Posted in: Exclusive, IFC, Interview, Movies | Tagged: alison brie, aubrey plaza, exclusive, interview, Jeff Baena, Spin Me Round

Spin Me Round Director Jeff Baena Talks Comedy & Streamlined Casting

Jeff Baena has built a career writing and directing satirical and slice-of-life comedies since his directorial debut in 2014's Life After Beth. His latest film is IFC's and AMC+'s Spin Me Round, co-written by Alison Brie, which follows a woman (Brie) who's the manager of an Italian restaurant and wins the opportunity to attend the franchise's educational immersion program in Italy. What she thought would be a romantic getaway devolves into chaos and catastrophe. The actress is one of a long line of frequent collaborators, with Aubrey Plaza and Molly Shannon also featured in the film. Baena spoke to Bleeding Cool about the inspiration behind Spin Me Round, Brie, casting, and filming.

Bleeding Cool: What's the inspiration behind Spin Me Round?
Baena: After I shot 'The Little Hours' in Italy, I read this article about a program a franchise Italian restaurant had where they would send the top managers from the [United States] to Italy to learn about food, wine, and culture. This one manager had a pretty horrible experience where he felt trapped. It wasn't what they had said, and they weren't staying in the villa [as promised]. They were staying at a dormitory, and literally, they demonstrated how to make bouillabaisse, which was a wrap. That was a funny setup of the sort of conflict between expectation and reality, especially when it's a trip to Italy where you envision it as this life-changing experience.

What went into the casting, and how was Alison involved creatively?
After reading that article, I wrote a 14-15 page outline based on the story and then brought it to [Alison] to see if she was interested. I already collaborated with her on 'The Little Hours' and 'Joshy.' We also had written a script together called 'Horse Girl' that got made before it, and I had such an amazing time. Instinctively, I just brought it to her to see if this was something she was into, and she loved it. We took the outline I had originally written and embellished it, and then we were supposed to shoot this in the summer of 2020. Due to COVID issues, we were unable to, so we ended up fleshing it out as a full-fledged script and went out with that.

There's a lot of talent here. Was it something you got everyone on board right away, or was there anyone that you auditioned?
I don't audition people in general as a rule. I'll take meetings to get a sense of them. I like to work and assign characters because I don't like things to be a major stretch for the actor. Although they're amazing and can inhabit any role and play any character, I find the structure of independent filmmaking and its limitations implements a time crunch. In order to get more authentic performances, it's better to tailor-made the characters towards the actors and assign the roles to reflect their range. Most who are in this movie are those I've worked with before.

I've either written the roles for them or slotted them in because I figured it would be an easy transition. For the new people like Alessandro Nivola and Zach Woods, who are actually I've known, and Tim Heidecker, for over 20 years, you talk to them, get a sense of who they are, where they're coming from, and where they're at in their life. I use that to inform my writing of the characters, so it's almost second-hand nature for them. It's easier for them when we are going off-script or to new places, and there is a secure structure for them to work off of.

You have a diverse cast from the comedy world. Did the parts they play feel like an extension of themselves, or do they just reflect more of the range they could play?
It's more reflecting the range they can play, but their actual personalities inform it. I'm not a fan of having people play parts that are so wildly divergent from who they are. Not that these are who these people are, but there are aspects of them, and they're heightened. At the same time, these are very much characters in these actors' wheelhouse, and it's just easier for them to get to new places based on that for me.

It's been a long journey for you, with it's been eight years as a director since doing Life After Beth. What is the most invaluable lesson you took from the time you started to go into this project?
The most invaluable thing I've learned is that there's just not enough time. The most valuable thing in terms of the budget and allocating funds is days. In [Spin Me Round], we only had 22 days, which I don't think was enough. I would have liked it a whole lot more. Shooting in Italy, one of the hard things initially was the amount of hours you get per day, which was eight. We got it up to nine, but in America, it's 12. Our initial budget and schedule had us at 27 days with 12-hour days, and then we ended up at 22 days with nine-hour days.

Spin Me Round, which also stars Ayden Mayeri, Ben Sinclair, Debby Ryan, Fred Armisen, Ego Nwodim, and Lil Rey Howery, is in theaters, on-demand, and streaming on AMC+ on August 19th.

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