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Brigid Bergin: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin in for Alison Stewart. Coming-of-age films like Risky Business, Heathers, American Pie, Mean Girls, and Superbad have been a staple of cinema for decades, reframing the narrative for each generation. Now, there's a new film titled Bottoms. In the raunchy teen buddy comedy, two unpopular high school seniors devise a plan to start a Fight Club among the girls at their school in order to lose their virginity to cheerleaders. Sounds familiar?

The film stars comedians Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri as best friends PJ and Josie, two awkward young women who have a really, really difficult time talking to girls. On top of that, they're constantly made fun of by other students at their high school, especially the football players who never take off their uniforms. However, let's be clear, it's not because they're lesbians, but more because they're "ugly" and "untalented." In an NPR review of the film, critic and Pop Culture Happy Hour host Aisha Harris writes, "Bottoms leans hard into the absurdities of our hyperviolent and misogynistic culture and pokes fun at them."

The film is titled Bottoms. It premiered at South by Southwest back in March and is now playing in theaters. Joining me today is the film's director, Emma Seligman. Emma, welcome back to All Of It.

Emma: Thank you so much for having me.

Brigid Bergin: Emma, the last time you joined the show, it was to talk about your directorial debut with Shiva Baby, a comedy about a young woman who has an awkward encounter with her sugar daddy and her ex-girlfriend at a funeral. What fascinated you about the idea of a high school buddy comedy?

Emma: I think this is just a genre that I loved so much growing up and I really wanted to create a version of it where I could see myself in it as a young woman and as a queer person. I think my co-writer Rachel Sennott, who was in Shiva Baby and plays PJ and Bottoms, felt very similarly.

Brigid Bergin: Are there particular teenage comedies that influenced you the most growing up?

Emma: There's so many. I mean, I think that in terms of teen sex comedy, Superbad and American Pie are the biggest ones, but also Mean Girls and Clueless and a lot of the more cult classic teen comedies of the '90s like Drop Dead Gorgeous or Strike or Sugar & Spice that have more of a campy absurd tone influence this for sure.

Brigid Bergin: Are there tropes in those genres that are some of your favorites that you just felt like needed to be played out or made fun of?

Emma: I think that it's an easy formula to take on with the jock and the cheerleader and the loser's attempt to win over the girl that he'll never have a chance with. I didn't necessarily want to make fun of it, but I definitely wanted to utilize the structure that's in place that people are already so familiar with.

Brigid Bergin: As you mentioned for this project, you co-wrote the screenplay with Rachel Sennott who also played the lead in Shiva Baby. How has the collaborative relationship between the two of you evolved over the last few years?

Emma: I mean, it's been so wonderful. Rachel is such a talented comedian and writer on top of being such a wonderful actor. Writing with her is very freeing and creative. Our first movie that I wrote, Shiva Baby, is much darker and more personal and more intense, but writing this, writing Bottoms, which is so absurd, was so much fun because she just pitches jokes so quickly. She's a joke machine. Writing with her is just so much fun comparatively to writing alone about this young woman's nervous breakdown. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I'm very lucky.

Brigid Bergin: Is there something else about Rachel that she brought to the table for Bottoms that really, you thought informed the script?

Emma: Definitely. I think it's her absurd and satirical tone that a lot of people know her for from her Twitter days or just from her stand-up comedy in general, but she's quite biting and sarcastic and current and has her finger on the pulse and is very culturally in tune in a way that I don't think I could have brought that to the script. I think this sort of heightened world and that Heathers' esque tone of Bottoms comes from Rachel and her sensibilities, for sure.

Brigid Bergin: I want to talk a little bit more about those two main characters, PJ and Josie, your average high school students who also happen to be queer. Which aspects of growing up queer today did you want to explore in this film?

Emma: Honestly, I think that just having them be queer was enough. I think that I almost didn't want to explore their identity as much as just sort of their regular universal longing for attention and validation and being said hello to by their crushes. I think that we've seen quite a few teen movies and shows deal with queer topics in a way where that's the plot of the story. I think for Bottoms, Rachel and I didn't want it to be about them being queer. They just happened to be queer.

