"I walked out of that brunch and the chemistry was so instant, and it felt like lightning in a bottle," Robinson said of the moment she knew she cast the right actresses for the Netflix film.
00:00Hi, I'm Jennifer Caden Robinson, and I'm in studio with The Hollywood Reporter.
00:07Hi, Jen. Thank you so much for joining us in studio.
00:09Thank you for having me.
00:11So how does it feel to finally have your feature directorial debut out into the world?
00:18Insane? Feels crazy?
00:21Honestly, it's just like, I had a dream recently that I was nine months pregnant,
00:26and I didn't understand what it was, and I think it was the movie.
00:29I think the baby was the movie.
00:31So you're going to be giving birth to someone great.
00:34Yeah, it feels like you're giving birth.
00:35It feels like you've had this thing inside you for all this time,
00:38and then it comes out, and it's just like it's everyone else.
00:40I mean, I guess it's not a baby would still be yours, but, you know, it's like it's everyone else's now,
00:47and that's amazing and terrifying and thrilling and all the things.
00:50Yeah, so to start off, can you give us just a quick elevator pitch or a quick synopsis of the movie?
00:57Sure.
00:58For those who are uninformed.
00:59Yes.
01:00Someone Great, which is on Netflix, is about Jenny, who's a music journalist, played by Gina Rodriguez,
01:06and she's been with her boyfriend since college.
01:08She's been with him for nine years.
01:10The boyfriend is played by Lakeith Stanfield.
01:11She gets a job working in San Francisco, which is going to take her away from New York City,
01:15and Lakeith's character decides that he does not want to do long distance,
01:19and so he breaks up with her.
01:20And it is Jenny's kind of last hurrah in New York with her two best friends,
01:24played by Dewanda Wise and Brittany Snow, trying to get to a music festival.
01:27And in this day, in this kind of crazy day in New York City,
01:31she has these memories that are triggered by the things she's seeing and feeling and experiencing in the city,
01:36where you see pieces of the relationship through those memories.
01:39And you wrote this movie as well.
01:41Yes.
01:41So what was the inspiration behind it?
01:45I was honestly inspired by my 20s, by being broken up with in New York,
01:49by just like my friends and my life and wanting to put something on screen that felt authentic to me,
01:54and that also was kind of a subverted romantic comedy where a woman could be her own hero.
01:58Yeah.
01:59And then why did you want to get behind the camera for this movie specifically?
02:03It was one of those things where the script, as I was writing it, it was so incredibly personal to me,
02:07and it's just like, it's so born of like every, just like my whole soul,
02:11that I knew in film, like the director really is the person that realizes that vision,
02:16and I just, there was no way that I could stand next to someone doing that.
02:20Yeah.
02:20I would have freaked out.
02:23Yeah.
02:23So it was one of those things where I went to my producers, Paul Feek, Jesse Henderson, and Dan Magnante from Feek Co.,
02:29and I said, hey, like I'm happy to wait as long as I have to wait if I'm, you know,
02:34if we're not ready and it's not the right time for me to step behind the lens,
02:37and they kind of came to me at the same time and said, no, we think you should direct this.
02:41So it was like this really amazing moment, and yeah.
02:44Yeah.
02:45And prior to Someone Great, you worked on an MTV series, Sweet Vicious.
02:50So how did that experience, how do you think that experience prepared you for your time directing?
02:56Ah, man.
02:57Sweet Vicious, it was like film school for me.
02:58Like I didn't go to college.
03:00I didn't go to film school.
03:00I didn't, you know, I've kind of been like run and gun and learned as I went in this industry,
03:04and being a creator of television is a lot like being a director in film.
03:08You're making costume decisions and production design decisions,
03:10and you're writing and you're working with actors,
03:13and so it's all the same skill set that you would use as a director.
03:16So I feel like that experience is what gave me the confidence
03:19to feel like I could step behind the lens on Someone Great.
03:23And if you could, what is one piece of advice
03:26that you would go back and give yourself at the start of production?
03:30Oh my God, I would, it would be take five minutes every morning to yourself
03:35where no one can talk to you, where you sit with the script and you sit with yourself
03:39and you just like, you just breathe.
03:41Just breathe for five minutes in a corner.
03:45Yeah.
03:46Away from everyone.
03:47Yeah, like away from everyone.
03:48Just like take a minute.
03:50Just like.
03:50Hydrate.
03:51Hydrate.
03:51Yeah.
03:52Hydrate.
03:53Eat.
03:54Like you forget to eat.
03:55Good life lessons, honestly.
03:56Yeah, like, but honestly it's about, it's about, because it's not just about, you know,
04:00taking a minute away from like the craziness and the, you know, the chaos of what filmmaking is,
04:05but it's also just like taking a minute to like ground yourself and be like, wow, I'm here.
