The new nine-part MCU series ‘She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,’ will premiere on Disney+ beginning August 18th. The series revolves around lawyer Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany), who also happens to be Bruce Banner’s (Mark Ruffalo) cousin, and the hero known as She-Hulk.
The show was created by writer Jessica Gao, and executive produced by director Kat Coiro (‘Marry Me’), and in addition to Maslany and Ruffalo, also features Ginger Gonzaga, Jameela Jamil, and Renee Elise Goldsberry. Reprising their characters in the series from other Marvel projects are Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky/Abomination, Benedict Wong as Wong, and Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock/Daredevil.
The result is a fun and hilarious new series that perfectly adapts the original source material from the comics with fourth wall breaking comedic moments like ‘Deadpool,’ a commanding performance from Tatiana Maslany, and enough MCU cameos to make every Marvel fan happy!
The series begins by introducing us to Jennifer Walters (Maslany), a talented young lawyer about to argue a big case. However, she then turns directly to the camera and explains how she became She-Hulk.
The show then flashes back to months earlier when Jennifer is visiting with her cousin, Bruce Banner (Ruffalo) after the events of ‘Avengers: Endgame’ and the ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ end credit scene. When a car accident mixes Bruce’s blood with Jennifer’s, she becomes a Hulk-like creature just like her cousin.
Bruce then takes her to a remote island laboratory created by Tony Stark between ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Endgame,’ which Bruce used to become Smart Hulk. On the island, Bruce teaches Jennifer to use her new powers, and discovers that she is stronger and can control her powers better than Bruce ever could.
We then flash-forward to the opening moments of the series and watch Jennifer as she is about to argue her case, when the supervillain Titania (Jamil) attacks the courtroom. Jennifer then announces to the world she is She-Hulk by transforming in the courtroom and stopping Titania.
However, she is soon fired from her firm only to be hired by a competing law firm to head up their superhuman defense department. The catch is that they want her to be She-Hulk full-time, forcing Jennifer to come to terms with her new superhero persona.
When I heard Marvel was planning a Disney+ series based on She-Hulk, I was concerned about what type of show it would be. If you are familiar with comic book legend John Byrne’s run on “The Sensational She-Hulk” in the late 80s, you know that the comic was very funny, and featured the lead character being aware that she is in a comic book, similar to other Marvel characters like Howard the Duck or Deadpool.
Since the ‘Deadpool’ movies introduced the character as being able to “break the fourth wall,” I was worried that ‘She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’ might decide not to include this aspect of the character, but I’m very happy to announce that instead they truly embraced it.
Most episodes of the series run about 30 minutes, and is very much a workplace comedy, not unlike ‘The Office’ or even legal comedies like ‘Ally McBeal.’ This fits perfectly with the source material and is a fantastic way of adapting the character to screen.
The comedic tone of the series allows us to see some favorite MCU character in a new light, like Bruce Banner, Emil Blonsky and Wong. The series is even able to poke fun at itself and the overall MCU, with running commentary from Walters like teasing the audience for loving Wong.
And for Hulk fans that had a lot of questions about Banner, Blonsky and Wong’s involvement in last year’s ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,’ rest assured that the series will finally answer them.
But the series not only welcomes back some fan-favorite characters, but creates some great new ones including Patty Guggenheim as Madisynn, a party girl that hilariously befriends Wong. Ginger Gonzaga is also a great addition to the MCU as Nikki, Jennifer’s confidant and best friend. And while she does not appear much in the first few episodes, Jameela Jamil definitely lights up the screen as Titania, and I’m looking forward to when the character inevitably battles She-Hulk.
But the highlight of the series is Tatiana Maslany’s complex performance as both Jennifer Walters and She-Hulk. The series wisely establishes Jennifer as her own character in the opening moments of the series, so the audience is able to fully go with her on her journey. Because of the tone of the series, Maslany is allowed a fresh take on being a superhero and the challenges of juggling a career and personal life with her responsibilities as a hero.
If I had one criticism, it would be that the visual effects that transform Maslany into She-Hulk could have used a bit of more work. In the movies, Hulk is used sparingly (with the exception of ‘Endgame’), which allows more time to focus on the effects. Not to mention that the VFX budget on a film is much greater than what they have to work with on television. The fact that the character is She-Hulk in most of her scenes, may have also added to the rough spots in some parts.
