Kris Rey and Gillian Jacobs make for a formidable duo in Rey’s latest film “I Used to Go Here.” A film about a woman in her early 30’s being asked to speak at her alma mater, the film explores the idea of difficult dreams and what if’s while also offering a realistic look at nostalgia and personal growth. Rey is best known for her 2015 feature “Unexpected” while Jacobs, who is excellent in the film, is known for her roles in series comedies such as cult favorite “Community” and “Love.” Our critic said of the film “It’s a bit like “Young Adult,” but instead of acid, Rey offers warmth and hope.”
We got to speak to both Rey and Jacobs about the film and about playing messy roles and writing complicated character dynamics.
Spoiler Warning: Specific plot points of the film are discussed below.
I wanted to get started by asking about what this film meant to you and your own personal connections to it
Kris Rey: I wrote this movie sort of inspired after finishing my previous feature in 2016 (“Unexpected,”) and before it even got released at Sundance I started getting invited to a lot of different universities to show the movie and speak to students and I used my first sort of taste of any kind of success and it didn’t actually feel like a real massive success but in the eyes of these students, they thought I had absolutely made it. It felt pretty cool to see myself through their eyes and I got this sense that depending on where you were in your life that a feeling like that can be pretty intoxicating and you can get tempted to stay in that bubble as long as possible. The movie was based on that feeling, although I didn’t have any adventures like Kate, our main character, does over the course of the film.
Gillian Jacobs: I got involved after being sent the script and loved it, and I knew Kris a little bit and was a fan of her previous work. I just loved this character and felt like roles like this don’t come around that often so I just leapt at the opportunity to play the character of Kate and to work with Kris.
I really enjoyed the fact that she is this “messy female lead”, which I feel like you don’t see often enough. I was curious if having a female character like that as your lead makes it difficult to drum up support for making a film.
Jacobs: I feel like I’ve played a lot of those! Maybe I’ve cornered the market, like if you want someone messy call Gillian Jacobs, she’s as messy as they’ve come! But seriously, I felt like this was different from the other parts I had previously played so it didn’t feel like a retread. Kate is grappling with different issues and was at a different stage of her life and handling things in a way that felt authentic to who she is.
I think it’s rare sometimes for these roles to be spotlighted. There are so many roles with men getting to play characters like this where we never really have to label that as complicated in the way women get called so quickly, but in this case I suppose I’m just curious as a woman if having a female lead who is hard to label as easily likeable does lead to any unforeseen challenges in getting a film made.
Rey: I feel like it was definitely hard to get the movie made, and that’s been the case for pretty much everything I’ve done. I still think there’s this idea that if a film has a female lead that is immediately perceived as a film for women and the industry feels like if it’s about a man then it’s inclusive of everyone because of course everyone would be willing to sit through a story about a man. I do think that, or at least hope in the industry, that it might start to be changing. Culturally it seems like it’s getting there slowly, but at least on the industry side I’m starting to feel better about it. I remember when I was in my early twenties I spent some time in Costa Rica trying to learn Spanish through an immersion program and I went to a movie theater there and I saw the movie “In Her Shoes,” have you seen that Gillian?
Jacobs: Oh yeah, I love that movie! It’s so good!
Rey: It’s so fucking good! I remember seeing that movie and behind me there were three guys in their twenties, and after it ended I was chatting with them and said it was kind of funny that they had all come to see this movie, and they were just like “why, it’s just a movie?” and I had a moment of “oh, right,” for some reason we’ve assigned it in our heads that a movie about women that only women could watch. I think that’s starting to change, and the feeling of change is kind of pervasive. I think studio heads and production companies are starting to think in the right direction
I was wondering if you could talk at all about the casting process for the students, who were all relatively newcomers to the scene and were across the board wonderful.
Rey: So I had seen and pursued Forrest Goodluck after seeing him in a movie called “The Miseducation of Cameron Post” in which he is just so good and had seen it right before starting the casting process and just really wanted him to play Animal, like he was that good in Cameron Post. Josh Wiggins I had also seen in a movie called “Hellion” when he was younger that my friend Kat Candler directed and I had always remembered how much I had liked him in it. Hannah Marks was somebody that got sent to me and I watched her reel and talked to her, and we got along really great and found out that she really related to the character of April. I remember having some really good conversations with her and she fit in really well. Khloe Janel, who plays Emma, was a local actor who had an audition and fucking killed it. Brandon Daley, who plays Tall Brandon, was someone in the periphery of my social world that I ended up writing the character around. He is just crazy tall, like around 6’7, and people loving call him Tall Brandon, so I wrote this role for him and then made him audition for it, which was great
He is hilarious in the movie and his subplot is so disarmingly sweet that it turned out to be a definite highlight.
