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Allison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Allison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in Soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. Whether you're listening on the radio, live streaming, or on demand, I'm really grateful you are here. Before we get to today's show, I want to talk about what will be happening 48 hours from right now. All Of It is hitting the road or at least our elevator banks. We're going down nine stories to the first floor of the WNYC building where we'll be making our show before a live studio audience.

In the Greene Space this Friday our guests include author Emma Straub, comedian Jordan Carlos and we'll hear music from Yo La Tengo. They'll be performing. They have a new album coming out next week. The show will be streaming live. From what we heard, it is sold out. However, there may be a waitlist, so follow our socials @allofitwnyc to find out about that. I hope to see some of you in person in two days. Meanwhile, I'll be in all of your ears today with some great guests.

We'll speak with three-time academy award nominee composer, Carter Burwell who is nominated this year for an Oscar for his work on The Banshees of Inisherin, and we have an hour devoted to some very powerful art. We'll discuss the exhibit the Lives of the Gods, Divinity in Maya Art which is now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We'll continue our Black art history series with two discussions about how Black people have been represented in art both in the historical western canon and how today's artists are seeking to portray Black life.

That is the plan so let's get this started with Aline Brosh McKenna, the writer, director of the new film dropping just in time for Valentine's Day and filmed partially in New York City. Your Place or Mine.

[music

I don't mind you comin' here

And wastin' all my time

'Cause when you're standin' oh so near

I kinda lose my mind

Allison Stewart: That's the band The Cars and the lead character in the new film, Your Place or Mine, loves The Cars. That is his band. It has provided the soundtrack of his life from when Peter was a young aspiring writer in the 1990s to his current gig as a well-paid brand consultant, living a minimalist dream with a sparkly clean loft in Brooklyn Heights overlooking the bridge. Perfect suits, fully wired apartment. Ashton Kutcher plays him. Peter's best friend Debbie lives on the West Coast.

She's all denim jackets and gluten-free meals played by Reese Witherspoon. Debbie is deeply devoted to her offbeat son Jack. Debbie knows she needs to up her professional game to make enough to support them. She's been planning to come to New York City for some training but when her babysitter bails, Peter volunteers to come to Cali to take care of Jack and Debbie can stay in his Swanky pad. Here's a bit of the trailer for Your Place or Mine.

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Peter: Hey, Debbie.

Debbie: Happy birthday Peter. 20 years of friendship. Can you believe it?

Peter: How do you still speak to me?

Debbie: Do you remember the first night we met?

[music]

Peter: Never stops being weird.

Debbie: So weird.

[laughter]

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Peter: Debbie, you need to take a break.

Debbie: I just need to be practical, which is what you have to be when you're a single mom. Tragic.

Peter: I got an idea. I'm coming to LA for a week. I'm going to look after Jack and you can stay here.

Debbie: I don't know.

Peter: You need help. Let me help.

Debbie: Taking care of Jack is a lot of work.

Peter: I think I got this.

Speaker 1: I hope that you get what you want out of this trip. Find yourself a hottie. Maybe get waxed.

Debbie: Waxed? Oh, Waxed.

Speaker 1: Waxed.

Debbie: Oh, that's just not going to happen.

Allison Stewart: Now who would fly across the country to stay with a tween? Peter would because they're really good friends. Debbie and Peter talk almost every night about everything except how they feel about each other. They had a one-night thing, decades ago and decided to just be friends. They both also decided to settle for careers that don't really inspire them rather than pursue their dreams. They both love books. He's a closeted writer and loves literature.

She has an editor's instinct and can wax on about Edith Wharton. Now in their 40s, will they both choose the safe route or put themselves out there? The film Your Place or Mine was written and directed by Aline Brosh McKenna and has a crazy cast, Witherspoon, Kutcher, Jesse Williams, Tig Notaro, Steve Zahn, Zoe Chao, Shiri Appleby, and More. You know McKenna's work, she wrote the screenplay for The Devil Wears Prada and 27 Dresses. She and Rachel Bloom were behind the creative team. Behind this subversive and hilarious dramedy, the TV show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Alene, welcome.