But ultimately, ‘She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’ is a fresh take on the character, the genre and the MCU in general. With terrific dialogue from writer Jessica Gao, and great visuals and tone from director and executive producer Kat Coiro, the series is a home run for Marvel and sitcom fans alike.
‘She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’ receives 4.5 out of 5 stars.
You can also click on the video player below to watch our interviews with Tatiana Maslany, Ginger Gonzaga, Tim Roth, writer Jessica Gao, and director and executive producer Kat Coiro about their work on ‘She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.’
The nine-part series will revolve around Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany), Bruce Banner’s (Mark Ruffalo) cousin. After an accident mixes Jennifer’s blood with Bruce’s, she becomes She-Hulk, but unlike her cousin, control her powers. Now Jennifer must balance her new responsibilities as a superhero, with her life and career as an attorney specializing in superhero cases.
In addition to Maslany and Ruffalo, the series also features Ginger Gonzaga, Jameela Jamil, Renee Elise Goldsberry, and reprising their characters from other Marvel projects, Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky/Abomination, Benedict Wong as Wong, and Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock/Daredevil.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Tatiana Maslany about her work on ‘She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,’ joining the MCU, the comedic tone of the series, how her character struggles with being a superhero and a lawyer, working with Mark Ruffalo, and the visual effects that allow her to become She-Hulk.
Tatiana Maslany in Disney+’s ‘She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.’
You can read our full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interviews with Tatiana Maslany, Ginger Gonzaga, Tim Roth, writer Jessica Gao, and director and executive producer Kat Coiro.
Moviefone: To begin with, as an actress, what has it been like for you to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
Tatiana Maslany: It’s great. It’s a very warm family. I was on set with Mark Ruffalo and he was a great ambassador for the MCU. He really welcomed me in and gave me some stories from his many years of being part of it. So, it feels good.
MF: Can you talk about the comedic tone of the series and the challenges of balancing that with all the superhero action?
TM: That balancing act feels like what Jen is doing in her life, which is she has her job and her life as it is, and then the She-Hulk thing happens to her and it does throw everything off balance. Now she’s having to engage with these two different worlds entirely and try to find the connection between the two in her.
So similarly, we have tonally so many different things going on in the show. We have the kind of minutia of the everyday life stuff, and then this enormous MCU world that has action and cameos from all these different universes. So, it feels like that kind of off-balance thing is at the heart of the show.
MF: As you mentioned, Jennifer is struggling with balancing her responsibility as a hero with her career as a lawyer. Can you talk about how that affects he relationship with her family and friends?
TM: Thankfully she’s got Nikki, who’s her best friend, and has always been encouraging Jen to live in a bigger way, to push outside of her comfort zone. So, when the She-Hulk thing happens, she similarly wants to draw her out and make her enjoy this thing that’s happened to her and not ignore it.
With her family, it becomes the question that everybody asks when she goes home for Christmas, which used to be, are you dating anybody? Or do you have enough money? Now it’s questions about other superheroes that everybody asks her.
MF: What was it like working with Mark Ruffalo and did he give you any advice on how to be a Hulk?
TM: We traded stories about what it’s like to be in the MOCAP suit and to do that, but he really was never prescriptive about how to be a Hulk. The two of them have such very different experiences of it, so we kind have to have a different take on it. That’s what’s really fun about our show, is that it explores a totally different version of being a Hulk.
MF: Finally, can you talk about working with motion capture and how you technically transform into She-Hulk?
TM: It’s super technical. It’s like you’re in this motion capture suit that has all these sensors on it and there’s all these cameras. There’s a camera on your face, attached to a helmet on your head. There’re all these things that make it very weird to be an actor and that make it hard to connect with other people.
But all of that stuff to me informs how the character feels. She feels out of place and she feels like her body isn’t hers, and all of that is fun stuff to play with.
(L to R) Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson in ‘Marry Me’
‘Marry Me’ is looking to capture some love this coming Friday as Valentine’s weekend kicks off, pairing Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson as a seemingly mismatched couple who meet under unusual circumstances.
The movie, directed by Kat Coiro, opens as Kat Valdez (Lopez) is half of the sexiest celebrity power couple on Earth with hot new music supernova Bastian (Colombian singer Maluma). As Kat and Bastian’s inescapable hit single, ‘Marry Me’ climbs the charts, they are about to be wed before a global audience of their fans.
