AILSA CHANG, HOST:
There are a lot of gender disparities in Hollywood, but maybe one that doesn't get enough attention is how many buddy comedies involve men acting like idiots, but hardly any get to involve women acting like idiots. You know what I mean? Well, writer and director Dylan Meyer has set out to level that playing field with her new movie "The Wrong Girls," starring her wife, Kristen Stewart, and Alia Shawkat as Frankie and Molly, two bumbling, messy, barely employed roommates who smoke a whole lot of weed.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE WRONG GIRLS")
ALIA SHAWKAT: (As Molly) Dude.
LAKEITH STANFIELD: (As Not Metal Head Dave) Aw, hell no.
SHAWKAT: (As Molly) I think I just did that.
STANFIELD: (As Not Metal Head Dave) Oh.
SHAWKAT: (As Molly) I thought it with my brain, and then I did it with my eyes.
KRISTEN STEWART: (As Frankie) You totally did do it, and it's tight.
SHAWKAT: (As Molly) Oh, my God. I'm a witch.
STEWART: (As Frankie) I mean, I don't think you're a witch, but if you were, that would be metal as [expletive].
SHAWKAT: (As Molly) Oh, but it's kind of scary 'cause what if I curse us by accident?
STEWART: (As Frankie) You should think, I wish Oasis would get back together.
SHAWKAT: (As Molly) Oasis is back together, dude.
CHANG: Somehow, Frankie and Molly end up with some very valuable hallucinogens that give them telepathic powers, but then Danish villains start chasing them down. I mean, stay with me. I know. It's weird. It's hilarious. And Dylan Meyer told me it is all based on a real-life friendship that began years ago in the tiny LA apartment she once shared with her current producing partner, Maggie McLean.
DYLAN MEYER: I met Maggie because we had deadbeat punk friend crossover.
CHANG: (Laughter).
MEYER: And I barely knew her, but I knew I needed to live with her. And if you ever meet Maggie, you will completely understand that that's not a crazy way to feel. Like, I think a lot of people probably feel that way when they meet her. But I drove to Berkeley where she was living and said, I know you don't know me very well, but I think we're supposed to live together. And she was like, I'm kind of happy here. And I went, OK, we'll see about that. And then I set her up with someone so that she would fall in love and move back down to Los Angeles and move in with me. And...
CHANG: Oh, my God.
MEYER: If you know me at all, I'm such a born quitter. It was, like, such uncharacteristic follow-through on my part.
CHANG: Yeah.
MEYER: But that's how strong my gut instinct was. And then we lived together for about five years, and we nearly burned our house down every...
CHANG: Oh, my God.
MEYER: ...Single day.
CHANG: By what? Like, leaving the stove on or...
MEYER: Yeah. Like, anything like that. Just pure unmitigated accidents all the time.
CHANG: Goodness.
MEYER: And then one day, we kind of grew up, and Maggie fell in love with real-life Josh and moved out of my house, and that was...
CHANG: Whoa.
MEYER: ...An enormous trauma, even though I love Josh. It wasn't - you know, as in the movie, it wasn't about Josh.
CHANG: Right.
MEYER: And then I forced her to start a company with me, and now we do that together.
CHANG: I just want to talk about how much I loved the way Frankie and Molly in this movie talk to each other - like, the way they root each other on, they deeply understand each other's quirks, they affirm each other even as the other person might be making some questionable choice. How would you describe why friendship between women is so special and unique and intimate and important, I think, for survival and growth?
MEYER: Yes, I definitely think that women do a lot of communicating, and they're also emotionally intuitive or available. Like, I've always wondered about male friendships because it sort of seems like they're connected by stuff and, like, common interests versus, like, the whole activity being chatting...
CHANG: Right.
MEYER: ...And, like, finding out how each other are.
CHANG: Sharing feelings. Yeah.