Aline Brosh McKenna: Hi. My God that intro was incredible. That was so great. Thank you.

Allison Stewart: You are welcome. Thank you for a very fun movie. Perfect timing actually. When you wrote the script, did you have specific actors in mind?

Aline Brosh McKenna: Insofar as I always have Reese in mind for everything I've ever written. People are like, "Are you sure she can play a 70-year-old Croatian man?" I'm like "Yes, it's Reese. She can do anything." I'm always thinking about Reese but I don't really think about real actors when I'm writing something, I think about the people if that makes sense in a movie world. When I'm writing it, it's like if Reese Witherspoon was in the movie, somebody would say, "Oh, that's Reese Witherspoon."

Then once you get to casting, it's a different process where you imagine how Reese who I've known for a long time becomes Debbie, and how Ashton becomes Peter. That's part of the fun of it is seeing these iconic people that we know really well, turn into someone else. It's funny because when I spend time with Reese and Ashton now, I still imagine Peter and Debbie in my mind and they're different. They're different from Reese and Ashton.

Allison Stewart: It's really interesting because I was thinking about with Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher at this point in their careers, they don't have to do any film they don't want to do. Witherspoon's company Hello Sunshine is one of the producing partners on this. Was she always going to play the lead?

Aline Brosh McKenna: No, I sold it to Netflix with Jason Bateman's company called Aggregate. I've known Jason and then Michael Costigan who works with Jason is someone I've known since I first got to Hollywood. I pitched it to them first, I wrote it and then we went to Reese with our fingers crossed. Hello Sunshine came on. Reese is unique in that, her company is really one of the premier creators of female-driven content. They work a lot with women. It's a very female-friendly environment, but it started with two male producers, and then Ashton came on maybe six months after Reese did. It was a process. One of the good things of having been here, I joined the Writers Guild in 1991.

I have known a lot of people in the business and one of the things, when you get a little more successful, picking your collaborators, is really one of the joys. Michael Costigan the producer that came with Jason I've known for a long time. I always wanted to work with him. Laura Neustater who is Reese's partner, I had worked on a movie with God, maybe 12 years ago. It was nice to have these relationships that I've had for a while come to a process.

Allison Stewart: What do you look for in a collaborator?

Aline Brosh McKenna: I really like feedback and I like discussion. I worked with a director once who used to say that he thinks with his mouth open. I think it's also somewhat of a Jewish thing. I like to think by talking. I tend to gravitate towards people who like to talk things through, like to have conversations, like to chat on the way to something, on the way back from something. I think I gravitate towards people who are really good communicators and also people who make me laugh.

Allison Stewart: What's a benefit of having super recognizable actor and then also, what's a challenge?

Aline Brosh McKenna: I love movies with movie stars and that's what I initially became interested in. At one point if you will call Premier Magazine when that was around, they published a list of every movie Cary Grant had ever been in and I put it up on my wall and I went through watching every Cary Grant movie ever made. I love the transformation with actors but I also like that there's an aspect of a star really is someone who has a soul that resonates with an audience.

I don't think you can quantify why that happens. Who knows why Katharine Hepburn is who she is? Who knows why we connect to these folks? Reese and Ashton, we've known both of them since they were in their teens. I think we have a sense that we've watched them grow up and that's very helpful for a movie when you're dealing with people who have known each other for 20 years. You feel the history between them but you also feel the history that we have with them.

Allison Stewart: My guess is Aline Brosh McKenna, the name of the film is Your Place or Mine. It is dropping on Netflix on February 10th. Books in New York play a huge part of this film. Perfect for New York Public Radio listeners. You sent your actors stacks of books to prepare for their roles. What did you send to Ashton Kutcher so he could play this guy, Peter? Who at first, he was giving me American psycho vibes, I have to admit the first few shots [chuckles] in that apartment and those suits but he's much nicer.