Divorced high-school math teacher Charlie Gilbert (Wilson) has been dragged to the concert by his daughter Lou. When Kat learns, seconds before the ceremony, that Bastian has cheated on her with her assistant, her life turns left as she has a meltdown on stage, questioning love, truth, and loyalty. As her gossamer world falls away, she locks eyes with a stranger, a face in the crowd: Charlie, awkwardly holding a sign reading “Marry Me”. In a moment of inspired insanity, Kat chooses to marry Charlie. What begins as an impulsive reaction evolves into an unexpected romance…
Lopez needs little introduction, given that she’s a musical superstar and actress who has appeared in movies including ‘Out Of Sight, ‘Hustlers’ and ‘Monster-in-Law’.
Wilson, meanwhile, has long established his comedic and dramatic credentials, working regularly alongside old friend Wes Anderson as both writer and actor, and has a lengthy resume including ‘Wedding Crashers’, ‘The Royal Tennenbaums’, all three ‘Meet the Parents’ movies and as the voice of Lightning McQueen in Pixar’s ‘Cars’ movies.
Lopez first crossed paths with her ‘Marry Me’ co-star Wilson in 1997 creature feature ‘Anaconda.’ ‘Marry Me’ promises to be a very different experience.
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The two popular actors recently spoke at a virtual press conference about the new film, here is what they had to say.
Jennifer, you play musical superstar, Kat Valdez in ‘Marry Me.’ Who is she in your eyes? How does her life change from the moment she decides to follow the impulse to marry a stranger?
Jennifer Lopez: In my eyes, Kat Valdez is a very kind of self-assured, recording artist veteran in the industry who has built herself and her life into something that she’s proud of, but it also, in a way, because of her personal life has become a bit unsatisfying. I think for her there’s a beautiful journey here. Once the character that Owen plays, Charlie, comes into her life, it really changes it forever. Changes her perspective, changes her ideas of being caught.
Sometimes you feel you are kind of caught like, “Okay, I’m trapped in this fame. I’m trapped in this life. This is all I can do. I really don’t get to have a life like everybody else or love like everybody else.” I think what Owen’s character teaches her is that she can and that it is possible and that there is hope for her. She could have a real love and a real home, which she’s never had.
How much of Kat is in you and how much of you is in Kat, Jennifer?
JL: I think there’s a lot of us in each other. This wasn’t a role where I had to research what it was like to be a famous recording artist who does branding and who has all of that. I understand what all of that is already. I think the difficult part was the meta part, which was the idea of showing what it’s really like inside my bedroom. When something goes wrong and you suffer a heartbreak like this in front of the whole world, and the media goes to town on you to kind of unearth the story and understand it and poke fun at it.
In some of those moments, even with scenes with me and Owen, where he’s asking, “Don’t, you want to just give up on the whole love thing?” It was just that philosophy that she has. I understand it’s like, “No, if there’s a one in a billion chance, no matter what the numbers are, you’re a math teacher, that’s worth it,” because I think what she has craving is that love and that home. So, there was a lot of moments there where I was able to bring a truth to the character in the emotional life that was authentic and real.
Owen, How do you see the character of Charlie?
Owen Wilson: Charlie’s sort of ordinary, I guess that would be sort of a man of the people. Then Bastian is this singing sensation and engaged to Kat Valdez. Through circumstance somehow, I wind up there at the concert. The next thing you know I’m on stage getting married. It’s such a leap of faith that when you read it, you are kind of, “Oh, I wonder how that’s going to work?” Yet, in the movie, sort of everything that leads up to it, I think you kind of go along with it. I felt it was kind of believable.
Music of course is a key element of the movie, Jennifer. Can you talk about the experience of making an album and a movie at the same time?
JL: That was a first for me, which was such a pleasure. It’s like my two worlds coming together, but making the album, it was great because they really allowed me to input into where and when and what these musical moments would be for this character. They really looked to me to be like, okay, how would this be? How could we make this feel real? Picking the music for the arc of the characters says, nobody understood the character more than I did. Nobody understood what it was to be a musical art artist and be this person within this movie.
Owen, how was your experience with Jennifer this time around?
OW: For me, it was very relaxing. It was nice because Jen assumed so many responsibilities, I didn’t have to worry about anything. She and Elaine (producer Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas) had to bear the brunt of the stress of everything. A lot of times when you work on a movie, you kind of hear it in your head or you have casting ideas. With this, everybody was just spot on. I wasn’t worried about anything. I felt that it was working while we were doing it.