MEYER: But I think that there's a lot of, I guess, caretaking that goes on in a lot of different setups, and I think there's a beautiful back and forth that happens in female friendships where you are working through things, you are challenging each other. You are supporting each other when times are not what you want them to be.
And I think, you know, just these sort of champions who aren't on payroll of any kind other than choosing to be there - I think that's profound. I think that's something really special and especially, like, as you get older. I think we've really covered sort of codependent adolescent friendships and what those are about. But I haven't seen a lot of film or television really getting underneath, like, the support network that is adult friendships later in life.
CHANG: I absolutely agree. It's so recognizable - the richness of female friendship. It's something that I immediately locked into when I started watching your movie, and I feel like so many women, as you point out, can relate to that very special bond. That said, I found myself laughing so hard in this movie. What do you think is so pleasurable about watching women behave like idiots? - (laughter) 'cause it was...
MEYER: Well...
CHANG: ...Hilarious (laughter).
MEYER: I think we haven't been allowed to do it very much. So there's a part of it that's just the sense of being an underserved community that is...
CHANG: Yeah.
MEYER: ...Finally getting a taste of something that has really been kept off limits. I mean...
CHANG: My inner idiot felt so seen (laughter)
MEYER: Yeah, I know. I felt the same way. I think that's what motivated me to write this movie in the first place was that I was like, gosh, I've been watching Seth Rogen and his friends be idiots in movies for many years, and I'm also an idiot.
CHANG: (Laughter).
MEYER: And my friends are idiots. And I think...
CHANG: Yeah.
MEYER: ...Even with feminism's best intentions for us and especially in the last 10 years, we got really sensitive to wanting to be taken seriously, but at the same time, there's something dehumanizing about not being given...
CHANG: Totally.
MEYER: ...Permission to be an idiot in the same way that men are allowed to...
CHANG: Yeah.
MEYER: ...Be idiots. Like, there's something a little alienating about it.
CHANG: Yeah. OK, well, I have to ask this question because, you know, it's hard these days to make fun of any culture or any country and get away with it. What makes Denmark safe fodder?
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE WRONG GIRLS")
CHRIS ESTRADA: (As Jose) Like, a very dense bread with pickled fish - we say we like it, but I don't know. Does anyone really like it?
CHANG: How come you can't get canceled for making fun of Danes?
MEYER: Well, we've never done it before, so that helps, you know? They - this was their first time on the chopping block, to my knowledge.
CHANG: You did the research.
MEYER: You know, most of our villains in movies like this reflect whoever our sort of political opponents in that time were. So we've never been at odds with Denmark. Although hilariously enough...
CHANG: Well, Greenland...
MEYER: During this process - that's when Trump decided to, you know, annex Greenland or whatever he was on about.
CHANG: I was wondering if that had anything to do with it, but no, you were thinking about the Danish angle long before Greenland became a thing in the news.
MEYER: Yeah, that was during post, and my Danish actors were texting me saying, I can't believe you managed to predict the fallout between the United States...
CHANG: (Laughter).
MEYER: ...And Denmark. And I was like...
CHANG: It makes this movie...
MEYER: I really didn't know.
CHANG: ...So timely, Dylan (laughter).
MEYER: Yeah, I really - I saw the future on that one. But, you know, they're tall. They're white. They're successful. They have everything. They have, like, great healthcare. Like, everything's going great for them. So...
CHANG: Right, so make fun of them.
MEYER: That's the foil for the messiest, most chaotic people that I can think of. You know what I mean? Like...
CHANG: Right.
MEYER: When I think about Denmark, I think about a country of people who can wear white and not spill on themselves, magically. And that is the opposite of the girls, so I knew that's what I needed to sort of provide that comedic contrast.
CHANG: Oh, so funny. Dylan Meyer wrote and directed the new movie "The Wrong Girls." Thank you so much for hanging out with me, Dylan.
MEYER: It was a blast. I've never had a better time. Thank you so much.
CHANG: Oh, my God. That's quite an honor. Thank you.
MEYER: Yeah.
CHANG: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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