Aline Brosh McKenna: I gave them each stacks of books for different reasons. For her, I gave her a bunch of books that I thought she would have in her house. They were old hardcovers that she would've picked up at a used bookstore or books that she's read over and over again. A lot of those were an old Dorothy Parker or things that I went to vintage bookstores for Reese and found things that I think she would've collected because in the movie, she's lived in her house for 20 years and I wanted it to feel fully inhabited with books. We put books everywhere in her house. There's books in the bathtub, bathroom everywhere, kitchen.

Then with him, he's an aspiring writer but he doesn't want to tell anybody. I think he would be very opinionated about current books. I gave him 8 or 10 books, and I tucked a note into an index card into every book and said, "This is what Peter would think of this book." On the fiction side, I gave him a book called Nothing to See Here that I thought Peter would really like. I gave him Bird By Bird and the classic Anne Lamott book because I think that would be a favorite of Peter's. I gave him When Breath Becomes Air. In the card I had, it says, "Peter thinks this is better than most novels that have been published in the last 15 years."

It was not just the books but I wanted to feel that taste of snobbery that you have when you're a writer. I wanted him to feel Peter's opinions. What's funny is I gave them both the books thinking they didn't necessarily have to read them, I just wanted to help fill in the character and Ashton read every single one. He just really wanted to fully be prepared. Then the book that's in the movie that he writes, Ashton, in conversation with him, he pitched me the concept for the novel when she explains the concept for the novel that came from a conversation with him. They're both people who really like to dig into their characters. Ashton got very into this idea of what he would be like as a writer.

Alison Stewart: Then the third lead is Jesse Williams, who's currently on Broadway and Take Me Out playing this very handsome debonair book publisher named Theo. What books did you give to him?

Aline Brosh McKenna: Actually, we did a different thing with Theo. I wanted to really feel the authenticity of him being an editor. I asked Jesse actually for a list of books that he wanted in his office that he felt would be important to his character. He gave us a list and we bought those and put them in his office. Also, the art that's in Theo's office is reproductions of Jesse's art. He's a big collector. He sent us the specs for the art that he has, and we reproduce them. I really wanted to collaborate with him on what Theo's literary vibe would be. I gave him a first edition. What I gave him was a first edition of a Toni Morrison novel at the end.

He also really took it seriously, like what Theo would be reading, what kind of books would he publish, what would be on the wall, what would be on the shelves. I like all that stuff. I think all that external stuff to me is a lot of important information. Just what a character hangs on the wall to me is a very important signifier of who they are. It was an important part of the production design was everybody's books. That's why Peter's books are arranged by color which is a sign that you lost your way morally.

Alison Stewart: [chuckles] It's so home edit. It looks like something an organizer would come in and do as opposed to what he wants to do or how he feels about books.

Aline Brosh McKenna: I think he's presenting a front. He's pretending that he's left that part of his life behind. A lot of what I wanted to do with this movie, with romantic comedies, sometimes the characters seem like they were born the day before the movie starts. I wanted to get a sense that these people, they're in their 40s, they've had long lives, they have certain specific tastes, things they read, things they watch and so giving them that well lived-in feel as characters who've gotten to a certain place in their life.

I think falling in love at that age is harder in a way I wanted the obstacles here to not be as external as they sometimes are in romantic comedies. The obstacles here are really themselves.

Alison Stewart: My guess is Aline Brosh McKenna, we are talking about her new film, which she wrote and directed Your Place or Mine, dropping on Netflix on February 10th. We'll have more with Aline after a quick break. This is All Of It.

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Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart, my guest is ours, Aline Brosh McKenna. She's the writer and director of the new film, Your Place or Mine. How does it feel to hear director, this is your debut.