(L to R) Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson in ‘Marry Me’
You were mentioning before how Charlie’s this normal guy, and the movie really plays into the idea that opposites attract. Do you believe that in real life?
OW: Well, to an extent. I think opposites attract in a sense from different backgrounds and seemingly very different. But I think in terms of your spirit, I think there must be some sort of overlap either in humor, or the way you look at the world, or what you’re curious about, or sense of adventure. So, in those ways I think sometimes it helps to have a little bit of overlap for that attraction to work.
Jennifer, you’ve starred in some memorable romantic comedies. Is this a homecoming of sorts for you and do you have a special place in your heart for that genre?
JL: Yes, I do. I think that’s why I’ve done so many throughout my career. It’s because I, as a moviegoer, love romantic comedies. Those are some of my favorite movies of all time, whether it’s ‘When Harry met Sally’ or ‘Prelude to a Kiss’ or any of these types of movies, the Meg Ryan era, and the Julia Roberts era, all those movies is what I grew up on. I love them so much.
So, it is kind of a homecoming for me because I haven’t done one in a few years and now I have two coming out. I have this one, ‘Marry Me’ and then ‘Shotgun Wedding’ will be out at some point, which I did with Josh Duhamel. So, I’m excited to be able to do a couple.
Is there a certain element in a romantic comedy script that makes you want to say yes to it, Jennifer?
JL: I think it’s hard to reinvent it every time. How do you make it different than the last one? Because we kind of always know that two people are going to wind up together and that’s going to be the end. So, it’s about how interesting the journey is and the interaction between the two characters and how interesting that is. If that’s written well, that’s what makes me want to do it.
Jennifer, Marry Me has some unforgettable songs. Do you have a favorite one?
JL: It’s hard. I mean, off the top of my head, I love ‘Nobody’s Watching Us.’ I love it so much because I really relate to it. ‘On My Way’, for me is such a life song. It’s one of those perfect sentiments in a song. Yes, it fit well in the movie, but I just thought it was a song that everybody could relate to because we all feel like the mistakes we make are so tragic in our lives.
This is so hopeful because it says that every single mistake that I made was leading me down a yellow brick road to exactly where I needed to be and where I wanted to be, and I do believe in that in life. So, I would have to say, if I had to pick a favorite child, which I would never do, it would be, ‘On My Way.’
Owen, Kat obviously takes a big leap of faith when she marries Charlie. What’s the biggest leap of faith you’ve taken?
OW: I think, for me, I did not study acting. I was an English major, but I always loved movies and I liked writing. So, when my friend and I started writing a movie together, believing that I could act in it, I don’t know that I did necessarily. It was more my friend’s belief that I could do it. Because growing up in Dallas, if you had said, ‘Oh, I want to be in movies,’ I think people would’ve almost laughed at you like, “Yeah, who doesn’t want to be in movies?” But I think that believing that I could maybe have a career doing something creative, that’s not the life that most people lead. So that was a leap of faith.
‘Marry Me’ debuts in theaters and streaming on Peacock February 11, 2022.
(L to R) Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson in ‘Marry Me’
Based on the graphic novel of the same name by Bobby Crosby, ‘Marry Me’ sees star and producer Jennifer Lopez back in her element. Featuring nearly a dozen original songs – mostly performed in their entirety – Lopez stars as lovestruck superstar Kat Valdez.
Set to marry her fiance Bastian (Maluma) in front of 40M people on live television, her world comes crashing down when a video surfaces of him cheating on her. Caught up in the moment, she proposes to a stranger in the crowd holding a marry me sign. Is her whirlwind marriage to hapless math teacher Charlie (Owen Wilson) just a publicity stunt, or did she accidentally find something real?
Director Kat Coiro is no stranger to the romantic comedy genre. Born to bohemian parents in a third floor Manhattan walk-up, Coiro spent much of her childhood living a nomadic existence around the globe. She studied theater and Russian literature at Carnegie Mellon University, and briefly enrolled in the American Film Institute’s MFA program before dropping out to film her first feature ‘L!fe Happens’.
Co-written by Coiro and star Krysten Ritter, the rom-com was partially inspired by their own friendship, as well as Coiro’s experience as a first time mother. She quickly directed two more romances: ‘And While We Were Here’ and ‘A Case of You’ before pivoting to television. Her TV credits include the pilots for comedies’Girls5Eva’ and ‘Florida Girls,’ and the upcoming Disney+ show ‘She Hulk’.
