After 20 years co-writing a robust catalog of romantic comedies including “He’s Just Not That Into You” and “How to Be Single,” Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein decided it was time to get behind the camera together, too.
“It seemed like a good time to really make a concerted effort to take control of the situation and not wait for it to come to us,” Silverstein says. From attending film school together at USC and writing and directing (and, yes, dating for seven years), they always knew the transition to directing their own material would happen in their careers. (They’ve both married others since their 2000s breakup, but continue mining personal experience for that on-camera comedic spark.)
“ ‘I Feel Pretty’ was always what we were going to do,” Kohn says. “It was fun to write it knowing that if it was ever going to come to fruition, it was going to be made by us.”
Centering on a career woman named Renee (Amy Schumer) who after suffering a head injury at SoulCycle comes to believe she’s drop-dead gorgeous, the comedy tackles the societal pressures of unrealistic beauty standards women experience every day. Describing the film’s specific tone as a “high-wire act,” Silverstein and Kohn knew a subversive approach would be key to bringing their vision to life. That’s another reason why they came on board to direct.
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“We were very concerned about keeping control of it the entire way through, because we knew exactly how it should go and [its potential] pitfalls,” Silverstein admits. “We would have felt less comfortable handing this off to someone else.”
While it might seem they wrote the role of Renee with Schumer in mind, that wasn’t the case. “But she just is the perfect person to play Renee,” Kohn enthuses. “It seems pretty insane we wrote this movie and were hanging our directing hopes all on [a] script that really only one actress in the world could play. She is the one, and it thankfully worked out.” Just over a year ago, Schumer read the script, they had a half-hour Skype session, and production quickly came together from there. “It just felt like a very magical process,” Silverstein says.
That magic lasted into production. Any stress or tension felt on difficult shooting days would be alleviated by Schumer’s contagious energy. “She would come into scenes so prepared and gung-ho that it really made our job easier,” he says. “That was such a relief because there are so many crowd scenes with moving parts, and I don’t have to worry about her. I know she’s going to bring it.”
Beyond Schumer, these filmmakers weren’t wanting for acting pros to make their job easier. Michelle Williams makes a hilarious and unexpected turn as the owner of a high-end makeup label that ends up hiring Renee as a receptionist. Kohn reveals that the character’s cartoonishly high-pitched voice was written in the script, but that when Williams came to work, they didn’t know what to expect. “She crafted it so well that when she would come out of the voice at lunch, it started to be a little shocking! We got so used to it,” she says.
Speaking to finding the freedom to direct their own script, Kohn advises others to not ignore the business of “show business.” “I got a real sense of what happens on the other side: how scripts are read, how coverage is given, what pitches are like,” she says. Beyond that, don’t be afraid to take creative risks, which is just how “I Feel Pretty” came to be in the first place.
“The momentum you get when you do the thing you’re most passionate about, that carried over into making the movie and finishing it,” Silverstein says. “It’s a very clean line between the thing we wanted to do and the thing we ended up doing. We just did it, and I think creatively, that’s the best advice I can give.”
Want to star in a feature film comedy? Check out Backstage’s film audition listings!