaust survivor, on a journey to his childhood haunts, hoping to make sense of her family’s troubled past. When Edek, reluctant to face his trauma, undermines their trip with his unpredictable and more eccentric than usual demeanor, Ruth is forced to challenge him and the values with which he raised her.

    Who is in the cast of ‘Treasure’?

    Stephen Fry and Lena Dunham in 'Treasure'.
    (L to R) Stephen Fry and Lena Dunham in ‘Treasure’. Credit: Bleecker Street and FilmNation.

    Other Lena Dunham Movies and TV Shows:

    Buy Tickets: ‘Treasure’ Movie Showtimes

    Buy Lena Dunham Movies on Amazon

     

  • The 17 Best HBO Series of the Past Decade, Ranked From ‘Game of Thrones’ to ‘Girls’

    The 17 Best HBO Series of the Past Decade, Ranked From ‘Game of Thrones’ to ‘Girls’

  • Lena Dunham Reveals She Had Full Hysterectomy in Endometriosis Battle

    HBO's Official Golden Globe Awards After Party - Arrivals“Girls” creator and star Lena Dunham has opened up about having a full hysterectomy after battling endometriosis for years.

    In an essay for Vogue’s March issue, Dunham revealed that she recently underwent the elective procedure, which involves removing the uterus and cervix, after many previous surgeries and other alternative therapies including acupuncture, yoga, and massage.

    The actress was hospitalized three times in the last year and had surgery last April. Just a month later, she was hospitalized again for complications. That forced her to cancel her Lenny IRL tour

    Portions of her essay were excerpted on the website of the Endometriosis Foundation of America.

    Dunham was candid about her desire to have children one day. “As a child, I would stuff my shirt with a pile of hot laundry and march around the living room beaming,” she wrote. “Later, wearing a prosthetic belly for my television show, I stroke it subconsciously with such natural ease that my best friend has to tell me I am creeping her out.”

    Now, even after the hysterectomy, Dunham is looking forward to exploring her options for having children.

    “I may have felt choiceless before, but I know I have choices now,” she said, adding, “Adoption is a thrilling truth I’ll pursue with all my might.”

  • How ‘Get Out’ Helped Allison Williams Get Marnie Out of Her Mind

    2017 MTV Movie And TV Awards - Press RoomWhen HBO’s zeitgeist-shifting series “Girls” concluded last month after six seasons, star Allison Williams might have fretted about being pigeonholed in roles in the vein of the show’s Marnie Michaels.

    But Williams didn’t need to worry, having already preemptively “flipped the script” on any typecasting with her performance in “Get Out,” the low-budget thriller from writer-director Jordan Peele that deftly blended the horror genre with some trenchant cultural commentary on race and sex and went on to become one of the highest-grossing and best reviewed films of the year.

    With “Get Out” arriving on home video (out now), Williams connected with Moviefone for a deep dive into both the creative and career-minded choices she navigated while making the film, and her hopes that her future projects spark as much conversational back-and-forth as her previous gigs.

    Moviefone: How cool is it to have made a really scary horror movie that also says something really interesting? How rare is that opportunity?

    Allison Williams: Really, really rare. I feel really lucky to be part of it. I’m just glad it exists. I feel really psyched that I get to be part of it, to put it lightly.

    When the material came your way, what did you see in it instantly, and what gave you the confidence that it was going to work? This is a tricky thing to pull off.

    To address the second point first, Jordan Peele gave me all the confidence in the world. First of all, his reputation as a comedic genius, and as a mirror of cultural phenomenon preceded him, so when I talked to him about the script I knew I was in for something interesting. Especially after I’d been warned by my agent that it wasn’t a comedy, I was doubly intrigued.

    Aside from trusting Jordan completely, it was, on its face, a risk, because he, while brilliant and while having had a lot of experience with “Key & Peele,” was technically a first-time writer/director with this feature. It’s very, very independent, as most Blumhouse movies are.

    And it was nearly impossible to describe — and I know that because I tried describing it to everyone in my life who had been waiting for me to do my first movie, and then when I said “I got it, this is the one, it’s amazing,” they were like, great, what’s it about and who are you playing?” I didn’t want to spoil it, so I just basically said, “It’s ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner‘ meets ‘Rosemary’s Baby,’” and they would kind of look at me quizzically.