After nearly a decade working solely in television, ‘Marry Me’ is not only a delightful return to the romantic comedy genre for the director, but also a showcase for Coiro’s vivid visual flare and skill at capturing the essence of entertainers at their most spectacular.
Jennifer Lopez at 2015 American Music Awards. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)
Moviefone: What do you look for in the films that you direct in general, and how did you get involved with ‘Marry Me’ in particular?
Kat Coiro: It’s funny because I never really subscribed to a specific genre. I just look for a mix of humor and heart and humanity. I had actually moved into the television space. I’d kind of said I’m not going to do features for a while. But when I read this script, it just really spoke to me in terms of its humanity. Even though it’s this larger than life story about a celebrity, there is something so elementally vulnerable and human and interesting in the heart of the story.
That’s really what drew me to it. Also having Jennifer Lopez play this role that feels like she was born to play. It’s the combination of all of her talents: acting and singing and fashion. She brought so much to it. She was attached when I read the script, so that was really an exciting element, obviously.
MF: I read that she listened to a hundred songs to narrow down the ones featured in the film.
KC: More than that! We listened to probably 400 songs. Our partners at Universal, and then Jennifer’s music team, they inundated us with songs that had been banked songs that were originally written for the film. There were a lot of different songs entitled ‘Marry Me’ that we went through. That was a huge process. It was me and Jennifer and Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, who’s the producing partner, and then also Mike Knobloch, and Rachel Levy over at Universal and Benny Medina.
We would all get these files, and say here are the top ten from that batch. One of the great parts of the process is that we would all hear the same song and go, this is the one! It was so important that the songs not just be good in and of themselves, but that they tie into the emotional arc of the story. Because while it is a rom com, and it is about a relationship, it’s also about the growth and the progression of an artist.
She starts in this very big, larger than life, spectacle, pop world with songs like “Church’. Slowly as the film goes on, she breaks down to a very simple unproduced version of herself with ‘On My Way’, which ends up being the song that kind of puts her on the map in a new way.
MF: How did you select which songs to present as a spectacle, via social media, in a recording studio, etc?
KC: That ties into the selection of the songs. Where she is at the top of the film, she is this big, famous pop star who’s marrying another big famous pop star, and they’re known for this very flashy kind of radio hit, which is ‘Marry Me’, and then when her world explodes, she has to build back up. It was about finding each song in the sequence that went along with that emotional journey.
One of the most exciting moments for me was during my first time meeting Jennifer. She started singing a song that’s not actually in the movie, but a song called ‘Unlove You’ that had originally been scripted in the film. She was singing along to a Bluetooth and the Bluetooth dropped out and she kept singing and I was four feet away from her. I’ve always known how talented she is and what a good singer she is, but seeing it like that, an acapella Jennifer Lopez in a room singing. It brought tears to my eyes. I got chills. I thought oh my god, if we can bring even a tiny bit of that into the film I think we will have succeeded.
So I always knew that we were working towards this moment where she sits and sings unaccompanied, and she sings for real in the room and we don’t mess with it. It was all moving towards that point of just stripped down and raw Jennifer Lopez.
MF: Earlier you mentioned fashion. Her character has a lot of looks, from the stage spectacle to the wedding dress to her casual walking around New York City style. How did you develop them?
KC: One of the most important things to me was that these concerts feel 100% real. So, to that end, from a lighting standpoint, from a set design standpoint, from a costume standpoint, we actually brought in her concert team for those sequences.
So when she performs ‘Church,’ that was a collaboration between me and the costume designer, Caroline Duncan, but also Rob Zangardi, who does all her costumes for her shows. It was a real collaboration. When you have Jennifer Lopez and her music team, part of your job is to get out of the way and let them do their thing. Where I would weigh in is when it affected the story emotionally.
When you look at ‘Church,’ that is when she’s at the height of this very spectacle driven kind of flashy persona. It was really important to capture the authenticity of the concerts. In terms of her fashion throughout, she obviously has such a great sense of what looks good on her, so it was conversations about where she is in the story. How do these costumes reflect the emotional trajectory? Then let her and her team do their thing.
(L to R) Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson in ‘Marry Me’
MF: There’s a stark difference visually between her world and Charlie (Owen Wilson)’s world. Can you talk about that?