Aline Brosh McKenna: It's great. I've directed TV. I've not directed movies. It feels great. I didn't know until I remember thinking even up until the day that we started, I was thinking, "I wonder how I'll feel with these shoes on. I wonder how I'll feel." I'm pretty gregarious. I like people. I like to work directly with people. In a way, being a screenwriter has always been a little bit fighting my nature, so much solitude involved with being a screenwriter. Being a TV writer, you have more of a sense of community. I loved it. I love the social aspects of it. I love the collaborations. I love expertise. When you are on a set, every single person, 175 people, whatever day it is, they're all experts in their field.

Many of them are in unions and they really have trained, and they're very good at what they do. Often all it takes is really asking their opinion. They have these wondrous stores of knowledge. I really loved all that. It's a joyful movie. It's a warm movie. I've written a bunch of things that were more satirical in a way, like Prada and definitely Crazy Ex or more satirical in nature. I really wanted to write a love story that I would root for, that I would root for the people to get together.

It's more sincere in a way and funnily enough, that felt a little naked. That felt like there's something in a funny way, especially in the environment that we're in, it feels a little, I don't know. You feel a little exposed, being positive, a warm, sunny, hopeful but it was a bright smack in the middle of the pandemic. We're all wearing masks, and it felt really nice to go somewhere where we were making a movie about well-intentioned folks who are trying to be good people.

Alison Stewart: It's interesting the evolution of the romcom. There's an author named Scott Meslow who wrote a book called From Hollywood with Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy. He describes the high point, the golden era of 1990s and early 2000s When Harry Met Sally..., Pretty Woman, Bridget Jones's Diary, Your Films. As someone who's written successful romcoms of that era, do you understand what happened in the 2010s? Why they became few and far between? Can you give arousing case for turning the boat around?

Aline Brosh McKenna: It's funny because people have been talking a lot about the move to streamers for romcoms but the truth of the matter is that these types of movies have often been an at-home experience. I think I would venture to say that most of the people who've seen Devil Wears Prada or 27 Dresses saw it at home, either on maybe even VCR, but definitely DVD or on television. It is interestingly a form that lives very well in a home format. I think that's one of the reasons that you're seeing it come back. It's also financials.

The movies business had gotten to a point where everything is spectacle. Everything is superhero action, those bigger genres. I have been doing this for long enough that it waxes and wanes. There was big move towards it then a big move away from it but Hollywood, people are here for the money, the business people are here for the money. They stopped making them because financially they couldn't figure out how to justify spending $30 to $50 million on the release of a movie that only costs $30 million.

What's cool about streamers is they have data. When you're doing things for women, there's always this sense of we're so shocked that 80 for Brady did well, we're so shocked, we're so surprised. How can this be? Netflix has the data to show that people watch these movies and they'll watch them to the end and then start them over again. As much as people bemoan the good old days, it's actually great for filmmakers from, always feels weird to say minority community when you're a woman, but from a side group--

Alison Stewart: Underrepresented.

Aline Brosh McKenna: Underrepresented is exactly a better word. To see that there's data to support that everybody wants to go to the movies, everyone wants to see themselves reflected. I think it is human nature that the people who are the gatekeepers, they gravitate towards things like themselves. I actually think young people coming up are much more inclusive in their tastes, less as a social justice mission but just they've experienced a wider variety of things.

I think streamers have been great for bringing back actually a bunch of genres and for making us all enthusiastically watch foreign things, for instance. [inaudible 00:20:13] the thing that we ever used to do and now it's like, "I'm happily going to watch not just Squid Game, but Borgen, Call My Agent." You would never have thought that the business would migrate to a place where we're all watching things with subtitles. It's interesting where the forces of capitalism can bob you over to the places you want to be. What I try and do is see where those opportunities are, where the money and the taste align.

Alison Stewart: We had a random call from someone who wanted to know what inspired you to write a story about two friends who ultimately realized that they could possibly be deeply in love.

Aline Brosh McKenna: The movie's a love letter to a number of things. It's definitely a love letter to single moms, but it's also a love letter to all the wonderful very close guy friends I've had in my life. I really have had a lot. I only had one that turned into a romance, and that's my husband of 25 years. We were friends for a long time. I think you learn a lot in those mixed-gender friendships. It was specifically inspired by staying in a friend of mine's apartment at a point in his life where he was really deep into bachelor and I was really deep into motherhood. I just thought, "Gosh, our lives are so different."

