It’s so unusual these days to have a comedy made by adults, for adults, in theaters! Tell us about when you first encountered the script, and how the movie evolved.
Olivia Wilde: It’s Sentimental in Spain, released here as The People Upstairs, and it’s based on a play written and directed by the same person.
It’s such a beautiful film with no false notes. I wasn’t surprised to hear it was influenced by personal experience. What was it like to write this and then find someone to portray the protagonist?
Carla Simón: For me, the writing part was quite organic because I had done two previous films that already were inspired by my own story and my family. This was a bit like another chapter. It was interesting because the film was born out of my frustration of not being able to remember my parents because they died when I was a kid.
Let’s start with the script, because it’s so beautifully rendered. It’s co-written, and I don’t believe the short film this grew out of was co-written. Can you talk about that?
Rashad Frett: This was during COVID, 2020. Lin Que Ayoung was a classmate at NYU, a year ahead of me, and she became the co-writer.
I never thought about a Hungarian population in Canada. One of the themes running through this film for me was isolation. You shot Jeremy in isolation a lot, but he’s not the only one.
SR: I try to do as much as I can visually without having it be in the dialogue or without it being explicit and trusting that the audience will pick up on the nuances of the visual language. A big part of that was shooting on Vancouver Island.
I heard you entered the Python Challenge a year before shooting. What did you learn from that experience?
Xander Robin: Thanks for watching the movie! I actually live in South Florida right now. I grew up there, lived in New York for a little bit, but I was trying to make a movie in South Florida.