[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: Citysong]

Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar in for Alison Stewart. Hey, thanks for spending part of your Tuesday with us. We're really glad that you're here. Here's what's coming up on today's show. We'll hear from New York Times reporter Sapna Maheshwari about the implications of a possible TikTok ban. Author John Green is also going to be here, along with Director Hannah Marks to talk about the new film adaptation of his novel Turtles All the Way Down. Then Blake Crouch joins us along with producer Matt Tolmach to talk about the new series Dark Matter. That's the plan, so let's get this party started with Babes.

[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: You and Me]

The new comedy Babes features Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau as best friends at very different points in their lives. Ilana plays Eden, a single woman living in Astoria, who runs her own yoga studio. She's spontaneous and a bit chaotic and really missing her best friend, Dawn. Dawn moved from Astoria to Manhattan with her husband and son with another baby on the way. Dawn and Eden have always prioritized one another, but when Dawn's second baby is born, things start to change. Then Eden finds out she's pregnant from a one-night stand and decides to keep the baby.

Eden's decision puts a strain on their friendship as both women try to navigate their new changing realities. Because this is a movie co-written by Ilana Glazer, starring Ilana and Michelle Buteau, and directed by comedy veteran Pamela Adlon. It is very, very funny. Babes is in theaters on Friday, and I'm joined now by co-writer and star Ilana Glazer, star Michelle Buteau, and director Pamela Adlon. Hi, all of you. Thanks for being on.

Pamela Adlon: Thank you so much for having us. Hi.

Ilana Glazer: Hi.

Michelle Buteau: Hi.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. Pleasure to have you all here. This is going to be a real party. Ilana, I want to start with you. When you decided to write a comedy about pregnancy and giving birth and motherhood, what were some things you knew you wanted to achieve with the script?

Ilana Glazer: Oh. I think just starting from the inside out, I wanted it to be as funny as possible. I wrote this movie with Josh Rabinowitz and I was pregnant at the time, and his wife was pregnant at the time. He produced it as well, and our producer, Susie Fox, had a one and a three-year-old. We put together a list of the most surprising and absurd things that we were experiencing becoming parents and being parents of little ones. We realized that we hadn't seen this before in film. It was just so hilarious. This list we put together that we knew we had to make it.

Kousha Navidar: Wow. Pamela, those surprising things, were those what made you want to direct this movie? What spoke about it to you?

Pamela Adlon: Well, being a vet mom, the stretched out version on the other side. I knew that I could offer insight. The script had all the elements of things that I really liked to play with. It had the comedy, the brutal honesty and mostly the heart, which is what drew me to it the most.

Kousha Navidar: A lot of that heart comes through the relationship of Eden and Dawn. Michelle, what drew you to Dawn's character?

Michelle Buteau: First of all, the movie was hilarious, and I love Ilana and we're friends, and so I trust her. Then when Pamela was attached as a director, I'm like, "How do I say no." Plus, I was already a tired mom of two kids trying to get back to work. I'm like, "Ooh, baby. I have not just done the research, I'm living the research." It just felt like such a fun, safe, important place to tell the story from our POV.

Kousha Navidar: Ilana, you mentioned that when you started the process of writing this film, you were pregnant at the time, not quite yet, a mother. You didn't have any kids, now you do. How do you experience this film differently now that you're a mom yourself?

Ilana Glazer: As we've been doing this press, Pamela, Michelle and I, and talking about the movie. It continues to amaze me the privilege of getting to put art out there and then reflect on it with the world. Let go of it being a personal thing and experience it as a something we are all sharing. Just like parenting, it's like things that you unconsciously do that I'm discovering the intentions later. In the script, as we're talking about it these days, it's like certain things about it that we didn't--

I don't know, the partnership between Dawn and Eden. As we were writing it, it's just like, what's the funniest and what realistically would these two be going through? For them to be these sort of wives and partners and sisters, it's having new meaning for me now. I think that experience of continuing to uncover this person as a parent really mirrors that.

Kousha Navidar: Are you talking about getting the 360 view of what motherhood truly entails, like the community around it? Is that a fair summarization you're talking about?

Ilana Glazer: Yes. Also the new partnership friendships takes when one or both people become parents.

Kousha Navidar: Michelle, how does that resonate for you? Because you said, " I haven't just done the research, I've experienced this, I've lived this." What Ilana is saying, does that apply for you?

Michelle Buteau: It does. I'm the first one to tell everybody, I am the only child. My friends, I call them my chosen family. It is a gaggle of godmamas and godfathers. Back in the day, you live in a block or a building and you have your whole family there. You have your aunts and your uncles, and everybody's raising everybody, but it's not like that anymore. We live by our friends.