    And then when they asked about my character, I described the Rose that we see in the first half of the movie. I know that they were thinking, “Wow, it’s weird. You talk so much about wanting to play someone different from Marnie, and by the description of it, she doesn’t sound all that different.” But I just didn’t want to spoil anything for them.

    So it was one of those things where it was great on the page, and it was a great experience shooting it, and then the first time I saw it all cut together nearly finished, I just breathed a sigh of relief where I thought, “Oh my gosh, this is so good!” I just thought it was good. The performances that Jordan got out of the actors — Daniel Kaluuya is breathtaking in it, I think, and all of the actors are really, really good. I just feel lucky to have been working with them.

    In terms of knowing that it was the the one and choosing it, but I get asked this question a lot and the answer’s always the same, which is that, when I look at a script or a project, I ask myself a series of three questions. “Why this? Why now? Why me?” Basically the “why this” is explainable by the quality of the script, and the subject matter, and the tone, and Jordan, etc. The “why now” felt very obvious because it was exactly the right moment for this movie. I really wished it could come out more quickly. And the “why me” was basically that Rose fascinated me, and she needed to be the whitest of white, and very willing and able to step up to the plate in that regard.

    Funny enough, Jordan needed someone he thought the audience would trust immediately, and I needed a part that would flip the Marnie that people seem to find difficult to extricate from me, on its head. So we both got exactly what we needed out of me playing this role. So it was really a confluence of wonderful things, and I felt really, really lucky. Even though, playing her at times was incredibly unpleasant, the overall experience was one of the best I’ve ever had.

    There’s a scene I love in which, on camera, you’re absolutely emotionless, and yet your voice on the phone is filled with a gamut of emotions in that scene. That’s such a tricky technical acting thing to pull off. Tell me a little bit about that particular sequence.

    Yeah, it’s funny. So that conversation, initially, we had thought about it — or at least I had thought about it — that Rose would be in character immediately before and immediately after the phone call. You see her kind of out of character, so to speak. Then Jordan said, “I’m picturing it in a new way, where your voice is Rose’s, but your demeanor is just completely flat and dead, and that would be really creepy if you would pull it off.” And he told me that a couple hours, maybe an hour, before we shot it.

    So I was kind of like, “I don’t know if I can do that, but let me see. Worst case scenario, we can shoot it that way, and if it doesn’t ring true, I can just do it in ADR.” Then I went into my trailer, and I practiced a few times in the mirror. And then, I brought Jordan in and I did it with him, and he got really giggly and excited so I took that as a good sign. He has a real giggle, and it makes me very happy, but it was basically the way he told us when something was crazy in a way that delighted him.

    So I felt like I’d achieved it, but it felt a lot like sort of patting your head and rubbing your stomach. This is a weird comparison, but I felt a little bit like a parrot, because I’ve always been so creeped out by parrots that can talk. They don’t emote, obviously, but their voices mimic the inflection of the people around them. So their voices actually have a lot of emotion, but it’s just a parrot. So it was a little weird, but I was happy with how it came out.

    You’ve done Q&As for the film, you’ve had conversations with friends who have seen the movie — tell me about those conversations that the movie sparked, and what’s been intriguing and fascinating for you to hear what people said about the film’s themes.

    Oh my gosh, there have been so many! I’ll tell you something that I heard last night. A friend of mind texted me and said, “I just watched the movie for the third time, and I’m with my family, which is half Puerto Rican and half Italian, and I just want you to know that now we’re all having a big conversation about race in the U.S. and about our cultural background thanks to the movie.” That was the text I got last night.

    I have heard from people that learned a lot about how little time they’ve spent looking at the world from any other point of view, what it would be like to be the minority at a party. It’s not something that a lot of people experience — a lot of white people, I mean. So the experience of seeing the movie through Chris’s eyes, and actually maybe thinking for the first time what that would be like, and gravitating towards the only other black guy at the party, only to find that he is, as you later find out, also a white guy. It’s so isolating.

    That’s where Jordan’s writing and Daniel’s performance really shone through, because it broke through and created this empathic experience for audiences that, in lesser hands, might not have happened as well as it did. So the reactions have been pretty amazing. People I never would have expected to see it. Long emails from my mother-in-law about things she discovered the second time she saw it in a theater, things that she picked up on. All kinds of stuff.

