(upbeat music)
- How are you, it's Kevin Kenny.
Welcome to a brand new episode of In Studio.
Our guest today is the writer, director
and producer of a brand new Netflix film
entitled Like Father.
Joining us know, Lauren Miller Rogen.
- Hello.
- How are ya?
- Hi, I'm doing well, how are you doing?
- I'm great, how do you feel with it being
now out in the world?
This thing that you've, I mean it goes back about six years
this story, we'll get into it.
- Mm-hmm.
- But this has to be liberating in a sense.
- It feels so good, I feel like I have birthed my child
and it's out there and people are getting to see it
and are enjoying it and telling me that they are seeing it.
It's exciting.
- Now, we're going to get into the story of the film
but what I love and what made me such a fan
of wanting to go out and watch this film
which I did this weekend,
is your story of persistence and how passionate you were
from the moment you were in the pitch.
And I believe the pitch dates back to a producer, Anders?
- Anders Bard is one of the producers in the movie.
Yeah, we met at this point, a little over six years ago
and he just had the kernel of the idea
a women gets left at the alter
and here dad, who she hasn't seen since she was little girl,
shows up and they go on her honeymoon cruise.
And I was not left at the alter
and I have a fantastic dad
but yeah, I was really drawn to it, I think,
'cause I really wanted to explore what a women
who was put in that situation would feel like,
what she would go through,
what her emotional journey would be.
Which is why I bugged him to write it,
which I did, which took a little while.
But then, yeah, I mean honestly, to make anything,
our journey is no different than most movies,
like it takes a long time.
Hollywood is an industry where I think
no is their favorite word
and sometimes they say yes and that's great
and that's why we're here
but you hear no a lot more than you hear yes.
- Oh, I can imagine.
- Yeah.
- Talking about the process there in Hollywood.
How did this film differ from maybe a traditional film,
this is a Netflix film as opposed to a theatrical release.
Did anything, is it pretty much just
the distribution's different
but everything else is the same?
- Well, it's pretty similar.
We actually got Netflix on board two years ago
in the development phase, before we made the movie.
So they were there from the very beginning.
So different than like a movie that say premiers
at a Sundance and then is acquired by a Netflix
or a studio.
So, similar to a studio movie, they acquired it,
they were apart of casting,
they were apart of the whole production
and part of the marketing and now the release.
It's just the same thing just sort of
the modern day version of it really, right?
- [Kevin] Yeah.
- It's crazy.
- It's crazy, now it's just out and they can enjoy it,
you don't have to worry about box office numbers,
like we were saying.
- I know, I know.
- It's nice.
- It's nice, no, yeah, not watching box office
opening weekend is nice.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- I want to talk about how you introduce this character
that Kristen Bell plays, you do it so masterfully
because she is such a New York City workaholic,
she can't even put her phone down on her wedding day.
- Mm-hmm.
- Now, I grew up here, I know his person.
- Yeah.
- Sometimes I feel like I am this person.
- Yeah, you, yeah, you probably are, I am, it's fine.
- What made you want to write about
that person specifically, I know you've talked about,
you know, seeing female lead in that role.
- Mm-hmm.
But the workaholic portion of it,
where does that come from?
- You know, I'm sure a lot of it stems from
my own self, my own love of my own job
and my own inability to put down my own phone
or my own work because I enjoy it so much.
And that's the thing, with Rachel,
she's not miserable at her job,
she really cares about here job, she's good at her job
and to me, that's a very real human thing.
Like, we can love our work, it's okay.
That's why I do what I do because I love it
and I'm fortunate to get to do it.
However, it's important to have balance
and like you said, you go out on the street
or just anywhere, you can be in a restaurant
or on vacation, we're all like this.
I do it, my husband does it a lot.
You know, it's a thing that is
a product of our society
at this point, our technology
and it's great but we have to learn to put it down
and I think that I was really intrigued
to take someone on that path,
to go from like I can have the balance of
I can love my job, I can do my work
but I can also be a human being
who's aware of the world around me.
- Right, that balance that I have not found yet.
But hopefully Kristen does, no spoilers in the film.
- Yeah.
- Now, marriage is something that is personally,
to be a bit self indulgent for a moment,
it fascinates me and this is clearly a women
that Kristen plays that is not ready for marriage.
- Mm-hmm.
- I'm curious though, you're married in real life
how did you know you were ready to take that big leap?
- Oh God, honestly, I don't want to sound cliche
but I'm really lucky in my relationship
and my husband and I, we've been together now over 13 years.
- [Kevin] Wow.
- We met, one night my friend was dating his friend
and the four of us went to a party together
and literally, just that night I was like,
wow, I don't think I've ever
talked to someone so easily before.
