Hey!!!
Last newsletter, I told you about how I (along with so many talented friends) wrote a script for a movie about my dead dad (or D(e)ad) during lock-down. Next we had to decide… could we actually make it?
My mom has a lot of fortune as a network show-runner for 25 years. She has made a lot of groundbreaking television as a writer and executive producer with shows like Rude Awakening, Accidentally On Purpose, and How To Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life) to name a few. Though my mom is lucky to have had this success and even as prolific as she is, this work has always been at the behest of studio and network heads with the shows ending well before really getting started. As all good mama’s girls, I too have been attempting to live off of a career as a writer/actor/comedian since I graduated college. In 10 years of auditioning and pitching for other people, the only place I’ve been able to really make what I want has been personal with no chance of ever seeing the outside world.
My mom and I know how privileged we are to find ways to make money doing the things we love–she’s actually made incredible TV shows (watch them!) and I’ve found a home I never thought I’d know at Dropout.tv (sign up!) and being an amazing small character on The Sex Lives of College Girls. Still the idea of being able to make movies, like the ones that have inspired me since sentience, was looking bleak. I was surrounded by my friends - the most talented people I’d ever met - who had writing or acting jobs that barely got them healthcare, were pretty soul-sucking and would, in some scenarios, be scrapped as tax write-offs #fuckyouBobIger. (The unique experience of Dropout is, of course, the notable exception). So we got really determined and, blessed by an outrageously talented, under-employed crew, we decided to make something we cared about.
I talked to one of my best friends, awesome producer and frequent lewd improv partner, Erin Dellorso, who was very intent on making this with me and recruited her producing partner, Julianne Dowler. If we used almost everyone in my family and barely any extra locations other than our own homes…we could do it! It would be hard… but for a lot of reasons, it seemed worth it.
As we started pre-production, we lost entire locations we thought were available to us resulting in several complete rewrites accommodating for the loss of locations. There were casting shake ups due to schedule conflicts up until a week before shooting. It was fucking crazy!!!! And it was SO FUN!!! Every new hurdle sent electricity coursing through my body that made me feel like, “Wow, this is happening! We’re in the shit now! We’re making a goddamn indie feature!” To which my mom and producers said, well, I’m glad this is making you excited.
Yet as it got realer I became increasingly more worried that we would start filming this and everyone would secretly talk about what a piece of shit the movie was and how everyone was wasting their money on me. But then…
We decided to “shell out” - I’m sure the sight of his Air BNB would disagree - for an actor my parents were friends with who was hauntingly perfect for the part of my dad, Craig Bierko. He freaking rules and really was haunting, so much that I often asked myself why we got someone who was so similar to my actual father.
When we sent the script to Craig and his reps, I’m not gonna lie, his agents were sweating and working their little heinies off to get us to put him in the movie! This was a reaction outside of my immediate family and loved ones telling me that the movie was good, it felt like real life validation that someone who had no stake in the game (except for their career) said that this was actually quite good and they were going out of their way to be a part of it.
And then… we shoot it? Stay tuned!
~~ Izzy
PS are you watching Never Stop Blowing Up??