    Every once in a while, I’ll get a text from someone that just has thought of something for the first time since they saw it. Like a friend of mine I was talking to recently, he was like, “I realized around a month later that that was an auction.” I was like, “You must have been just really overwhelmed by everything if that didn’t occur to you!” But it’s funny to me how it hits different people in different ways, and in waves, and that’s kind of the greatest testament to the movie.

    There are so many movies we see, and then they end, and that’s kind of the end of our relationship with them. But it’s the rare movie that sticks with you, and begs a second viewing, that you end up actually thinking about longer.

    I listen to a ton of podcasts — just this last week I was listening to one called “The Read,” which I love, and they were describing something as like an Armitage party. I knew exactly what they meant, from the shorthand, and they’ve also used the phrase The Sunken Place a lot. So that, when the phraseology from the movie seeps into the lexicon, that’s a real win. That’s really exciting. That kind of means that “Get Out” has been added to a library of things that, I’m hoping, will stick around for a while.

    You mentioned flipping the script on your Marnie image in the kind of performance you gave here. One thing that this movie and “Girls” have in common is some real cultural meat to chew on. Is that what you are going to keep looking for in the projects, whether it’s film or television?

    Definitely. The cultural reception of it is really hard to predict or have any element of control over. The way I look at it from my vantage point is, by asking the “why now?” and the “why this?” question, will kind of, ideally, always keep me looking at things that in some way, even indirectly, address whatever is happening in a given moment.

    That can be done by looking backwards or looking forward. “The Handmaid’s Tale” is a really good example of something that was written a long time ago and is set in the future, but seems to be addressing a lot of anxiety that’s happening right now.

    So there’s an electricity to it that feels vital, and I look at what I want to do next, and I think if those intentions are executed well, it does have the potential of something like “Girls” and “Get Out” where it becomes a topic of think pieces and articles and people dissecting it and being taken seriously as art, because I think the act of continuing thought, and thinking about it on a daily basis, and talking about it, doesn’t feel fruitless and random, it feels like it’s connected to the things that you’re dealing with and interacting with on a regular basis.

    Of course there’s still plenty of entertainment for all of many, many people who wants to use those two hours at the movies to check out, and to not think about the anxieties of the world, or, say, on a Monday night, check out and watch Rachel Lindsay’s quest for love on “The Bachelorette.” That is an impulse that is still well catered to.

    But for the time being, I want to get back into and deal with something that’s confronting what’s happening inside your heart and in your core, I’m very proud to have been part of something that addressed that for women in a lot of ways, which was “Girls,” and sexuality and race with “Get Out.”

  • ‘Girls’ Finale: Show’s Own Writers Didn’t Want That ‘Spinoff’ Ending Either

    If you were disappointed by the “Girls” series finale, you are not alone. Co-showrunners Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner told The Hollywood Reporter their own writers room turned against them over Episode 10, arguing “we don’t need it,” and they should just end the series with the more “traditional” Episode 9. But real life is often frustrating and does not turn out how you’d expect — so it’s kind of the perfect “Girls” ending, no?

    The creators said it was actually Judd Apatow’s idea to do what Konner called a “spinof that will never be,” with Hannah (Dunham) raising her new baby Grover, with help from her mother (Becky Ann Baker) and Marnie (Allison Williams).

    “Judd was the first person who said, ‘I think we should do our finale, and then we should do the end we really want to do, so that everyone gets satisfied and we also get to — we see how everyone wraps up, we wrap it up, and we also get to see a little bit more,” Konner told THR. “One of the funniest things was that our writers really turned against us on it.” She laughed.

    Dunham added, “We were shooting one day and we were like, ‘Can you give us notes on this script and they were like, ‘We don’t need it, let’s just have nine episodes.””

    Konner said, “That was like our big note from our writers. They just wanted it to be traditional, and they just felt like that was enough. In their defense, at that point we were struggling with [episode] 10. [Hannah’s] big ‘come to Jesus’ moment with that teenager was maybe 14 different moments during the writing of that.”

    Dunham and Konner had a similar talk with Entertainment Weekly after the finale, explaining again that this spinoff/epilogue episode was Judd’s idea:

    EW: It felt like either the penultimate episode or this last episode could have served as the finale.

    Konner: That was something Judd came up with fairly early while plotting the season: Episode 9 would be the traditional finale and then the 10th would be as if there was some imagined spin-off that will never be.

