As a former member of SNL, comedian Jenny Slate is no stranger to controversy. She embraces it in her stand-up, guest appearances on TV and more prominently in her debut feature Obvious Child.
She describes the film as an “abortion comedy,” and while the film doesn’t shy away from laughs, sex and yes, abortion, the movie is a lot sweeter and deeper than the simple description suggests. Slate plays Donna, a confused New Yorker balancing her fledging stand-up work with regular 9 to 5 gigs. After a spontaneous one night stand leads to an unwanted pregnancy, the question isn’t will she abort, but when.
Slate recently traveled to San Francisco along with the film’s director Gillian Robespierre to discuss Obvious Child. The hard-working duo first developed the film as a short before expanding it to feature length and debuting it to tremendous accolades at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The following is a transcription of that conversation.
Q: For your characters’ stand-up scenes in the film, did you feel you had to give her a different personality or did you draw from your own stand-up experience?
Jenny Slate: We just wanted the stand-up to be good. We’ve seen a lot of movies where you can tell the people aren’t stand-up comedians. The style is the same that I use in life and I wanted to use that style because I feel when I’m doing stand-up I’m doing jumps.
Q: How easy or difficult is it to balance comedy and drama in a movie like this?
Gillian Robespierre: I think Jenny did a good job of that. An example would be the scene where she’s having the procedure done and she smirks because she notices the crocs the nurse is wearing and then a single tear rolls down her cheek. It all happens in twenty seconds but you can see behind Jenny’s eyes what’s going on, it’s beautiful. On the page it looks good but when you’re actually shooting you’re not sure if the person can pull it off. But Jenny definitely does.
Slate: I’m glad Gillian thinks that. (laughs) I don’t know if I can explain how I perform and I think it’s better if I try not to dissect it. It’s just important for me to have enough distance between me and the character so the character doesn’t react how I would react.
Q: In the editing process, how did you find the right balance between too much or too little stand-up so it wouldn’t overpower the film?
Slate: It was very important to me that I didn’t sound like I was auditioning for drama school and be doing a long monologue. Gillian would give me advice during the stand-up scenes so it looked like I was really telling a story instead of reciting a piece of writing.
Q: Donna has a really rough journey in the film and she gets a lot of pep talks. What’s the secret to a good pep talk?
Robespierre: I think the secret to a good pep talk is not thinking you know more than the other person.
Slate: Checking your ego at the door. (laughs)
Q: You’ve been traveling to a lot of film festivals with this film, how was the audience reaction been in different cities?
Robespierre: First of all the Q&A’s are great. What’s cool is sometimes people come up to us after the movie and tell us about their life. One woman said the movie changed her narrative about an abortion she had in the ‘60s.
Slate: Also, the movie doesn’t have a secret life. It’s a story of will she or won’t she have an abortion. The people who see this movie will know exactly what it is.
Robespierre: And we’re OK with it igniting a conversation.
Q: Whose idea was it to feature crocs so prominently in the movie?
Robespierre: Well I’m the lucky gal who got to take those home at the end of the shoot so I wear them every single day. (laughs)
Slate: I could go either way on crocs but I’d rather wear crocs than those shoes that have the fingers for the toes. I’m on the verge of punching people when I see them wearing them to the supermarket. You might as well have your dick hanging out. (laughs)
Obvious Child is now playing in limited release.
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