Brigid Bergin: Well, let's listen to a clip. PJ and Josie are called to the principal's office after lightly grazing the school's quarterback with a car after he refused to move out of the way. Let's take a listen.

Principal Meyers: Excuse me. Could the ugly, untalented gays please report to the principal's office?

Brittany: Guess that's you guys.

Josie: Hello, Principal Meyers. First of all, I want to say God bless.

Principal Meyers: Shut up. You know why you're here?

PJ: I don't, actually.

Principal Meyers: For committing a crime against Jeff, our quarterback and the most good looking, all American, red blooded, muscular man this town has ever seen.

Josie: Sir, please look in the mirror.

Principal Meyers: Shush.

Josie: Okay.

Principal Meyers: The homecoming game with Huntington is nearly a month away. Do you know how long we've been working toward this?

PJ: Yes, it's everywhere.

Josie: Yes, 20 years. Couldn't be clearer. I think I can explain.

PJ: I can explain. Jeff is psychotic and he tried to murder us.

Principal Meyers: Sure. You're all victims and girls are always right, right?

PJ: Yes, actually.

Principal Meyers: How come you can't buck up and learn to protect yourselves without running somebody over?

PJ: Maybe it's because we're small and he's giant, so we needed to use a little machinery. Did you ever think of that, sir?

Josie: Can we just explain ourselves?

PJ: Maybe I should buy a gun.

Josie: Hold on-- What? Don't buy a gun. Nobody said buy a gun. Can we just calm down, everybody?

Principal Meyers: You know what?

Josie: What?

Principal Meyers: I'm going to expel you both.

Josie: No, no.

Principal Meyers: Yes.

Josie: You have to understand that this was a misunderstanding.

Principal Meyers: Really?

Josie: We were just practicing for our self-defense club.

Principal Meyers: Self-defense? What is that? That's like a Fight Club?

Josie: Well, here's the thing--

PJ: Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Brigid Bergin: That is a clip from Bottoms, which I think helps set up a lot of what you see later in the film. I mean, one of the things that is so amazing about that, Emma, is the timing, just the delivery of that and the interplay between those two main characters. They are feeding off of each other in this way that is-- The chemistry is just so great. Is that something that you had anticipated when you started making the film?

Emma: I certainly hoped for it. Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri had worked together many times before. We all went to university together and they had done stand up shows many times and sketches. They had a Comedy Central series at one point, so I knew that they had this baked-in chemistry and it would be fun to watch them improvise, but when we were on set, it was quite incredible to watch. They're both close friends of mine, so to see them take their shtick that they've done so many times before but bring it to a studio movie level was really impressive and exciting. I certainly hoped for it, and I think I got it.

Brigid Bergin: I think you did. A running joke in the film is that PJ and Josie aren't unpopular because they're lesbians, but because they're "ugly and untalented." How would you describe the political attitudes, the social hierarchy of Rockbridge Falls High, where do PJ and Josie fit within the hierarchy?

Emma: Sure. I think that we were trying to poke fun at the fact that now in many stories, queer characters are celebrated, but only if they're incredibly talented and/or hot. Mathieu in the movie is the theater gay that is running the school play and doing well so everyone loves him. Yes, PJ and Josie are just regular losers, not because of any other reason other than they're not that remarkable compared to the rest of the student body.

Brigid Bergin: This world of Rockbridge Falls High, it's quite fantastical in many ways. They're the over-the-top murderous athletes, some very careless caustic speaking adults and really some epic fight scenes. How did you develop the world of characters that Bottoms exists in?

Emma: Totally. I think we were looking toward a lot of football towns where football players can get away with whatever they want, and they're so worshiped because everybody is relying on them so much. Then we turn toward campy teen movies where the screenwriters and directors and actors feel like they can get away with whatever they want and look to them and said, "How can we create a version of this?" We watched Wet Hot American Summer. That movie gets away with quite a lot and not another teen movie.