    They also talked to EW about the possibility for a movie, or a spinoff for Elijah (Andrew Rannells). Long story short, there’s nothing in the works right now, but they’re open to ideas.

    Fans were mostly underwhelmed by Episode 10, which seems to be what the showrunners expected from the non-traditional finale, but a few fans did appreciate it:

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  • ‘Girls’ Meets ‘The Golden Girls’ in Hilarious ‘Jimmy Kimmel’ Video

    Dry your eyes, “Girls” fans: 2067 is going to be your year.

    The HBO series may only have two episodes left, but the cast gave us a taste of what a “Girls” reunion could one day look like. As you can imagine, it’s pretty darn golden. In fact, they’ve co-opted the name “The Golden Girls” and some of the iconic sitcom’s fun for a “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” sketch.

    In the video, Lena Dunham, Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet, and Andrew Rannells play their “Girls” characters as senior citizens. It’s the year 2067, and to be honest, not much has changed. Yes, the girls look older, but Hannah still writes and gets naked whenever she can, Marnie agonizes over her love life, Jessa smokes too much, and Shoshanna says “literally” in just about every sentence.

    The video only gets more entertaining when Jessa orders a stripper, leading to a big surprise. It looks like 2067 will be worth the wait.“Girls” airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on HBO — until its April 16 series finale, at least.

  • Judd Apatow on ‘Crashing,’ the End of ‘Girls,’ and Comedy in Trump’s America

    2017 Winter TCA Tour - Day 10On the scripted page, behind the camera, and as the chief decision maker at his own production company, Judd Apatow has undoubtedly shaped the comedic sensibility of a generation — but there was a time when he did it from the microphone of a stage in a standup club.

    That’s clearly part of the reason what Apatow has such a sharp eye for comedy talent: not only has he helped elevate writer/performers like Seth Rogen, Lena Dunham, Jason Segel, Amy Schumer, and Paul Rust, helping them translate the best, funniest, and most emotionally effective aspects of their comedy personas into big-screen and small-screen successes.

    Now, he’s turning to a world he knows well, having long ago done his tour of duty in the standup comedy scene and mentored by standup legend Garry Shandling, to explore that early period in a comic’s career where they’re all raw talent and ambition before honing and shaping their specific sensibility.

    For HBO’s “Crashing,” Apatow teamed with real-life standup Pete Holmes to build a sitcom inspired by Holmes’s own unique backstory: a decent, rule-following evangelical Christian making his first foray into the chaotic, cutthroat world of the New York comedy club scene just as his probably-wedded-too-young marriage is collapsing.

    Apatow joined a small group or reporters to sound off on “Crashing” as well as a myriad of subjects including his own early standup memories, how the current political climate will affect comedy and saying goodbye to “Girls.”

    That particular ground in standup comedy — being good but not yet great — must’ve felt like very fertile ground to explore.

    Judd Apatow: I think we all have gone through that period where we’re not good yet. That’s the thing about comedy is you’re trying to get work and get people to pay you before you’ve learned how to do it well. So that’s one of the funny things about it, because you have good nights and bad nights, and then slowly you have more and more good nights. But you’re getting paid to do something that you’re still weak at for a while.

    Did you experience having a relationship where your partner didn’t understand that it’s part of the process to not get paid, which Pete experiences on the show?

    When I did standup, from the time I was 17 to 24, I wasn’t really in that many relationships that lasted long enough for them to get irritated with me about me working.

    When you see a comedy talent like Pete or Amy Schumer or Lena Dunham, what resonates with you that makes you say, “I want to get in that business with them? I want to bring them to a bigger audience?”

    There’s nothing common about it. I like people who have an interesting point of view, and I like when they’re covering terrain which I feel hasn’t been done to death. So the fact that Pete has a unique point of view, and a unique story, is what attracts me to it.

    I like that there’s an undercurrent of the discussion of religion in the show. I’m very interested in comedy, but I haven’t explored religion in my own work. So it’s fun for me to talk about all those issues with him.

    Is it easy to get the comedians you work with to get to those emotional truths? They’ve got great comedy material, but the stuff you’ve worked on tends to be really honest and a little bit autobiographical.

    Most comedians are pretty honest and want to open up. The great ones are excited to go there. When we sat with Artie Lange and say, “Let’s do a discussion where you tell Pete how hard it is to be a comedian, and how difficult your life has been.” He sat for hours and improvised stories, and he held nothing back. It was very brave, and really, really creative and funny.