KC: One of the motifs that we played with throughout is that she lives in a world that is up high, it’s in the clouds. It’s in the sparkly city lights. You look at her apartment, it’s on the 40th floor. She’s on a private jet. Even when she goes to the press conference, her car is parked on the rooftop. That was something that was scripted in an underground garage, and my cinematographer Florian Ballhaus, and I were like no, we always want her to be up high.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have Charlie who lives in a ground floor apartment. His classroom is on the ground floor of his Brooklyn school. We were constantly playing with this high-low dynamic. She’s always on a stage and he’s down below. That was a huge part of the visual language of the film, with him always looking up at her and she’s looking down at him.
Then we flip it at the very end of the film. She comes into the theater and he’s up on the stage for the first time. When she holds up the sign, she’s down below. It’s really about them having influenced each other’s worlds, and changed each other.
MF: One moment that really struck me because it’s one of my favorite poets, is when we meet Kat she reads from Keats for possible wedding vows, and then later Charlie also loves Keats. Was that always in the script?
KC: Every film I have made has a sliver of classical poetry because it’s something that I love to sneak in. Especially in popular films, I just like to bring in a little of that poetry and romanticism. Keats was a Romantic poet, so to bring that in was important to me. It wasn’t originally scripted that way. But it was also a way of setting up the difference between Kat Valdez and Bastian (Maluma).
For her this is a really romantic venture. She is pouring her whole heart and soul into it. But for him, he’s very young. He’s very famous. It seems like a great press opportunity. It’s not that he doesn’t love her, and that he’s callous, but they are coming at it from different times in their life and from different points of view. I think poetry is a very simple and straightforward way of showing that difference between where they are in their lives.
MF: Both Kat and Charlie have been divorced before. Marriage and remarriage is a classic trope in screwball romantic comedies. Are there any romantic comedies that inspired you while making this film?
KC: Oh, definitely. You can see throughout the film that instead of shying away from the tropes and the cliches we lean into them. There’s a reason that Michelle Buteau opens and closes the jewelry box when Jennifer reaches for it.
KC: There’s a reason he’s holding up a sign or she’s running through the airport. It’s funny, I keep getting asked, is the rom com dead? I always say the rom com is the most sustaining genre that exists in cinema. When you look back at Charlie Chaplin. Those are rom coms. When you look at the musicals of the 30s and 40s, and 50s. Those are rom coms.
When you look at the 80s and 90s, and 2000s. It is a very enduring genre. We wanted to really play into that and say, yes, we’re coming from a tradition of rom com and we embrace it, and we love it. Some of my favorites are ‘When Harry Met Sally. . .’ and ‘Notting Hill’. I think there’s a lot of comparisons between ‘Notting Hill’ and this movie, and I love that and I welcome that.
MF: Why do you think romantic comedies are so enduring?
KC: I think they’re hopeful. I think that they make people happy. I’m always a little shocked by the way that they’re spoken of like they’re lesser than. Because the truth is they are geared towards women, but I think men also love them. In my experience, it’s a very universal genre. Then you add the music that we have in this film, and it becomes not just a rom com, but also kind of a concert experience. I’m really hoping that’s part of what brings people to the theaters. The combination of the glamour, the style, and the genre. It’s about love and it is about hope. It’s as simple as that.
With ‘Marry Me’ you also get to watch songs performed in their entirety, which is something that was also really important to me. A lot of music movies show a snippet, 15 seconds, you just get the sense of the song. I went into it saying no, we have to play out the entire song every single time that we can, because it’s such a fundamental part of who Kat Valdez is, and wanting to draw the audience in that way and really show full performances is something that I think sets this movie apart.
MF: What do you hope people take away when they’re done watching this film?
KC: One of the things that always struck me about the film is that we live in a society that is very fixated on being famous, and on getting lots of followers. I would say that there is an obsession with it that is probably a little bit unhealthy. There’s something about this film where we’re peeling back the curtain, and we’re saying you do pay a price for living in the spotlight the way that Kat Valdez does. It was very important to me that we ended the film on the simplest scene of them sitting on a couch in sweatpants, watching TV with their family.
Originally in the script, it had ended on another big wedding. I really wanted to strip us away from big romantic gestures. Because the truth is life, in its simplicity, is something that we should and can be striving for. It doesn’t all have to be striving to be in the spotlight. So I hope that people walk away and feel like they had a little bit of an escape, but also that they can be happy with a simpler life.
‘Marry Me’ debuts in theaters and streaming on Peacock February 11, 2022.