We live by our friends who may also have kids. We kind of like are raising our families together. That's why this film really spoke to me too, because I'm like, "This is really what it is." You need to lean on your community because you cannot do it alone, it's impossible. You can't pay for therapy all the time, sometimes your friends just know more stuff about you than your therapist.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely.

Pamela Adlon: They're better. Also, it's funny because it reminds me of when you were talking to Michelle and then Ilana, Ilana was not quite a girl, not yet a mother. Then she became a mother when she was writing this. Michelle, you're so method that you were in this. It's kind of a lightning in a bottle moment. The fact that they all came together on this

Kousha Navidar: Yes. That sense of finding family, which you mentioned Michelle, or defining what your family is, really spoke to me when I was watching the movie. Hey, if you're just tuning in, we're talking about the new movie Babes, which is in theaters this Friday. We're talking to Ilana Glazer, who's the co-writer and star, Michelle Buteau who's another star of the film, and the director, Pamela Adlon. Pamela, I want to talk about the opening sequence, which I also loved. It's where Dawn is in labor and gives birth. It's funny, it's graphic. You got Michelle crawling around the ground for a long time in it. Pamela, what did you want that opening scene to establish in terms of tone for the rest of the film?

Pamela Adlon: I'm trying to get away from the siren for you guys. The sirens of life. For me, it was a very musical sequence because it's just the rhythms of life. I knew I wanted to use this cue. The World Goes 'Round, which Liza Minnelli sings in New York, New York, and is a very New York sensibility. Michelle and Ilana, she's been through this before. She's ready. She's like, "Wait, let's just--" They want to go to a restaurant, they want to have a meal. It never turns out the way you think.

It's the rhythms of life. It's like that John Lennon quote, "Life is what happens to you when you're too busy making other plans." Adding to that quote, this happens to you, you can't plan any of this. It was just very musical. I wanted it to feel choreographed. She crawled in that hospital corridor. That was a working hospital.

Kousha Navidar: Oh.

Pamela Adlon: It wasn't scrubbed clean for the movie crew.

Kousha Navidar: You're saying method. When you say method, Michelle is Method.

Michelle Buteau: Oh, yes.

Pamela Adlon: Method.

Michelle Buteau: I have been on my knees quite a bunch. I've been to college. Can I say that, WNYC? [crosstalk]

Kousha Navidar: I said technically. Is that okay? I'm looking at my producers right now. Yes, we got the thumbs up on that one. [laughs]

Michelle Buteau: Thank you, Ryan Seacrest.

Ilana Glazer: WNYC, we got the check.

Kousha Navidar: We got the check.

Pamela Adlon: WNYC

Kousha Navidar: WNYC. There's two birthing scenes in this movie, and you aren't shy about some of the more grizzly aspects of having a baby. Ilana, I'm wondering, what did you want to capture about the experience of giving birth in these scenes?

Ilana Glazer: I love the way we bookend this movie with birth and the way that Pamela made both of them melodic and musical, but the cues explain it all where the first birth is bombastic and bold, and while this character has been there there's still a shock to the experience of giving birth. While we have had visceral comedy in our final scene, we were so excited about that little monologue that my character Eden gives in the awe and wonder of childbirth, and making space for that wonder, which we have so little of.

Pamela Adlon: Without It being a spoiler. That is such a beautiful moment, Ilana, and it's so childlike. Her wonder at her bringing a child. It's just, you got to see it.

Kousha Navidar: I think that element of talking about Eden and Dawn being at two different stages and talking about wonder, I think is so key because you see that as an important juxtaposition in the movie. I thought at least. Eden and Dawn are at two very different stages of adulthood when we start the movie. Pamela, what do you think keeps them bonded despite their different life experiences they're going through?

Pamela Adlon: That's their sinew, their binaryness from childhood that they are connected and you don't doubt that, but then one person gets booed up and then they get married and it's like, "Wait, you're doing a thing without me? I need to be part of all of this." You do that when you're friends. You go along for all those rides, then somebody has a kid, and then you're really out in the cold, and then another kid is coming. You want that space.

When you have a friend in your life and they get married, what if God forbid, you didn't like their spouse? What happens? There's so many layers and there's so much nuance to people, individuating in their lives, and then being able to go back to each other and turn back, and we say that this is a love story between two best friends.

Kousha Navidar: Let's hear a moment when we get to experience a bit of their friendship dynamic. This is when Eden finds out that she is pregnant.

Eden: I'm stinking, maybe. Just maybe I am a pregnant person. I'm 28 for 28. I could do a 29th.

Dawn: No, you are clearly pregnant.

Eden: I don't know how this could have happened. I've had sex once since my last period, but I was on my period.

Dawn: So?

Eden: So you can't get pregnant on your period.

Dawn: Girl.

Eden: Girl.

Dawn: Girl.

Eden: Girl.

Dawn: Girl.

Eden: Girl.