Rey: My nine year old son was at the drive-in premier last night and so excited to watch it, although it did make me realize how much sex was actually in the film, but anyways he was laughing hysterically at everything Brandon did and absolutely lost it at the scene where him and the mom kiss, like truly belly laughing. Afterwards he said it was his favorite part because it was so funny that he was young and she was, as he put it, an old lady and that just cracked him up.
Gillian, I wanted to ask you about working with Jemaine Clement because your chemistry with him was off the charts. I loved how ambiguous their dynamic was.
Jacobs: It wasn’t hard to feel starstruck around him in the way that my character is supposed to because I have loved his work for so long that sometimes it barely felt like acting for me. I used to live in New York around the time they were shooting “Flight of the Conchords” and I would see him and Bret McKenzie walking around Williamsburg and it was a huge deal for me, so my first encounter with him was being genuinely starstruck, so I suppose that worked out super well. It doesn’t hurt that he is also just so naturally funny and fun to be around and such a good writer that it was just not hard.
Was he someone you always had in mind for the character or did he fall into place throughout casting?
Rey: I didn’t always have him in mind but I knew from the beginning I wanted this character to not just be a sleazy villain guy. I needed someone funny and charismatic and even when you find out that he’s sleeping with a student you still find him oddly adorable and so nice. I really wanted the actor that I cast to embody that because I think it is so much more common that characters like that, whether a boss or a teacher or anyone with a weird power dynamic in their relationships, it seems like it happens more often with someone charming or cute than an obvious bad guy. Once I got Jermaine in my head I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and there was a while where it looked like he wasn’t going to be able to do it because he was in the middle of working on the “Avatar” movies and making his own show, so I tried to think of back ups and just never could figure out who would bring the exact level of unique charm he has to fill that role.
You mentioned his sleaziness there which reminded me that I wanted to ask about how you defuse the big and obvious moments in a way that is very to true life, and how that made Kate’s line about how life isn’t always bold, sometimes it just happens and how that lands so truthfully. Is it hard to film or write that in a way that makes things never feel like an obvious reveal movie moment?
Rey: That whole storyline became very difficult for me to write. I had worked on the first outline long before the #MeToo movement and went back to the script and had an “oh my god” moment where I felt like I really had to be sure to say everything I wanted to say here in a way that felt true to life. It’s a big part of the movie, but is not what the movie is about. Any time I tried to make some kind of statement about repercussions or what should be happening in a university when this happens, it just felt like it was very much not what the movie was about. It finally worked once I made it specifically about Kate and her growth rather than widening the scope to explore the fallout or from all this.
I think in most movies like this we have the expectation of romance, and you avoid that in a very tasteful way. Even just having the movie end on two female friends talking and supporting each other on the phone felt like something out of real life in a way that you don’t see naturally put into film that much, something that also shows up in Kate’s discussions with Emma throughout the story. Is that something that was an active choice, focusing on friendships and relationships that fall outside of the obvious theatrical romance?
Jacobs: That was the thing that I personally loved about the script, and I read a lot of things that Geena Davis has written about female representation in media and one of the things that she pointed out that I hadn’t thought about before was how infrequently we see women working on screen, and that’s led me to become drawn to things that show women grappling with a career. So in addition to the story being about this woman’s own personal relationships, it was as equally about her relationship to her work and that made the whole script that much more appealing to me.
Was there a version of the film where her book was a success? There was a line about how she wished she could have done things better and that felt pretty dead on for those of us who write, and that made me curious if that had ever been a version of that which crossed your mind during the writing process?
Rey: There is probably a version of every version of the story you can think of, I just worked for so long and did so many drafts that it went in any direction that it could have, which happens to me everytime I try to write. There definitely is a version of this where her book is a bigger success, but I really liked that how it plays out, where someone creates work that they aren’t particularly proud of and our entry point being that moment of defeat, is something I haven’t seen much of. I’ve seen tons of things where people defy the odds and succeed and there’s always value in that, but I think this perspective to be pretty unique and so true to creatives who often view their work in a critically unhealthy way. While I was writing this book I was reading this book by Brene Brown called “Rising Strong” that really focuses on accepting failure and moving forward with yourself instead of just curling up in a ball on your couch. I found that whole idea to be particularly relatable as an artist and it really sparked so much of this movie.