The Humans: Amy Schumer And Beanie Feldstein In Conversation

Stephen Karam’s directorial debut, “The Humans,” is a big-screen adaptation of his own 2016 Tony Award-winning play. In theory, it’s self-contained setting (a crowded New York City apartment on Thanksgiving) might give some filmmakers pause, but Karam has a major advantage in pulling it off, his cast. Tony Award-winner Jayne Houdyshell is joined by Richard Jenkins, Steven Yeun, June Squibb, Amy Schumer, and Beanie Feldstein.

READ MORE: Amy Schumer, Steven Yeun, Richard Jenkins and Beanie Feldstein in “The Humans” [TIFF Review]

For Schumer, already a comedy legend, it’s a relatively new foray into dramatic roles after small roles in films as “Thank You For Your Service” and a 2017 Broadway run with “Meteor Shower.” Feldstein, who is best known for comedic roles in “Booksmart” and “Lady Bird,” is currently prepping to portray the iconic Fanny Brice in a Broadway revival of “Funny Girl” next spring. She’s also expected to be in the SAG Awards and Emmy mix for portraying Monica Lewinsky in “American Crime Story: Impeachment,” an FX limited series that wrapped up earlier this month. But for both actresses, “The Humans,” is a decidedly impressive showcase for their range as actors. Especially for Schumer, who deserves more opportunities in this arena.

Oh, and as you’d expect, they were a blast to talk to.

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The Playlist: Congratulations on the movie.

Amy Schumer: Yeah, we haven’t seen it yet with an audience or anything. So we’re excited to talk to people who’ve seen it.

Beanie Feldstein: Yeah.

The Playlist: But you’ve screened it, at least. You’ve seen…

Amy Schumer: I saw it on a computer with my son crying. So, we’re excited to see it. We’re going to see it Thursday with an audience on the big screen.

Beanie Feldstein: We’re still in a pandemic and I like to make that clear, but we all watched it pre-vaccine individual by ourselves. So Amy and I finally get to see it with an audience, which we’re really looking forward to.

The Playlist: Had either of you seen the play before the project even came your way?

Amy Schumer: I’ll tell, Beanie. I didn’t see it, but Beanie saw it. Beanie really connected with it. So much so…

Beanie Feldstein: I’ve told this so many times that Amy’s going to do my spiel.

Amy Schumer: Well, I think that’s nice and I would like for you to do my spiel. So she was really moved by it and her partner lives in London and the play was coming to London. She bought her a ticket said, “Even if, though I can’t be there with you, I want to go on this date with you, but I can’t be there.” Bought her tickets to the play and then like the next week is when Beanie got the offer to do the film and I couldn’t believe it. So, it was like, this kind of magical meant to be thing. And I only see things on Broadway when people are dressed up like witches. [Laughs.]

Beanie Feldstein: Amy had not seen the play, but when she got the script…

Amy Schumer: Yes

Beanie Feldstein: She was about to have Jean…?

Amy Schumer: I don’t know.

Beanie Feldstein: We don’t remember.

Amy Schumer: When did you get… If you think timing…

Beanie Feldstein: No, it was, it was a year before we filmed.

Amy Schumer: Then I must have agreed to, oh yeah. You know what?

Beanie Feldstein: You were pregnant.

Amy Schumer: I was pregnant and I was like, “I’m going to want to work. So, don’t write me off because I’m not going to let this baby slow me down.” You know? And then cut to me, “I don’t think I can do this!”

Beanie Feldstein: No, Amy was honestly a superhero. She brought Jean with her most days, which I think also really helped us all feel like family because we had this like an angel of a four-month-old, just like our angel. My favorite photos on my phone are of June Squibb holding Jean because it’s just like the best of life. But Amy had not seen the play, but was really moved by the script and wanted to be a part of it.

Amy Schumer: Hell yeah.

The Humans

The Playlist: I didn’t get to see the play either, but one of the things that struck me about the movie is considering its Steven’s directorial debut, it is surprisingly cinematic. It’s not what you’d expect from a playwright directing their film on screen in many ways. Especially in such a contained environment. Were you surprised when you saw the film that it was that way, that it was so immersive in a way?

Beanie Feldstein: I wasn’t surprised when I watched the film because the script was very visual. Actually, Richard Jenkins was the one that said when he had read the scripts, he said out loud, “How could this have ever been a play?” Because it was kind of a true screenplay. It’s very visually oriented on the page. And then when Steven, when we got into rehearsal, Steven was very specific of, “I’m going to…” He always said the word source, “I’m going to source you through the light bulb.” Or I remember him saying, “I’m going to find Richard through your hand on the doorknob, and then we’re going to see you through the window.” So, we knew in rehearsal that he had such a specific visual language for the film and I could really see the movie behind his eyes. You could just tell he knew exactly what he wanted for it and that want was so similar to the play and yet so different to the play. I think it honors everything that the play was, but it also honors the medium in making it a very immersive claustrophobic sort of experience because you’re inside that house in such a specific way.

The Playlist: Amy, having not seen the play when you talked to Steven and agreed to do the film, what did he tell you in terms of your character? Did he want you to be able to take her and run with her?