    What did you love about those early standup years?

    I love that we were all young and had no doubt that we would make it somehow. So you’re diluted. You’re crazy and young, and we would goof around all day long. Basically you were trying to kill the day because you had nothing to do.

    Then at night, we would all go to the improv and do sets, and then hope the veteran comedians will talk to us. So if by the end of the night if you could sit at Budd Friedman’s table with Jerry Seinfeld and George Wallace, it was heaven.

    If you look at a 20-something-year-old now entering, what’s the biggest challenge for them?

    To be a comedian? I don’t think it’s really any different. I think that if you’re true to yourself, and you’re willing to work hard, and if you’re talented, people will like you. Not everybody makes it, but in comedy, if you’re good, you will make it. That’s the weird part about it. It’s so obvious if you’re great. Some people go to other heights. But if you’re really strong, you’re going to do well. It’s just that simple.

    I think you can learn more about how to be a comedian now, because when I was a kid, I had to go find comedians and interview them to ask them how to do it. Now you can just put on Pete’s podcast, or Marc Maron’s podcast, and everyone will just tell you exactly how they made it and what it took. Or buy my book, which is still on sale — for charity! So I think people have a little bit of a head start.

    You’ve worked with so many young great comics. How about some older ones that you have yet to work with and are still dying to get a shot?

    I always want to work with everybody. The truth is that there’s almost no one you would mention that I wouldn’t dream of working with. But I wouldn’t want to do it unless I had a great piece of material and I thought I could do something that I was proud of with that. The idea has to create the situation. When I was writing “This Is 40,” I thought, “If I could get Albert Brooks to do this, it would be perfect.” So that worked out, but it has to follow the idea.

    Have you gotten an early look at Showtime’s “I’m Dying Up Here,” which is a fictionalized take on the first big standup comedy explosion in the ’70s and ’80s in Los Angeles?

    I haven’t. Yes, yes, Jim Carrey is the producer. I used to watch Jim Carrey at The Comedy Store in the late ’80s and early ’90s. He would do these mythic, brilliant improvisational sets, so it’s really exciting that he’s doing that.

    Do you have a longing for that historical moment in comedy?

    Oh, sure! I’m an uber-comedy nerd. So if someone’s doing a show about life and the Hollywood comedy scene in the ’70s, I’m the first person who will be addicted.

    The pairing of Pete and Artie Lange is really potent. They come from very different comedy places.

    I guess so. I think those types of things happen naturally, where Pete is like this guy who’s trying to hold on to his soul, and in a way, Artie is too. He’s a sweetheart of a guy who has his own specific sets of personal obstacles, who’s trying to keep it together and thrive.

    They’re funny together because Pete’s been through so little, and Artie has been through so much. So you’re rooting for both of them, and you do want some of what Pete’s talking about to rub off on Artie.

    But Artie was so funny, and really is great as anyone I ever worked with. All of his scenes were workshopped with him and improvised. So much of it came from Artie. He said he hadn’t acted in 14 years. I just couldn’t believe it. I thought, “This is a real gem.” We’re so lucky to have the opportunity to showcase him and have him be a part of this.

    We’ve been talking to a lot of people here about how material that was written before the election might land differently with the audience after. Do you have a sense in your own work about how that might play out?

    Oh sure. I think the mood of the country affects how people experience art and culture. We made a movie called “The Big Sick” with Kumail Nanjiani that premiered at Sundance on Inauguration Day. It’s about … Kumail is from Pakistan acclimating to being in America and falling in love in America.

    There’s a lot of issues about immigrants in it. We worked on it for five years. We didn’t think it would come out in an environment where people were deciding these major issues with how we feel about immigration and having a president that has some new ideas about it. So I do think it changes how you watch.

    In terms of that film, I think it reminds you that it’s very easy to dehumanize people. So when you see people in their lives, and they looking happy and are exactly the same as you, it’s an important statement. It’s very easy going, don’t let anybody in, without thinking, what does that mean? Who are these people? What are we scared of?

    In what way do you think a Trump presidency changes comedy?

    It changes everything, because we don’t know what’s going to happen. We don’t know how the government’s going to be run. Larger concerns and investigations … I always want to think comedy’s important because it lets us all blow off steam, and depressurize, and laugh, and it just makes us happy when we’re stressed about what’s happening in the world. I’m really not sure what role it will play in a pretty scary, chaotic moment.

