When Alison Brie and Dave Franco came to Austin

Climate change has no regard for press tours, and it’s two days before (yet another) historic ice storm in Austin, so we welcome the first couple of millennial comedies to Alaska.

Alison Brie and Dave Franco are sitting in an upstairs room at Hotel Saint Cecilia near South Congress Avenue when we meet them on Jan. 30. They’ve just come from Chicago, hopscotching across the country to promote their new movie, “Somebody I Used to Know.” The famous married couple tell us they were looking forward to Austin’s temperate weather.

Alas. And brr. Luckily, Brie and Franco bring their own warmth to the conversation, and wit, too.

If you're inclined to look for synchronicity, the weather seems more in tune with the Pacific Northwest setting of “Somebody I Used to Know," out Feb. 10 on Amazon Prime Video. For this flick, Brie and Franco found themselves in a new relationship: screenplay co-writers. Franco also directs, his second time at the helm of a feature film after 2020 horror film “The Rental." As in that movie, Brie stars.

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In "Somebody I Used to Know," she plays Ally, who left her hometown with dreams of being a serious documentarian. Instead, she's become the host of a dire reality competition show involving baked goods and emotional manipulation. When her professional life hits a low, Ally returns home to her mom — still living in the Bavarian-style village of Leavenworth, Washington — to wallow.

In the grand tradition of “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” Ally does something far more destructive. She tangles up with her ex, Sean (Jay Ellis), who’s just about to get married to the free-spirited Cassidy (Kiersey Clemons). With visions of what might have been taunting her at every corner, Ally becomes the videographer for Sean’s wedding, and things get messy.

For those who've followed Brie and Franco over the years, "Somebody I Used to Know" feels like natural growth for both, with Franco developing his touch as a filmmaker and Brie deepening her exploration of complicated, funny women.

Together, they've crafted a heartfelt, realistic take on the rom-com.

"We can still put that on the poster," Franco says.

Making dinner and making movies

“We came up with the concept walking through my hometown in Northern California,” says Franco. “We knew that we wanted to do something in the romantic-comedy genre.”

The couple, married since 2017, were intrigued by the idea of coming home and reconnecting with your roots, including old friends, he says, and “confronting who you used to be, compared to who you are now, and how you feel about who you are now.”

Franco starts to describe the writing process, and Brie takes the baton. They do this often in conversation; it's wonderful.

She says, “We started writing the first two weeks of quarantine in 2020, basically thinking that we only have two weeks, right, when everything originally shut down.”

They treated those two weeks like a writer’s workshop and started every day with the urgency of a speed run. Franco points out that Brie had to get back to work shooting the fourth season of “G.L.O.W.” (“Rest in peace, never to be finished,” she says of the critically acclaimed Netflix show that was canceled in fall 2020.)

“We really thought we had those two weeks, so we knocked out our first draft,” Brie says, starting to grin. “Then, you know.” Yes, we know. “We had another year and a half to kind of —”

“Refine,” Franco offers.

“Tweak,” Brie says.

“But the physical writing, usually it's me at the computer, and it's Allison standing up, walking back and forth,” Franco says.

“Pacing,” Brie says. “Making dinner.”

“Like, ‘Alright, what would you say in this scenario?’ And she’s kind of acting it all out, and I'm writing it down,” Franco says.

Bringing those words to life, the cast of “Somebody I Used to Know” is a murderer’s row of actors who make you say, “Oh, I love them.” Brie’s “Community” co-star Danny Pudi plays hometown friend Benny. Sean’s family includes a brother played by Haley Joel Osment and a mother played by Olga Merediz. Amy Sedaris appears in a small part.

The couple wrote Pudi’s part with him in mind. “That felt like a no-brainer,” Brie says. She had worked with Osment on a 2012 indie called “The Misadventures of the Dunderheads.” Osment’s role in "Somebody I Used to Know" was the most comedic on the page, Franco says, but they wanted someone who could inhabit the part as a full person instead of just leaning into the jokes.

“The stuff he's saying is so ridiculous, but we wanted to someone who could say it in a very earnest, straightforward way,” he says.

“The rest of the cast, we just got extremely lucky,” Brie says. “We made our dream list, our top choice for every role, and they said … yes?” She laughs in disbelief. “We wrote letters begging everybody.”

“A lot of letters,” Franco adds.

And then as Ally's mom, there’s Julie Hagerty, the squeaky-pitched icon of classic comedies like “Airplane!” and “What About Bob?”

“She was dream casting,” Brie says. “And then we got her. She couldn't have been more sweet and kind and gracious, and so funny. She's so good at toeing the line between amazing comedic moments and really heartfelt moments."

“She was only on set for a few days, but we all fell in love with her,” Franco says. “She is our mother.”

“It was nice to feel like people connected with the material,” Brie says.