So, it was quite early on when I was like,
oh, I'm ready and took him a little bit longer.
'Cause I think guys have this whole thing in their head
like I have to be able to take care of my family
when I get married.
And it's like, no, marriage is a partnership,
you don't need all your shit figured out
before you enter in it because you partner
is going to help you figure it out
and that's the point.
So, I think that I know a lot of guys who are like,
well, I can't get married
and then they get married and they're like,
well that was stupid, 'cause this is
the greatest thing ever.
Even my own husband is like, I have no idea,
I'm so sorry that I had the brakes on,
I don't know what I was doing.
'Cause we lived together from after a year and a half,
what were were doing,
it was six years before we got married.
- [Kevin] That's wild.
- But, I think marriage is wonderful.
- [Kevin] That's great.
- For me.
- Well, speaking of your husband,
he is in the film, stars in the film,
does a tremendous job.
Perhaps never more so than in the scene
where he turns down a joint and says
I never smoked weed a day in my life,
I got a big kick out of that,
it was almost like an inside joke there.
- Yeah.
- For his long-time fans of his work.
But in all seriousness, he actually does a masterful job.
- I know.
- He's downplayed the whole aspect of working with his wife
on set in red carpet interviews that I've seen
but it had to be a little bit different
than working with just any other actor.
So, what was it like?
- I mean, I don't know, I feel like
he loved some of those guys just as much as he loves me
that he's worked with before.
So, no, I mean, it was amazing.
Like I said, we're very lucky
and we really like each other a lot
and we respect each other.
My first instinct when he was onset was to be like,
I don't need your help, I'm fine,
I can do it on my own, myself.
And then I was like, what am I doing, I'm so stupid.
I think he's the most talent film maker
that I'm lucky enough to know
and he's so smart and he's so supportive
and he was really supportive of my vision.
I really knew what I wanted going into this
and he just really was very respectful of the whole process
and was there to give an opinion when I wanted one
and was hands off when he knew that I was like,
I'm tunnel visioned in, I know what I'm doing.
- Yeah, some of my favorite things to watch
like in high school growing up were the bonus features
on some of his movies where he and his buddies
would just ad lib.
- Yeah.
- Was there any ad libbing on set?
- I mean, a little bit, we were on a pretty tight schedule,
we shot this movie in about 28 days, I think it is,
which is, you know, large movies are much longer than that.
And so we were on a pretty tight schedule,
so there wasn't a ton of time, little things here and there.
You know, little words here and there,
I'm very, you know, if someone,
if a word doesn't sound right, change it, that's okay
as long as the general idea is there.
But we didn't have those, have time for those
long funny joke runs.
- [Kevin] Yeah.
- That's yeah, and that's just not really
the tone of the movie, either.
- No, no, not at all.
- Yeah, yeah, so it wasn't something we necessarily tried
to do too much.
- Right, Kristen Bell's story arch is,
the journey is just, it's so engaging
and it's one that just took me along for it the whole movie,
and there's all these moments throughout her journey
where you think she's going to figure it out,
okay this is the opportunity for her to turn it all around
and then it finally happens, or eventually happens
when the one person, it seems, that she says the one thing
that she needed to hear, right?
- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- Now again, I don't want to give anything away
but that scene is so beautiful
and the acting, of course, is tremendous
but the writing is so strong.
- Thank you.
- But I have to imagine, that came from a real place
and I'd love to ask you, who was the person for you,
what was that one thing you needed to hear
at some point in your life that?
- You know, it's interesting,
I think it was actually a combination of things
that I wish I could hear that I haven't heard,
that sort of ultimate apology of like,
I was wrong, it wasn't you.
'Cause of course, I, you know, like I said,
I'm fortunate to have my dad in my life
very much in an amazing loving way
so I couldn't put myself in that head space.
But I certainly have been rejected,
I have been brushed aside and felt
completely like it was my fault.
And now that I'm older, I imagine that it wasn't,
that it was all about the other person
and in this situation, it wasn't about Rachel
it was about Harry being a human being
who made a mistake, who made the wrong choice
and lived a life where he was living out that choice
over and over again til it was the right time
to remedy that situation.
And, you know, for me it was just about
putting myself in that head space
of what would I need if someone was coming to me
with this big apology.
And that's what I came up with.
- Yeah, the film is about a lot of things
but one thing, a prevailing theme that I took away from it
is that life does not give a you know what about our plans.
- No.
- And it's filled with unexpected turns.
- Mm-hmm.
- And I thought it just a fun little exercise to do
is if you were to go back to 15 year old you.
- Oh my God.
- And what you thought your life was going to be like.
- Mm-hmm.