04:09This is so awesome.
04:10And like taking that moment every day that you're on set, because it's like, it's only 28 days.
04:14Yeah.
04:14And then, and then it's gone.
04:16And then those 28 days are over and it's just about, you know, savoring every minute of those 28 days.
04:22Yeah.
04:23And I'm sure it's so hard to pick just one, but did you have a favorite day on set?
04:29Ooh.
04:30Um, did I have a favorite day on set?
04:32I think there were a couple.
04:34Shooting the montage of them getting ready was extremely fun just because it was like a party.
04:39Yeah.
04:39We were literally, like, we were just having the best time.
04:41Everyone wants a montage.
04:41Yes, uh, shooting the final Washington Square Park scene, uh, was probably my favorite day on set.
04:48That was, it was just like, you felt the magic.
04:51It was, it was like the second to last day of shooting.
04:53And it was just like, you just, you just, I felt the movie in a way that it felt, it felt really special.
04:59Yeah.
05:00And you have such an incredible cast for this movie.
05:03So when you were writing the project, did you have anyone in mind?
05:08No, I actually didn't.
05:09Uh-huh.
05:09I didn't know, I just kind of wrote it and then I was binging Jane the Virgin when we were casting it and the minute I saw Gina and was watching Gina and was just like, I just was like, there's just no other person that could be Jenny.
05:21So it kind of, the script was there and I let the script be the script and I didn't want it to be influenced by, you know, my idea of like what actors I wanted to be in it.
05:29Because it's like, you never know if you're going to get that person.
05:32So for me, it was way more about, in writing, it was way more about it being kind of like influenced by the women that I knew rather than any actresses that I wanted to be in.
05:40And the chemistry between the three leads is just so fun.
05:45Yeah, yeah, yeah.
05:45It's such a good time.
05:46So I'm wondering how did, how did you go about establishing that with them?
05:50Did you have any sort of rehearsal process?
05:51We had, so we had, so taking it back a little bit further, Gina and DeWanda went to college together.
05:58Oh.
05:58They literally went to NYU together.
06:01So, which is crazy.
06:02They went to NYU in the movie, they went to NYU together in real life.
06:05So Gina called me and was like, you have to meet DeWanda Wise, she's Erin, because she became available in the process of casting the movie.
06:13And so I met DeWanda and she was amazing, but Gina and DeWanda had that amazing bond.
06:17And then Brittany and I have known each other since we were 18 years old.
06:20So we had that bond and then the four of us came together and we had a short rehearsal process,
06:25but I would say like the moment that really solidified it was very early on.
06:28The four of us went to brunch.
06:30It was kind of like sleepy, kind of stuffy restaurant in Beverly Hills.
06:33We were all just like screaming.
06:35It was like, it was truly like, it was mayhem.
06:39Like I'm so surprised we did not get kicked out.
06:41And I walked out of that brunch and I was just like, oh, this is, it was, the chemistry was so instant.
06:46And it was just like, it felt like lightning in a bottle.
06:48Yeah.
06:49And the movie, along with friendship, is also about like modern relationships and dating.
06:54So I'm wondering, how do you think Hollywood gets modern dating wrong?
07:01Hmm.
07:01Gets modern dating wrong.
07:03You know, I think that, I think that it's just about, I think it's less about like what's right and wrong versus like,
07:08I'm just excited that there's so many versions of love that's being shown now.
07:12Which I think like, for a long time, it was just like one kind of very specific story that we were seeing over and over and over again.
07:18One kind of specific person.
07:20And now I feel like the storytelling, there's like such a breadth of amazing stories that are out there.
07:25And so that's really exciting to me.
07:26My final question for you is, what's next?
07:30What's next?
07:31Yeah.
07:31I want to make a horror movie.
07:33Oh, about anything in particular?
07:34I want to make a horror movie about the places women have put themselves in because they are afraid of being unlikable or saying no.
07:41That sounds as scary as everyday life.
07:43Yeah, it's so scary.
07:45Think about all the times that you're like doing something and you're like, I don't want to be here.
07:48Why am I here?
07:49And it's like, because you don't want to be called a bitch or, you know, it's because you don't want to be, you know, thought of poorly or rock the boat or anything.
07:56And I feel like we as women are taught to, you know, it's like the be a good girl mentality.
08:00And so I kind of want to deconstruct that.
08:02And, you know, what places can we go into that are really kind of like psychologically terrifying because we are afraid to be unlikable as women.
08:10That sounds incredible.
08:12Yeah.
08:12I hope that happens so soon.
08:15Someone finance it right now.
08:17Yeah.
08:18Thank you so much for being here and good luck with someone great.
Be the first to comment