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From prime time to top line

That material, too, speaks to Brie’s career trajectory. Since making her name in the mid-to-late 2000s with a pair of simultaneous but very different TV roles — as uptight Annie Edison on NBC sitcom “Community” and as charming society wife Trudy Campbell in AMC drama “Mad Men” — she’s built a resume rich with pop culture cache.

And many of her most memorable roles are women swimming in a gulf between who they think they should be and who they actually are. There’s ne’er-do-well actress Ruth, who brought thespian delusions to the wrestling ring in “G.L.O.W.” But there was also the chain restaurant manager who dreams of culinary greatness in last year’s absurd comedy “Spin Me Round,” or Diane, an idealistic intellectual consigned to celebrity ghostwriting and failed relationships whom Brie voiced in adult animated series “BoJack Horseman.”

“There must be something to it that speaks to my own journey with myself as an actor,” Brie says of what attracts her to these characters, “and my own impression of what other people think of me, versus the way I see myself. Especially, I think, because I've played a lot of Type A characters. I feel like in my life, I'm in a constant state of rebellion against my Type A qualities. I don't think of myself that way, even though I know in some ways I am.”

In “Somebody I Used to Know,” the audience gets to see Brie’s Ally take a similar journey and get in touch with who she really is, or used to be, Franco says. (See, the movie's title works in a couple ways.)

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“In these last few years, as I've been writing roles for myself to play, I think I've just enjoyed a push and pull going on in a character, because it's more interesting to watch,” Brie says. “Somebody who's kind of like having an existential crisis. And don't we all kind of go through that a little bit every so often? Checking in with, ‘Who am I? Who do I want to be?’”

Franco says that the co-writers tried to bring that complexity to all the characters, especially the conflicted lovers played by Ellis and Clemons: “We didn't want to have any villains. Yes, they're all flawed, they're all making some mistakes. But at the end of the day, they're all just going through a difficult time and trying to process and trying to get back to like their truest self.”

And for Franco's part, “Somebody I Used to Know” marks a chance to capture a new world on camera. He broke out in 2009 playing a smarmy medical student on the final season of TV show “Scrubs.” He quickly carved out a distinct comedic voice with memorable roles in movies like “21 Jump Street” and “Neighbors.” Franco also co-wrote and produced directorial debut “The Rental,” and his producer credits now include A24 film “Zola” and Hulu miniseries “Pam and Tommy.”

Franco says he approached directing "Somebody I Used to Know" and "The Rental" in similar ways. He didn’t want to dwell on differences in genre; instead, he spent time putting together the best team possible.

“Obviously, I want really talented people, but it was just as important to me that everyone was really nice, and was gonna work their ass off,” he says. “So it took a little bit longer to put everyone together. But at the end of the day, I'm looking around, and I'm surrounded by all these really great people. It was really nice to have a supportive environment.”

Yet he still found distinct creative possibilities inherent to the genres: first a cabin-in-the-woods slasher, then an exes-behaving-badly comedy.

“In terms of the different genres, I genuinely love horror movies, I genuinely love romantic comedies,” Franco says. “We used what we know and love about the genres to lead the audience down a certain path where they might think, ‘Oh, I know where this is going,’ and then trying to pull the rug out from them every step of the way.”

'It's not too late to get back on this path'

Even with the cold front, Brie and Franco are still happy to be back in Austin.

South by Southwest is Franco’s favorite festival, he tells us. “I've had my three greatest screenings of all time (there): ‘21 Jump Street,’ ‘Neighbors,’ ‘The Disaster Artist,’” he says. “Just the greatest audiences. I love Austin."

Brie’s hit up Austin for some promotion of “G.L.O.W.,” and also just for fun, she says: “I've been out here on a girls trip.” They love the food, of course — who doesn’t? — like Franklin Barbecue, Uchiko and Birdie’s, where they’d just eaten on this trip.

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A few hours after we say goodbye, Brie and Franco will head over to Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar Boulevard to screen “Somebody I Used to Know” for a theater full of people. We ask what they hope the world after this movie will look like. The couple is intrigued by the (admittedly lofty) question.

“We will change the world with this movie,” Franco jokes. We offer that the answer can be of a smaller scale, or it can be world domination, if they so choose.

“First of all, we want the movie to end in a joyful note,” Franco says. “And it really is about reconnecting with yourself. So if people are able to take something away about connecting back to their true selves, and trying to live their life to the fullest in a way that is true to them, then that would be great.”

“During the pandemic, I think a lot of people have taken a step back and reevaluated certain aspects of their life, whether it’s their relationships, their jobs, where they're living, and realizing, ‘I haven't been happy doing these things,’” he adds. “And a lot of people I know have made drastic changes and are like, ‘You know what, it's not too late to get back on this path.”

“I was gonna say, it’s not too late,” Brie says. “Hopefully, it will inspire people to take some new risks, or maybe some old risks that they forgot that they cared about.”

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Alison Brie and Dave Franco spill on Somebody I Used to Know in Austin