I have 16 different types of yogurt in my fridge, and he has a jar of pickles and a bottle of champagne. That contrast was really what started it. I think that the other aspect of friendship is now you can keep in touch in a way. Anybody I've met since 2005, I can find, I have an online connection to them. When these guys were kids, you had to go beep boo beep boo beep boo, blah, blah, blah, blah to get a date. I have absolutely no idea how we found each other. I don't know how we ever got to-- there was so much more happenstance in our social lives.

There were a lot of things that I wanted to talk about, about friendship. I actually think when I look back on the stuff I've written, that I'm in some ways more interested in friendship than romance because I think friends can and will last forever, often do last forever. As a friend of mine used to say, with romance, you really only need one. You don't need to feel the team. Friendship to me has always been a very big preoccupation.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Aline Brosh McKenna, she's the writer and director of the film Your Place or Mine, you can watch it on Netflix this weekend. The film is shot all over New York. Were there certain locations you know you wanted to include?

Aline Brosh McKenna: Yes, I wanted to do a little bit-- as you said, he's financially well off, but I didn't want him-- we looked at apartments actually in Dumbo, and I said, "It should be a $4 million apartment, not a $25 million apartment." He's a brand consultant and then works at a management consultant firm. He's not going to have a penthouse floor through. It's just a one-bedroom apartment, but it's decorated in that style. I wanted to do Brooklyn because I think a lot of wealthy people have migrated to Brooklyn certainly since I live there. There's a way to be wealthy and high-toned in the Brooklyn sense. We've seen a lot of Midtowny or Upper East Sidey.

I wanted a different vibe. Similarly for Debbie, she lives in Echo Park, Silver Lake area, so she's an East sider. What I was trying to do to make this fresher and more modern was to make it more grounded. They're wearing what they would wear, they're living where they would live, they're eating what they would eat. We packed her kitchen full of so many things and the wonderful set deck guy got us yards and yards and yards of books for her apartment so making those things grounded. We started out in New York. We shot a week in New York.

I've never directed a big movie before. My first week is on location in New York. I was scared out of my mind because there are so many things in New York that change. You think you have this location and you don't, and there's traffic so you can't get someone to show up in time and you're losing the light. It's a much more complicated endeavor. The very first week as a feature director was one of the harder weeks. The nice thing about that is once we cleared that, I could relax, but New York is the best sound stage in the world. There's always something happening. There's that vibrant feeling. We did take out a lot of masks in post.

Alison Stewart: I bet.

Aline Brosh McKenna: As much as you clear, there would be people. In the beginning when he's walking down the street, in that shot, I think we removed 16 masks. It's a COVID-free movie, but I'll always remember trying to hunt for those Where's Waldo for masks.

Alison Stewart: You had the opportunity in this film to write lyrics for a song.

Aline Brosh McKenna: I did. I've written songs before. On Crazy Acts, I contributed I think I have 15 song credits or maybe a little more, but out of the 157 songs. With this, I wanted a song because as you started, The Cars really scores Peter's end of the story. Because my experience has been guys tend to pick a band and then it's their band. It's like they have Steely Dan, they have Van Halen in there and it's a big part of their identity so he got The Cars.

For her, we have a bunch of female artists, but I wanted a song that was just Debbie. We have this incredible composer, Siddhartha Khosla, and his partner Alan. We got on the phone and spent three hours on the phone and came up with this song which is called Embers. The idea is that a love can be an ember and then you can fan the flame and bring it back to life.

Alison Stewart: We're going to go out on Embers. My guess has been Aline Brosh McKenna. The name of the film is Your Place or Mine. It drops on Netflix on February 10th. Aline, thanks for being with us.

Aline Brosh McKenna: Thanks so much, Alison. I appreciate it.

 

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