The first trailer released for Ella McCay shows a moment in which Jamie Lee Curtis and Emma Mackey let out a loud scream together. Mackey plays the title character, Ella McCay, and Curtis plays her aunt Helen. After a recent screening of the film from writer-director James L. Brooks in Los Angeles, Curtis and Mackey discussed the scene where Curtis explained how the scream is for everyone in the audience.
“I think we all could use a big scream,” Curtis said. “I think the country could use, and I think we’re sitting on it. We’re all sitting on it, and I think many people can relate to it which is why I think Jim so understood that in a way, we are doing it for everybody.”
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In 20th Century Studios’ upcoming comedy, that also stars Woody Harrelson and Jack Lowden, Ella is the lieutenant governor for Bill (Albert Brooks). When Bill gets appointed to a cabinet position, he names Ella governor. Several more scandals ensue over the course of the film, leading to the moment Ella can’t hold it in anymore—albeit in private.
“It was fun and that was my first on-screen scream,” Mackey said, sitting next to Curtis and adding that it was “so thrilling, and to do it at you. It’s been so intense and then finally gets this moment of release, the fact that it’s these two women going head to head doing it and releasing together.”
Curtis referred to other movies that encourage viewers not to hold in their feelings. Ella McCay is in good company.
“It’s like in Frozen. Let it go. It’s the adult version of let it go which is we have to let it out. There’s [a] book called The Body Keeps the Score which is what we do when we swallow our feelings and we just take in all the trauma of our lives and we don’t reconcile it in whatever way you can. I think this is a metaphor for really the world that we need to let it out. We need to be able to let out a really good, frustrating scream and let it out and then get on with it.”
Albert Brooks felt the relationship between Bill and Ella reflects a reality of politics. Once Bill has moved on, Ella starts to pursue legislation she is passionate about, but Brooks suggests she was already responsible for Bill’s achievements.
“There’s a lot of relationships in every profession, but certainly in politics, where younger people are driving it,” Albert Brooks said. “I think of the Supreme Court. If you only knew how much work the clerks did. I would say every law that’s ever been was written by 25-year-old and then they hand it to the older person. They take the credit. He was pretty dependent on her. I don’t think if he wasn’t leaving he would ever want that to change.”
Ella McCay is Albert Brooks’ third movie with James L. Brooks directing, after Broadcast News and I’ll Do Anything. He returned happily, but not before a joke about their previous collaboration, which began life as a musical before the music was deleted.
“When he took the music out of I’ll Do Anything, I didn’t know if I’d ever speak to him again,” Albert Brooks joked. “You don’t say no to Jim.”
Ella McCay is James L. Brooks’ first movie screenplay in 15 years, since 2010’s How Do You Know. The Terms of Endearment director said he was itching to get back to movies.
“I hadn’t written in a while, so I was getting very upset over that,” he said. “I had to do something about it.”
Ella McCay opens Dec. 12 in theaters.
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