Even like Zoolander and Anchorman, which you don't maybe necessarily think of as campy, but when you really think about it, those movies are regular comedies, but they involve murder and violent acts, and very high, high stakes for these characters in a world where you wouldn't expect murder and high stakes to be in for modeling and local news. We looked toward that and tried to create our own rules of this crazy high school world and what we could get away with within it.

Brigid Bergin: In the film also references feminist figures like Bell Hooks and some of the characters themselves are critiquing themselves. In one instance, one of the cheerleader's remarks that the only reason she attends Fight Club is because her identity is so attached to her best friend. How much did you want this film and the characters themselves to be aware of themselves?

Emma: Totally. I think that it's a fine line. I think that we wanted it as much as possible for them to not be calling out any of the jokes and to remain playfully naïve within this world, but I think that some commentary is always going to seep its way in there, and having certain characters that are more aware of how ridiculous this is, but not commenting on it as much as the other people. It's always going to make its way in there.

I think that we were trying to poke on that sometimes within feminist structures or feminist groups or whatnot, as with any other kind of group. Not always everyone is joining for the right reasons or for moral reasons or ethical reasons.

Brigid Bergin: Well, let's listen to another clip. In this scene, PJ is trying to convince Josie to actually start a Fight Club, but Josie isn't going for it. Let's take a listen.

Hazel: I can't believe they're letting you guys start a Fight Club.

Josie: No. They're not. We are not.

PJ: What are you talking about? We're going to do it. We're doing it.

Josie: PJ, I wasn't being serious.

PJ: Josie, did you see the way that Isabel and Brittany were looking at us? Also, you heard the announcements. Girls are terrified. It's perfect. They need this.

Josie: Okay. No, they need like mace, maybe. We can't do that. Okay? We'd be misleading them.

PJ: Guys do that all the time. That's the point of feminism.

Josie: That's not the point of feminism. You also don't care about feminism. Your favorite show is Entourage.

PJ: You're missing the point.

Josie: I don't really think I am. We don't know how to fight.

Hazel: You guys probably fought girls in juvie?

PJ: No, we were lying about that, obviously.

Hazel: About juvie?

PJ: Yes.

Hazel: Why would you lie to me?

PJ: You were the one who said we went to juvie. I just didn't correct you.

Brigid Bergin: The two of them, PJ and Josie, they actually go through with starting a Fight Club, but other girls from the school also then show up. We know what PJ and Josie want out of this, but what is some of these other girls want out of this experience?

Emma: I think it's we try to joke it's different for everyone, Hazel, their third friend, that's in that scene with them played by Ruby Cruz, actually I think is the only person that probably wants to start it out of a longing for a female community or for a community that's separate from these football worshiping townspeople, where they can be together and be strong and learn self-defense, but everyone joins for their own reasons. I think that in their own way of finding empowerment or letting out angst, but PJ and Josie aren't doing it for that, obviously. It's different for everyone.

Brigid Bergin: The film involves a lot of fight scenes with a lot of blood. How did you stage these scenes? How much went into them?

Emma: A lot of prep and time went into choreographing and organizing these fight sequences. I think that we just felt like if we were going to make a movie about a Fight Club, we wanted to honor that genre and have it actually look real and not play it down just because the characters aren't men. We look toward a lot of fun stylistic references, like from Edgar Wright movies, Scott Pilgrim, or Shaun of the Dead or World's End, or even Anchorman and Zoolander.

Like I was saying, we would just watch references and work with our wonderful stunt coordinator, Deven MacNair and shoot these on our own, on the sets with our own people on our phones and work with the actors to get what we wanted. It took a lot of prep, but it was worth it. It was a lot of fun too.