    Do you think comedians as a whole will tread lighter? Heavier? What’s your sense?

    Comedians will say whatever they want to say. It depends on who’s going to broadcast what they want to say. If somebody said, “I want to go on a talk show and do a very, very political routine,” I’m sure there are limitations on where they could do that and who would be comfortable with what they were saying, and how they would vet it.

    But we don’t know. We’re going to find out. I think there’s amazing comedy happening. I was just watching Seth Meyers talk about a lot of these issues. He’s so brilliant and funny. I think it’s very helpful for someone to organize some of this information. I think they’re all working very hard to be accurate, a lot of these talk show hosts — people like Samantha Bee and John Oliver.

    You mentioned that dehumanization quality that’s happening in stereotyping different groups. Some people may also want to do that to people with Pete’s background, who build a great deal of their lives around their faith.

    I think the show also is showing the humanity of religious people. It’s a world that isn’t examined in comedy very often, so it really does feel fresh. And any time you’re showing a community and try to be thoughtful about it, I think it’s a really positive thing.

    So that’s one of the main things I love about this show, is that we get to talk about religion from a lot of different perspectives, from very religious people to hardcore atheist comedians, and we’re going to continue to see what we can talk about there.

    Do you need the creative freedoms that Netflix or HBO affords you to do your best work? Would you want to do another broadcast network-type show?

    I’m not interested in the broadcast networks because I feel like the shows are too short. I don’t like the commercial interruptions. I don’t like the waiting on ratings to determine if you’re going to survive. I feel like the streaming services have created a world where there’s a financial incentive to do amazing original work. I don’t think that the networks, for all sorts of reasons, couldn’t do it in the way that some of the other networks and streaming services can do.

    There’s limitations on content, and I hated the idea that they’re waiting to get the ratings the next day, and if they’re bad, they might pull the plug. I like that, at least at places like HBO, you get your season, and then at the end you might say, “Let’s do some more.” But you get your season. I’ve been cancelled many times mid-season, three times. I’ve had enough of it.

    You get asked about reviving various shows and characters you’ve worked on. What about “Girls”? Would you like to revisit those characters at some further point in their lives?

    I don’t know. I’ve never talked to Lena about her thoughts about things like that. Which I think we’re all adjusting to the fact that it’s ending. For six years, we would talk all the time. “What might Hannah do in this this situation? What might Marnie do in this situation?” So it’s really weird for us that that conversation has ended. So we’re all traumatized. That was fun. It affected all of us.

    One thing “Crashing” has [in common] with “Girls” is the awkward sex scene. Is that something you enjoy producing?

    I feel like all sex scenes need to be awkward, or they’re just pornographic. Once they’re not awkward, we’re not even in comedy. You can’t have a comedy with this great sex scene where it all goes well.

  • Watch the ‘Girls’ Season 6 Official Trailer and Prepare to Say Goodbye

    The end is coming for “Girls,” but there’s still a season to go first.

    HBO has dropped the official trailer for the series’ sixth and final season. The new preview drops us back into the world of Hannah (Lena Dunham), Marnie (Allison Williams), Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet), and Jessa (Jemima Kirke), giving us more of their drama and growth as they close out their 20s. As usual, there will be struggles in every area of their lives, including work, love, and friendship.

    Knowing that the end is in sight makes the trailer is bittersweet, especially when Hannah outlines her goals for herself.

    “I want to write stories that make people feel less alone than I did,” she says. “I want to make people laugh about the things in life that are painful.”

    That’s what Dunham’s show has done for many over the years — and will continue to do in Season 6.

    “Girls” Season 6 hits HBO on Sunday, Feb. 12 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

    [via: HBO/YouTube]

  • When Does the Final Season of ‘Girls’ Premiere? HBO Has Set the Date

    Celebrity Sightings in New York City - August 13, 2016The time to say goodbye to “Girls” is coming, but first, there’s an entire season ahead of us to enjoy.

    HBO has revealed that the sixth and final season of its hit comedy-drama will kick off on Sunday, Feb. 12. The series will continue to follow its 20-something stars as they deal with the struggles of growing up and finding their place in “the real world.” The final season will bring back its girls — Lena Dunham, Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, and Zosia Mamet — plus Adam Driver, Alex Karpovsky, Andrew Rannells, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach.

