Finally, former BUST cover gal Jenny Slate is starring in a movie again, her first lead role since 2014’s Obvious Child. In My Blind Brother — directed by Sophie Goodhart and out now — Slate plays Rose, a woman who dumps her fiancé only to see him get hit by a bus and die minutes later — and then she meets a new love interest at his wake. Soon, she finds herself in the center of a love triangle between two brothers, the loveable slacker/stoner Bill (Nick Kroll), and the arrogant, type-A athlete Robbie (Adam Scott). And, oh yeah — Robbie is blind.
BUST called up Jenny Slate and Nick Kroll to talk about My Blind Brother. Here’s what we learned:
Jenny and Nick, why did both of you decide to get involved with My Blind Brother?
Nick: I can’t speak for Jenny, but they came to Jenny and Adam and I together. Adam and Jenny and I have all worked together at different moments, and it just felt like a really great movie that was would be fun and interesting to do with the three of us.
Jenny: Even though I said Nick can’t speak for me, he actually did speak for me.
Nick: I’m actually literally speaking for her right now, Jenny is in Nevada and I’m doing my Jenny Slate impression.
Jenny: He’s both of us.
The three of you were all on Parks & Rec. What was it like being with the same people but playing very different characters?
Jenny: It was exciting to work with these two gentlemen who I know are so talented and to do a new kind of work. I think I learned a lot about them as performers, and having an experience like that was very welcome and worth it.
Jenny, this is your first lead role in a movie since Obvious Child. Did you think of this as a follow-up?
Jenny: I’ve made other films, this is just the one that is coming out now. Everything is on a strange schedule, especially in the indie world. But I think that if I go into a project thinking something like that, that ends up making me feel kind of choked and it makes the project into some sort of means to an end, and that’s not the kind of creature I am. I just think of it as something that I’m doing right now that will eventually end and that hopefully I’ll be proud of in my body of work.
Nick, your character is more of the straight man to Adam Scott’s character. Could you tell me about your decision to take that type of role?
Nick: I hadn’t had the opportunity to play a character who was more of a straight man, or just less of a bigger character, so I was really excited about that. And Adam is so versatile. What he played Parks & Rec to what he’s doing in this movie is so different, and it’s so fun to be able to react to that kind of guy, and to Jenny’s character as well. For me, it was really exciting and fun to be able to play a character that I hadn’t really had the opportunity to do before. So I enjoyed stretching a different muscle.
There’s a lot of hate against rom coms out there — what do you think of the genre, and would you call My Blind Brother a rom com?
Jenny: I’ve always loved romantic comedies, and I think that love stories can be really, really compelling, and I don’t think they always need to be fluffy. They make me feel good, they make me think, they make me look around my world. I don’t know what I would call our movie. It’s not really a romantic comedy.
Nick: I’ve been calling it a dram com, but I don’t know if it’s fully realistic. I think there are some underpinnings of romantic comedy in it, and there’s a really darker element, and there’s stuff that’s really funny.
Jenny: I think it’s a good sign when you can’t think of a category for what it is. It’s a standalone.
Images: My Blind Brother
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