Dawn: Yes, you can.

Eden: Girl, stop.

Dawn: Girl, you stop. We went to the same school. We learned the same [audio beep]

Eden: Come on. No, you can't.

Dawn: Ma'am. I'm a doctor.

Eden: You are a dentist.

Kousha Navidar: [chuckles] All respect a dentist out there, but what a line. I love that line. We're talking about the movie Babes, which is in theaters on Friday. We're talking to Ilana Glazer, Michelle Buteau, and Pamela Adlon, the creatives, the talent behind this. We got to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to dive more into the story and ask some questions about motherhood. This is All Of It. Stay with us.

[music]

This is All Of It on WNYC, I'm Kousha Navidar in for Alison Stewart, and we're talking about the movie Babes, which is in theaters this Friday. It stars Ilana Glazer, who's also the co-writer. It also stars Michelle Buteau, directed by Pamela Adlon. We're talking to all three right now. Before the break, Ilana, we were talking about, especially Pamela was talking about how deep friendship, you go along for the ride. Eden doesn't seem to be at a place in her life where having a child was on the agenda, and yet, she decides that she wants to--

Ilana Glazer: Ooh, Kousha.

Kousha Navidar: Yes.

Ilana Glazer: We're losing you.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, can you not hear me?

Pamela Adlon: Somebody is not muted.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, let's see if we can take that. Thanks for the heads up, by the way.

Participant: Is it Sonia?

Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar in for Alison Stewart. We're just dealing with some quick tech troubles here. We're talking about the movie Babes, which is out in theaters on Friday. We're talking to Ilana Glazer, who's the co-writer and star. We've got Michelle Buteau who is another star of the film, and Pamela Adlon, who's the director. I'm getting the thumbs up from our producer now, Juliana over in the control room. I see thumbs up on the Zoom too, so I think we are good to go. I also see Michelle making a heart sign, so thank you very much for that. [chuckles] This is all love here.

Ilana Glazer: Good work, Kousha and [unintelligible 00:15:38].

Kousha Navidar: Oh, yes. Ilana, we were talking about before the break, Eden talking about friendship and how if you have a deep friendship, you really do go along for the ride. Eden is on a ride in this movie. She's at a place in her life where having a child wasn't really on the agenda, but she decides she wants to keep it. Why?

Ilana Glazer: I don't want to give any spoilers, but we have the line. This feels like destiny's child. This character is a weirdo. She is a weirdo who doesn't fit into the typical standard narrative that Michelle's character, Dawn does so easily. Dawn is this magnet and community leader. You could just tell, you don't see those scenes of this character's life, but you can tell, and she has a husband and kids, and even though it's hard, she just fills that role so effortlessly, seemingly.

Whereas Eden's her weird best friend and doesn't connect with people often. You can tell she hasn't had many romantic relationships in her life, and when she has this special evening with this special person, it's important for her to keep that experience alive, and she makes the full choice about her own body to have this baby.

Kousha Navidar: She goes all in. Michelle, Eden seems like the messier character. Dawn doesn't have everything figured out either. In fact, after having her second baby, she goes through a period of depression and guilt that I felt was really well portrayed in the movie. How does Dawn struggle with that balance between being a working woman with a life of her own and a dedicated mother?

Michelle Buteau: I feel like I owe all of those performances to Pamela and Ilana for writing it with Josh and Pamela because-- Also, real life because if I was not a mom and trying to keep it all together, I would think that you always have to put on a happy face, and that's just not realistic. Sometimes you use a tone with your partner that you love, that you don't mean to, and sometimes you look at your kids in a way where you're just like, "I do love you, but I need to love me right now."

I wouldn't have known any of that unless I was living that, and then even to make the choice of what you really can show and not. I credit that to Pamela because not only has she been there, done that. She put in five beautiful seasons and continues to share her stories. It's a balance. It's like this weird balance because people want to see it, but do they want to see all of it? I don't know.

Kousha Navidar: Pamela, how does it feel to hear Michelle talk like that about what you gave?

Pamela Adlon: I was there to guide everybody and that's-- Everything that Michelle has inside of her and everything that Ilana has inside of her and Hasan, they bring their own gifts. It was just a lot of feeling like everybody knows this, but really, they don't, because people really don't communicate. They really don't communicate when they're in the trenches, and so to peel back the veneer.

When I was a new mom, I was dying to know what was going on with other moms, and it felt like an impenetrable wall. I would call them the robot moms. The moms that made it seem like everything was great. I just was like, "Can I peek into your kid's lunchbox? Can I come over to your house while you're making breakfast?" What couples are actually enamored of each other still? [unintelligible 00:20:18] married without a biological imperative. "Wait, you got married on purpose without--"

[laughter]

Pamela Adlon: There's so many layers.

