Andra Day shares her first reaction with THR after reading the script for 'Is This Thing On?' saying how "sweet" she thought it was. Plus, she reveals what she learned about stand-up comedy through this film and what it was like working with Bradley Cooper as a director.
00:00I wanted to know what was your first reaction when reading the script?
00:04Oh, my first reaction, first of all, was just how honest the script was.
00:08But I think what really stood out to me, you know, there's a lot of movies that deal with divorce and deal with marriage.
00:14What my first reaction was was how sweet the movie was.
00:17You know, it was not adversarial, and I feel like we're very used to seeing that when it comes to movies that deal with this subject matter.
00:23I thought it really had to do with, it was very sweet, and I thought it was more about self-discovery or self-rediscovery than it was just about their marriage.
00:34And I think it really, it was, it put a spotlight for me on how important it is to allow yourself to evolve and change and how good that can be for your relationships and for your marriage.
00:46So I just thought it was really sweet.
00:47It wasn't adversarial, and that was nice.
00:49And from working on this film, is there anything you learned about stand-up comedy that surprised you?
00:56Anything I learned about stand-up comedy?
00:59Oh, I think that, I think the main thing that I learned from this film is just how honest comics are.
01:06I think like, I guess in my mind, my idea of comedy was that, oh, they are, they tell jokes, and they tell great jokes, but they're really actually just being authentic people.
01:15And they're being very honest about, I always like to talk about the inner monologue, like the thoughts we have internally that, like, maybe we shouldn't have in the moment.
01:23Like, they're very authentic and very open about those things, and I think that's probably what I learned most about comedy.
01:29They're really just living out loud, and I think that's what makes it so funny and relatable.
01:32And, you know, Bradley is, he takes on so many interesting projects, and they're all very different, the projects that he directs.
01:41So what is it about him that makes him such a unique director?
01:46Ooh, well, first of all, he has the perspective of an actor.
01:48That's hugely important.
01:50And I think when we were in the space, we could feel that, you know, the same instincts that we have about a certain scene or about a certain delivery or about just the overall spirit of a certain scene.
02:03Like, he's usually there already, you know what I mean?
02:06And so he can kind of, he films in a way, he films with that intuition, if that makes sense.
02:11And so it's interesting being in set with someone who's a director who's operating the camera, but is also, like, it gets very vulnerable, you know what I mean?
02:20Because you're, like, completely transparent because he can kind of feel all those instincts in you.
02:25And so it just made everything really, really urgent, like, very in the moment and really just very grounded, very real.
02:32And then how did filming in real New York City locations help influence your performance?
02:37Well, I mean, first of all, New York has an energy that is unique to everywhere in the world.
02:44And so I think it influenced the pace of the film.
02:47I think it influenced the, even the sound of the film, if that makes sense.
02:52Because, you know, like, growing up, I grew up in San Diego, right?
02:56And I live in L.A. now.
02:58You know, and still Los Angeles is a big city, but there is such a, like, I don't want to use the word congestion, but everything is so much more compact, right?
03:05This is, like, a very vertical city, so you're in everyone's faces all the time.
03:10So the background sound of New York feels like a character in this movie.
03:14Because, and I think it reflects sort of maybe the inner chaos that Alex's character was feeling,
03:19or that all of our characters are feeling when our world is sort of upended and we're like, oh, divorce, rediscovery.
03:25We don't, you know, I think that has, there's a sort of a cacophony of sounds internally that I feel like the city actually represents.
03:31So it was just great filming here.
03:33It's also such an iconic city, you know, it just, it just, it had the right pace, if that makes sense.
03:39And now we're here, full circle, at the debut.
03:41At the New York Film Festival, it's such an honor, I'm telling you.
03:45Girl, I keep saying this whole time, I was like, I feel very overwhelmed.
03:47They're like, you okay?
03:48I was like, no, in a really good way.
03:49Like, it's almost like so many amazing things happening at once.
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