Amy Schumer: Steven definitely…there’s really no room for improvement is the truth. It’s all the overlaps. Like that’s all scripted so I think there’s like one or two adlibs in the whole film, but it was really all right there. And Steven and I strangely have the same training. We both went to the William Esper Studio and studied with Bill Esper. So we have the same language, which was really, really great to have that kind of shorthand with your director. And we just had conversations before and he just answered my questions. My questions were pretty specific. “This is how much I think I make a year. This…” Just trying to really define who Amy is, where she was coming from, and a lot of stuff. He really encouraged me to come up with it on my own. Definitely wasn’t trying to get any of us to emulate what had been on stage, but just was really helpful and in preparation, because we didn’t have a lot of time and money, surprisingly, that we could just really get [on] when we got [to set] and live this out.

The Playlist: How quickly did you guys shoot this?

Beanie Feldstein: 30 days? 28.

Amy Schumer: 28 or 30 days. Wait, two weeks rehearsal.

Beanie Feldstein: Yeah.

The Playlist: Did it feel super fast?

Beanie Feldstein: It never felt rushed and I think the greatest gift was that we shot it in sequence, which never happens, but because we were on one single set with the exception of two shots, we were able to do it in the order that it happened. So it felt like we were living their Thanksgiving day, truly moment to moment, which is a luxury. Oh My God.

Amy Schumer: To not have to like go to the climactic moments and just throw yourself in. It was like you could really work through the whole story,

Beanie Feldstein: Pace out every feeling as it came

The Playlist: Beanie, what about playing Bridget appealed to you?

Beanie Feldstein: It’s interesting because, obviously, they came out at the same time, but I only just finished filming “Impeachment” about two months ago and “The Humans” was two years ago. So for me, the mind that I went into filming “The Humans “was a different- a younger [version of myself]. People keep asking you Amy, what was it like transitioning from comedy to drama? But that was a question I was asking myself at the time I’ve been really exceptionally lucky to have been in a lot of films where I was surrounded by people my same age or even younger than I was. I was sort of on the elderly end of the teenage years, the teenage movies. I felt that there was a maturity to the writing and a maturity to the character that I had never [been] asked to embody before. I was going from playing like a high schooler age to a person who was in a committed relationship with an older person and settling down and getting an apartment. I felt very connected to Bridget in her wish for her family to see her in the place that she currently is versus the place that they see her in their mind’s eye of being the baby of the family and sort of the one that hasn’t been able to find success in her career and is really still trying make it rather have made it. And I just connected to her inability to relax.

The Playlist: Amy, you must have gotten this question because you’ve done other dramatic work, but are you annoyed when the press asks, “What’s it like to do comedy and then transition to drama?” As though it’s like some alien thing? Does that bug you?

Amy Schumer: No, It really doesn’t bug me. The question that used to bug me, I don’t even want to evoke it, but it was about being a woman in comedy. I think I would wonder that if I were talking to me too, so no, thank you, it doesn’t bother me. I definitely, in my mind feel like there were dramatic elements to a lot of the projects I’ve done before, but I definitely think this isn’t new. I don’t think a lot of people have like experienced me in a role like this and it is exciting but this is our first, I think and only real press day and there’s been no question that has made me want to kill myself. So I’d like to thank you for that.

The Playlist: Listen, I’ve got four more minutes.

Amy Schumer: All right. Let’s see how you do.

The Playlist: Let’s see how I do. [Laughs.]

Amy Schumer: Greg did you like the movie?

The Playlist: Yeah, I actually was very lucky. I was at the Toronto International Film Festival in person, where it premiered, so I actually got to see it on the big screen. And I was quite impressed in that respect.

Amy Schumer: I’m so glad.

The Playlist: I know that it’s debuting Showtime at the same time, but I do hope people go out and see in the theater if they can. But Amy, my next question actually for you is the same one I posed to Beanie, what appealed to you about your character?

Amy Schumer: I really loved Amy. I really loved the character and I just thought she was so well-intentioned and just doing her best and I think she’s hitting what seems like could be her rock bottom, it’s like, “How much more can this person fall? And there’s something amazing about getting to play someone at rock bottom. Which maybe hasn’t even come yet for her. I just totally related to her role in the family and her intentions and just empathize with her. And that, also, I don’t think that she would be proud of every moment that you see in the film.

The Playlist: As someone who has been through so many Thanksgivings where I just want it to end, did you relate to the Thanksgiving experience in the film? Or are you lucky in that you just have the best family Thanksgivings all the time?

Amy Schumer: Oh My God.

Beanie Feldstein: I feel like we’re learning a lot about other people’s Thanksgivings. [Laughs.]

Amy Schumer: I know it triggers so much for people

The Playlist: Know what it is? Having divorced parents who pretend to get along, even as adults? For Thanksgiving? And let’s put everyone together in the same room? It’s not always the best thing.

Beanie Feldstein: Yeah.

Amy Schumer: I feel you. That’s my situation too. It’s dark.

The Playlist: It is very hard sometimes.

Amy Schumer: Holidays are dark to me. I don’t have these warm family memories. I don’t, I really don’t. I relate to her being alone in the bathroom with her phone and her stomach hurting. You just want your friends to be able to hang out, it’s this forbidden time where you can’t really get in touch with the people who make you feel good about yourself. I don’t think of Thanksgiving as this, like, amazing time. I’m trying to make it that again. I’m going to try to make it that for my son. I guess that’s just what you do. Yeah. You just lie to your kids about how life is going to go.

Beanie Feldstein: I think any day that comes with expectation is a real complicated thing. Especially Christmas.

Amy Schumer: Help.

Beanie Feldstein: Yeah. Thanksgiving for some it’s this expectation of experience is, inherently, sort of societal or familial expectation of the day. And I think that’s sort of certainly the setting for “The Humans,” for sure.

“The Humans” will arrive in theaters and on Showtime on Nov. 24.