- And then what your life is like now.
- Mm-hmm.
- How would those two things compare?
What's the most unexpected things about your life now
compared to what you envisioned?
- Well, when I was 15 I wanted to be a fashion designer.
I had big dreams to go to FIT here in New York
for fashion design, which I did for two years
before going to film school.
So, that's a pretty big difference.
I thought I'd be a fashion designer
living in New York City instead of
a film maker living in Los Angeles.
So, but you know, but I definitely
was the kind of kid with big dreams
and never intended to take a conventional path
and luckily had parents that supported that.
And, you know, just really, I'm,
I think my 15 year old self would be pretty psyched
and wouldn't be too disappointed.
I, you know, I wanted to sort of try to live
true to what I wanted to do
and I feel like I'm, you know, I'm circling that.
- [Kevin] Yeah.
- Yeah, I'm close to it, yeah.
- I've always thought that that's, as funny as it sounds,
that that's the ultimate mark of success
is if you tween you--
- Oh yeah.
- Thinks you are like the coolest,
I think you did a good job.
- I think if I went back and read my diary from those days,
I think I would make that person happy.
- Absolutely.
- Yeah.
- Now, I want to congratulate you
on the tremendous work you are Seth do
and a bunch of people do on Hilarity of Charity.
- Thank you.
- 10 plus million dollars raised so far.
- Yeah.
- That can not be understated.
- Yeah.
- Just tremendous what you've done,
taking something that is, of course,
very difficult and turning it into such an amazing,
beautiful, positive thing.
What is your eventual goal, if you can quantify it at all.
- Mm-hmm.
- Where do you want to take Hilarity for Charity?
- I'd like to cure Alzheimer's. (laughing)
You know, I don't think Hilarity for Charity
will raise the kind of money that cures Alzheimer's,
I think that's the job of the government
and they have stepped up in recent years.
Not enough, but it's happening, slowly.
My goal is to make Alzheimer's a part of the conversation.
I want to tear away the stigma
that makes people keep it a secret
because they do, my family did,
my mom insisted on it the first few years.
People still do that, they're ashamed of it.
I want to tear that stigma down,
it's why it's apart of this movie
'cause I want to make it part of the normal conversation.
You know, I want to take action on it,
I want there to be treatments,
I want to help people that are going through it.
We have a grant program where we provide in-home care
to people who can't afford it.
I want to be able to grow that program
so that anyone who needs help in their home
can receive it 'cause it is extraordinarily expensive.
You know, no plans to stop on that side.
- Yeah. - Mm-hmm.
- To close it out in somewhat of a full circle moment here
during our chat, you've said in previous interviews
that you hope that one of the biggest lessons
people can take away from the film
is the idea of forgiving and moving forward.
- Mm-hmm.
- Is that right?
- Yeah.
- Now, I understand that at the time you wrote the film
it was actually pretty tumultuous time in your life.
- Yeah.
- You were dealing with your mother's Alzheimer's,
of course, but then there was also this
pretty major falling out with a friend.
- Mm-hmm.
- So I'm curious--
- I did, mm-hmm.
- If you don't mind me digging a little deeper here.
- It's okay.
- Have you two been able to forgive and move on?
- Unfortunately some relationships
are not meant to last forever.
- [Kevin] Okay.
- And, you know, some people are in your lives
for a certain reason, for a certain amount of time
and that relationship was existed for
a lot of amazing reasons and now we are both
in different places in our lives
and it was an interesting process, you know.
That time was a tough time where I had to sort of
take a look at the things that were eating me away
but I was burying them and not paying attention to them
and it's why this script has some really
sad moments and some really angry moments,
'cause I was feeling really angry and really sad
some of the time when I was writing it.
So yeah, that loss of that friendship was one
that was hard to get over and still is.
It's funny, when you end a friendship,
it's different than a relationship, you know,
'cause you can't sit across from someone and be like,
you know what, I think we're better off as friends,
'cause that's, you know.
- [Kevin] Right.
- So it's a tough thing but I really firmly believe that
there are people in our lives that sometimes,
for some reasons and then not.
And I love that and I love what it gave me
and you know, my mom's journey as well.
Something beautiful has grown out of something really awful.
And I'm a firm believer that even the saddest things,
there can be light in there and I learned that
through going through that at the same time
and pushed through to the other side
and a lot of good has come from it.
- Absolutely, I mean this film came from this.
And in closing here, I just have to say,
I think the best thing that a film or any piece of art
can do is allow us to examine something about ourselves
and better ourselves.
And Like Father certainly did that for me.
So thank you for making the film.
- Good, thank you for watching it.
- And it's available now on Netfilx everywhere.
- Thank you.