    “Girls” wasn’t the only HBO show to have its upcoming premiere date revealed. The premium network also announced that “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” Season 4 will arrive on Sunday, Feb. 12 as well, while freshman comedy “Crashing” will debut the following week, on Feb. 19.

  • How Jason Ritter Is ‘Helping to Keep’ His Family’s Legacy Alive

    Now that Jason Ritter has a long and varied list of credits all his own, he says he’s prouder than ever to be carrying on a family tradition in Hollywood.

    From his breakthrough role on “Joan of Arcadia” through his roles on an array of well-loved TV series, including “Parenthood,” “Girls,” “Drunk History,” and “Another Period,” as well as numerous film appearances, Ritter has become one of Hollywood’s go-to players.

    How, he’s part of the enviable ensemble assembled by actress Two and a Half Men,” “Togetherness”), as well as a deep bench of TV-friendly faces including Duvall, Natasha Lyonne, Ben Schwartz, Cobie Smulders, Alia Shawkat, and Vincent Piazza.

    And now that his own showbiz bona fides are well-established, Ritter tells Moviefone that he’s become even more reflective about the Hollywood legacy — his father, of course, was TV sitcom icon John Ritter; his grandfather was country star and movie cowboy Tex Ritter; and his younger brother is rising TV actor Tyler Ritter — that he’s upholding.

    Moviefone: There are projects that you do for passion, and then one’s like these to support your friends to some degree — but also to have fun.

    Jason Ritter: Oh my God — it was so much fun! I had been hearing about it for several months before I became involved. Clea had written this part for Melanie, so Melanie was cast. Then I knew Natasha was going to be in it — I knew how close the three of them were, and I was like, “That’s going to be such a fun thing for you guys!”

    I heard my name was being bandied around in the room with Clea and her producers, and Melanie vouched for me as well. And that was exciting. Yeah, it was really fun to hear that I was going to get to join them on this fun journey. As more cast members started being decided on and coming in, I was like, it was getting better and better by the minute. I had just worked with Alia and she’s so great. Yeah, so yeah, it was a lot of fun.

    You’ve got a lot of good work to your credit, and a lot of different kinds of projects and different levels of projects. What are you looking to do these days, when you’re making decision just for you?

    It’s been interesting. I feel like there are times where I have no idea what I’m looking for other than that I know that on some level I’ll know that it’s the right thing. I feel like there are so many different sensibilities in the world, and it’s been nice in the last couple years to have found things that are all different, but that feel right to me.

    Whether it’s a comedy or a drama or science fiction or whatever it is, there’s something about it that makes me go, “Yes, this is the kind of thing that I like and would want to watch.” So I’m hoping for that. I would love to do something that is able to get out there on a bigger scale.

    One of the tough things with independent movies is you’re counting so much on word of mouth, and that either can happen or not happen. It’s nice that now with Netflix and other things like that, years can go by and someone can go, “Oh, I finally saw that,” or “I saw that movie that I had never heard of, and I liked it.” That’s been really great to have that outlet and other outlets where independent movies are shown.

    There are times where I see, like, a huge movie and I’m like, “That would be nice to have a publicity machine saying, ‘This is a good movie’” — which we have in this one. This is one of those rare times where I’m really excited to see that it’s actually coming out and that it has good people behind it and people believe in it.

    We still see you on TV a lot, but do you feel the pull of television a little more? There’s so much happening on TV right now.

    I do, yeah. I definitely do. And there is so much of it now. The interesting thing now is that, to me it almost feels like there’s no more pilot season. It feels like in that period of time of old pilot season, it gets a little bit more intense and there is sort of more volume of scripts and auditions and stuff. But if nothing happens during that period of time, then there’s all these Amazon and Netflix or cable shows, pilots are shooting and casting year-round.

    So I’ve been trying to trust my instincts in that because I also feel like, for me, I’m constantly worried that I’m going to do something that doesn’t feel 100% right, and because it doesn’t feel 100% right, I’m not 100% comfortable and the performance suffers — and then I’ve, like, ruined what I’ve tried to create. Because I think there are times in which you can sort of gamble big and take a shot at something and lose, and then it’s harder to convince people to give you that big of a shot again.

