John Slattery was in Budapest filming post-WWII drama Nuremberg when he got a call from Jon Hamm. His former Mad Men co-star told him that David Wain, the comedy filmmaker behind Wet Hot American Summer, Childrens Hospital and a cadre of other absurdist-leaning comedies, was trying to get ahold of him about a role that only Slattery could possibly play: John Slattery.
Intrigued by the proposition and also jetlagged, Slattery texted Wain asking for the script and stayed up reading Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass. The film follows a midwestern bride-to-be who, after her fiancé has sex with his celebrity “hall pass,” is on a quixotic quest through Los Angeles to track down with her own “hall pass,” Jon Hamm. The film’s John Slattery, who has fallen on hard times after the halcyon days of Mad Men and is skulking in the Valley, is enlisted to help with the endeavor.
Remembers Slattery of that first reading, “It was funny and weird and like nothing I had done before.”
For his part, Hamm was already signed on to the project, having known Wain and his longtime creative partner Ken Marino for over two decades. “I saw Wet Hot American Summer in theaters. My friend Paul Rudd was in it. Nobody knew who Amy Poehler was. Nobody who Bradley Cooper was. It was so many fun and funny people that were forming this nucleus of hilariousness,” says Hamm, who was later cast in a “blink and you miss it part” in Wain’s The Ten and also worked on Wet Hot American Summer spin-offs.
Gail Daughtry, which had a working title of I’ll Take the Hamm, proved an irresistible opportunity for the Emmy-winner. “I mean, having yourself projected through the lens of Ken Marino and David Wain is pretty fun experience,” he says. “When you get an offer to go to work and it’s, ‘Come and laugh for 12 to 14 hours, and you’ll also get a very meager paycheck, as well.’ You go, ‘Okay, that sounds fun.’ That’s the kind of goodwill that both David and Ken have engendered over the course of their careers. They can get people to come and play at that level that really pay dividends.”
A hallmark of a Wain production has been known for building an impossibly large ensemble of rotating A-listers and Gail Daughtry is no different. Says Slattery, “You would run into people in the parking lot or in the makeup trailer, and you’re like, ‘That’s crazy.’”
But new to the troupe is star Zoey Deutch, playing the titular Daughtry. After most recently playing Jean Seberg in Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague, which bowed at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Deutch will be back in front of festival audiences in a decidedly different role. When asked what attracted her to the movie, Deutch laughs, “I’m not gonna sit here and be like: ‘The emotional vulnerable journey she goes on.’ No, it’s just tops to tails, a wild ride.”
A highlight for the entire cast was being able to film on location across Los Angeles, including the Chateau Marmont, Elysian Park above Dodgers Stadium and studio backlots, at a time when production in the city has been in a years-long downswing.
“As somebody who grew up in Los Angeles, I don’t think I’ve ever actually walked down Hollywood Blvd,” says Deutch. When shooting scenes on the Walk of Fame, Deutch says, the cameramen were hidden so that the production could move freely through the throngs of tourists. Miraculously, they went unnoticed.
Hamm says that Wain is a master of stretching a dollar, “making $100 look like $10,000.” Adds Slattery, “[David] told me at one point, we were sitting at lunch, and he said, ‘This is the slowest I’ve shot something in a while.’ Meanwhile, I’d never shot anything faster.” Gail Daughtry is filled with the type of humor that is unique to a Wain production, from absurdist visual gags and plot points to joke-heavy dialogue and socially inept characters.
“If you are listening to a speech, ‘You would go that sounds like Aaron Sorkin.’ Or if you’re watching a movie, ‘This looks like the Coen brothers somehow,’” says Hamm, who points out that Wain’s filmmaking can also be immediately identifiable. “David is fearless, and it is always in service to the laugh and to the joke. It never punches down. It’s always just goofy for goofy’s sake.”
The movie will now screen at the Sundance Film Festival, 25 years after Wain and Marino premiered Wet Hot American Summer at the fest. And while the festival has launched a handful of stand-out comedies (see: Napoleon Dynamite), it is rare that a straight comedy premieres at the festival.
Gail Daughtry was produced independently and is seeking distribution at a time when Hollywood is seemingly coming back around to the idea of releasing comedies in movie theaters, where they have been absent for the last decade as mid-budget genre films fell out of financial favor. Last year, R-rated comedies like One of Them Days, starring Keke Palmer, and Liam Neeson fronted The Naked Gun, were well received by critics and grossed over $50 million and $100 million at the box office, respectively.
Says Deutch, “There are so many great funny people in Hollywood who want to make funny movies. And I feel like I hear this question in this conversation all the time, amongst so many of them, is like, ‘Why can’t we get great funny movies made anymore?’”
Hamm runs through a list of favorite comedy moviegoing experiences, including seeing the South Park movie in a sold-out screening in Lincoln Center, remembering, “By the time “Uncle Fucka” ended, the place was in an uproar.”
After its Sundance premiere on Sunday at the Eccles, the hope is that Gail Daughtry can make its way into movie theaters. He adds, “I don’t think, for my money, there’s nothing more gratifying than being in a room where everybody is laughing, wholehearted and full-throated.”
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