Brigid Bergin: I was reading that some of these scenes it took multi-day sequences to rehearse them, and that after every take or every rehearsal, the actors would have to get completely cleaned off, refreshed, and start all over again. That kind of logistics is, it's a lot for a film of this size. Did any of that surprise you? What did you take away and what did you learn from some of that?

Emma: I learned everything I could. It was so good to know. I was like, "Right. Continuity, yes, they need to get de-bloodied before they can get bloodied again in this scene." I don't think it surprised me because this is what I wanted them be the movie to be, and this is what I imagined it to be. I think for some other people along the way who thought this was just going to be a regular teen comedy, even though there were stunts always written into the script.

I think for them maybe it was a bit of a surprise that we had to incorporate so much blood, stunts, special effects, and planning for VFX and things like that. I don't know. I think that I look toward movies like Attack the Block or other indie action movies or indie adventure movies that have done this before. I was with the right amount of blood, I think we can achieve this. It was fun, but it didn't surprise me. It was just what I dreamed of.

Brigid Bergin: You mentioned that these were friends of yours from NYU, from Tisch you had that connection. People may know Ayo Edebiri from some of her other roles in Big Mouth, The Bear, or Abbott Elementary. I'm wondering as you reflect back on that period of your life as you were dreaming, plotting, and thinking about your future, how would you describe where you were then and what you were thinking about as you were imagining a moment like this, possibly?

Emma: I was just praying and working toward this as much as possible. I think that it was always the dream. Rachel Sennott and I met in school and ever since we met, we wanted to write this project and make it. I think it requires a lot of willpower, a lot of support, and encouragement from each other to be able to keep going and to eventually be able to get to this point, but I don't know, this feels so surreal. I wanted this and I imagined this, but I didn't know what it would feel like, and it's pretty wild to be on the other side of it six years later. This was the goal, so we got here.

Brigid Bergin: It's amazing. Do you think there's anything about the environment at Tisch that shaped you as a filmmaker and maybe influences the kinds of stories you like to tell?

Emma: Definitely. I think that on one hand, I had a wonderful professor and there's amazing professors there overall who really encouraged us to think about our perspective and what we can offer to the world through the stories that we want to tell. I'm not trying to copy anybody else but think about what I can do and say and make that's different or authentic to me, but also think it's just a very competitive environment to be in, which is exciting and challenging.

It can be tough at times, but also it's so cool because you're working with so many other talented young people who have dreams and aspirations and who are living in New York and are trying to get that done even as they're in school. That's a very intimidating but exciting environment to be in. That's where I met Rachel and saw everything that she was doing and Ayo when it came to the comedy scene. I definitely think it shaped me for sure.

Brigid Bergin: There's another face in this film that others might recognize and that's former NFL Running Back Marshawn Lynch. What led to his involvement with this film?

Emma: We really wanted someone unexpected in that role of the teacher, the club leader, advisor, and he was in an episode of Murderville which is a hilarious show where the whole thing is improvised and he played himself and he improvised everything. The head of our studio's idea, Alana Mayo to reach out to him. We did. It took a little convincing because he has never been in a movie before. He's so funny. He's so naturally funny. He's such an amazing improviser.

Eventually, he agreed to do it and joined our movie which was so fun and interesting and all the football fans on set were so excited, so happy, and so surprised and shocked that he was there in this movie. He did such an amazing job.

Brigid Bergin: He does provide this certain just unexpected when he has his own revelation or moment where he's understanding what this club's really about and maybe what it's not really about what they say it's really about. It's really just such a remarkable performance. I'm wondering how do you hope this film will fit within the legacy of other teen comedies?

Emma: Oh, I just hope people laugh and go see it a few times and catch jokes they didn't see the first time maybe. I just hope they're entertained and if people are talking about it the way they have talked about any other teen cult classics, that makes me so happy, and I feel like we did our job. That's all.

Brigid Bergin: Well, congratulations. I've been speaking with Emma Seligman. She's the director of the new film, Bottoms in theaters now. Emma, thank you so much for joining me.

Emma: Thank you for having me.

 

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