Kate Mara on ‘Friendship’
Kate Mara could be finest recognized for her dramatic turns in Home of Playing cards and A Instructor, however her newest function within the absurdist comedy Friendship took her someplace very completely different—particularly, into a chilly, moist tunnel with a bat overhead and Tim Robinson by her aspect.
Becoming a member of the forged of Friendship meant moving into the wild and splendidly bizarre world of Robinson’s humor, although Mara admits she didn’t actually know what she was moving into at first.
“It was all on the page,” she instructed Selection. “It was such a great script, so funny. My reaction was, ‘Wow. Why did he think of me?’”
Seems, writer-director Andrew DeYoung had a plan: let Mara play it straight.
“Andy really wanted me to come at this performance like a dramatic film. You’re not playing any of the funny things, which is why it becomes so funny,” she defined.
Whereas Mara begins out because the seemingly regular spouse of Robinson’s awkward advertising and marketing exec Craig, her character Tami quickly reveals layers of eccentric allure—kissing her son on the lips, lamenting her tiny automobile, and getting a little bit too nostalgic about an ex named Devon.
One particularly memorable scene concerned Mara and Robinson exploring a tunnel system beneath their fictional city—and a shock customer overhead.
“I thought for sure it would be on a stage. But it definitely was not,” Mara mentioned with fun.
“It was gross and wet and cold. And then there was a bat above my head, a little baby sleeping bat! Right before a take, I just looked up and thought, ‘That’s a weird place to put a boom.’ I couldn’t compute that it was real. And then when we all realized that it was real, we obviously put that in the scene where there’s a bat!”
On prime of bat encounters, Tami’s love life additionally will get a little bit difficult. Cue Paul Rudd as Austin Carmichael, a charismatic weatherman who treats Tami like, properly, royalty.
“I mean, one of the characters is treating her like a really interesting queen, and the other is treating her like – I don’t know. His little sister?” Mara mentioned.
“They got married when they were young, and had a kid right away. They’re so familiar with each other. A lot of us just sort of become way too comfortable in a space or a relationship or whatever, and so you get lazy. And then this magical sort of unicorn shows up and sees you, and is interested in what you’re passionate about. So then you light up. It’s actually very easy. Paul Rudd is like a unicorn.”