    So I’ve been trying to be careful in only auditioning for things that I really love. And then, the things that I really love are often things that everybody really loves. I’m auditioning against all these movie stars and things like that. It’s tough, but I keep on trying to sort of remind myself that the right thing will happen and to calm down. I would much rather be auditioning for shows that I love and don’t get, than be stuck on something that I feel like I’m bad in, or that I don’t believe in.

    How was your “Girls” experience?

    That was so much fun. I love that show, and I love Lena [Dunham] so much as an artist all around. It was really fun to get to jump into that world, having been a fan of the show. I was like, I had to stop myself from, “That’s Shoshanna right there!” It really feels surreal. Because you’re so invested in them as characters. But yeah, that was really fun.

    And that show really has a sort of — actually a lot like “Parenthood,” it had a sort of independent film feel, even though it’s a show and there’s a budget, there’s a big crew and it’s a big machine. There’s value put on performance and delivery that on some other shows are like, “You didn’t say this word correctly,” or something like that. It’s nice to be given a little bit of freedom as an actor, and I think a lot of the shows that I really respond to, you can see that the actors are really given permission to sort of play around.”

    You don’t have actors who are trying to sort of pair themselves down and cut off their rough edges to fit into the character. They’re able to sort of push out and find new little corners of who they are. Yeah, so “Girls” fit right into that — like, my favorite type of thing. It was really fun to jump into. Also, to be a character that I couldn’t really tell how I even felt about him! I was like, ‘Do I like him, or do I not?”

    There were things missing, and it was funny, I was seeing on Twitter, there was one line that I said, it was like, “I think I’m going to be in love with you soon.” And on Twitter I saw people who were both like, “aw,” and like “ew.” It was so great and I love that thing. Especially in “Girls.” There’s so much of that. The relationship that Lena had with Adam Driver‘s character was so complicated and so interesting and beautiful, and it went back and forth a million times.

    And it’s so nice to have a show like that that doesn’t say, “This is the couple that you’re supposed to feel this way about; this is the couple that you’re supposed to feel this way about …” You’re just like, “We present this couple, and you decide how you feel about it, and we’ll just tell the story — and allow you to get in spirited arguments with your significant other.”

    Are you coming back to the show? It felt final, but everything’s always a little open-ended there.

    I don’t know. To me, it feels like it came to a natural conclusion, but I also thought that before when she went to Japan in the first place. So I never know. But I don’t think so. I think Shoshanna’s moved on to better and brighter pastures.

    Ten years ago, we might have started this conversation when we first met: the legacy that you have, the family dynasty in show business with multiple generations now. Now that your career is established and solid you have your own fans and you’ve got a great body of work. What does that legacy mean to you at this stage of your life?

    It’s interesting. Yeah, it has sort of lessened. It’s so interesting, because I found an article, like an old article interview of my dad when he was just starting out. I think it was before “Three’s Company.” I think he had done “The Waltons” and a couple other things. And all of the questions were sort of about his dad. And I was like, “That’s so interesting,” because by the time I came along, it was like this. It was sort of like, “Oh, at the end of the interview, here’s another sort of interesting thing.”

    And what’s been funny is also now that my brother has started to … my younger brother [Tyler Ritter] started to work and get jobs all over the place, as much as I was [telling him] ‘Now, there’s a lot of rejection, you’ve got to stick it out …” He’s like, “I got it, I got it, I got it.” Like, “All right, slow down!” It’s been funny to sort of watch the kind of progression.

    This is also what we do with people that we just meet: We know a certain amount of things about them, and then as we know them more, we know more things about them. Initially, there’s that thing that, like, people can sort of hang their hat on. Well, “This is one thing, I just met you, but I do know, because I have the Internet, that your dad or your grandpa or your brother or whatever is this …”

    I think the main thing that’s sort of felt nice is that, initially, there was … I felt like there was an expectation that eventually I would go into the same kind of things that he did. As I continued to disappoint people on that level and just sort of continue just doing my thing, that expectation has died down, where they’re not expecting me to jump on a sitcom necessarily or do anything like that. Just, like, as much fun as it might have been to see my dad go into being a singing cowboy, that wasn’t his sort of skill set. So he went his own way until people appreciated that for what it was.

    Also, now, it feels nice now that there’s been many years since he passed away, and also even more years since my grandfather passed away — even though I never met him. It’s nice that they’re still talked about and remembered. That feels nice.

    In a way, it almost feels like I’m helping to keep it alive, or something like that.