Kousha Navidar: Of all those layers, I wonder, is there something about motherhood? I'm sure there are many things, but is there one thing you could point out that you didn't fully appreciate or understand until it happened to you?

Pamela Adlon: What, me?

Kousha Navidar: Yes.

Pamela Adlon: Oh, everything now that my kids are in their 20s. I say this to everybody endlessly, like an 80-year-old man walking down Tompkins Street like this, "Enjoy it while you got it." You can't when you're in it. You really don't have the ability to shake it off because you're so exhausted. It's like, if you can just give yourself that little bit of patience, that little bit of grace.

I remember when I had three and I just needed to go to the bathroom to take a shower. I walked into the bathroom and I just said to somebody who I might've been married to at the time, "Can you watch them? I'm going to go shower." I went into the bathroom and I closed the door and locked the door. I get into the shower, turn on the water, and then the banging started, "Mama, mama, mama, mama." Dude, that was my shower.

Kousha Navidar: It makes it hard to appreciate until after the fact. I see nodding your head. Listeners, if you're just joining us, this is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar. We're talking with Ilana Glazer, Michelle Buteau, and Pamela Adlon who are behind the new movie Babes, which is in theaters this Friday. The movie takes place in New York. It is very much a movie about New York City as well.

Viewers are going to have so much fun recognizing different locations and also relating Ilana to Eden's struggle of, I don't know, riding three or more different trains to get back to her apartment, which is pretty accurate. Was it the 7 to the G to-

Ilana Glazer: The Q to the N.

Kousha Navidar: -the Q to the N. Yes, that's right.

Ilana Glazer: [laughs]

Kousha Navidar: Ilana, how did you want to capture that particular experience of pregnancy and parenthood in New York? What makes it different from maybe having the same life experience in other places?

Ilana Glazer: It is true survival to be pregnant in New York. I just took my daughter to a dance class and I saw a pregnant woman walking on the sidewalk. If you are pregnant in New York, you are climbing. It's as though you're climbing the side of a mountain just walking on the sidewalk. It's like the light of my life as an artist to write stories about dynamics between people in New York, about New York, and to incorporate the textures.

There's such a music about New York and the comedy rhythm, it just unfolds before you. You look around and there's a classic comedy scene unfolding on every corner. One of the most incredible things about New York is that we have geniuses here. We have these geniuses in our movie. This cast, Oliver Platt, Hasan Minhaj, Sandra Bernhard, Stephan James, the Lucas brothers.

Our Dragana is Elena Ouspenskaia. This is the fan favorite Dragana, Eden's doula. This is this woman's first movie and she nails it. That's New York too. All these people are here, showing up as locals. John Carroll Lynch walked to set. He's like, "I don't need a ride." He walked to set. It was fabulous to have these real New Yorkers paint this picture with us.

Kousha Navidar: Go ahead.

Pamela Adlon: Also, everybody is terrified of John Carroll Lynch. They see him walking down the street, they're like, "Oh my God."

[laughter]

Ilana Glazer: Yes, try having him between your legs.

[laughter]

Kousha Navidar: I think I might need another thumbs up from my producer on that one. Is that, "Oh, we got a wavy."

[crosstalk]

Kousha Navidar: Listen, it's all love. It's all love. It's all love. This is going to be an interesting segue from that, so forgive me. The film gets a little gross. It gets wacky, but it also gets very sincere. Ilana, I guess the question that pops into my mind for you as a storyteller, how do you find the right balance between humor and other genuine, sincere emotions when you're thinking about the story unfolding?

Ilana Glazer: I find these elements to be such a quick little shift. The things that are being said to be gross, I find to be simply true, and simply real, and rather uncovered in common discourse. Women are talking about this to each other all the time in order to deal with being policed out there verbally and legally in our bodies, in our words. I just find this to be true. When Josh and I were writing it with Susie Fox and producing it, every step of the way as we were producing it, we wanted to make sure this stayed true to big comedy, big feelings, hard comedy with a lot of heart.

I don't think things are very funny if they aren't backed up with grounded truths, with vulnerability. I don't find a hard comedy slapstick thing, funny, unless it's also vulnerable, unless it's also sad, and evoking some sort of loss or something. In the same way that hate is a part of love, these deep, dark feelings are the other side of the same coin of comedy for me.

Kousha Navidar: If, listeners, you want to see that grounded and funny reality that the movie depicts, you can check out Babes, which is in theaters this Friday. We've been talking to Ilana Glazer, who is the co-writer and one of the stars, Michelle Buteau, the other star, and Pamela Adlon, the star director. Thank you all three so much for being on here. So much fun.

Ilana Glazer: What a blast.

Michelle Buteau: Thank you.

Pamela Adlon: Go see Babes.

Ilana Glazer: Bye, y'all.

[crosstalk]

 

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