LOS ANGELES, July 9 (UPI) — The comedy Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, in theaters Friday, is an absurd comedy from the creators of The State and Wet Hot American Summer. Zoey Deutch, who plays Gail, said she did not approach Gail’s quest as a joke.
Gail is a woman from Willowbrook, Kan., who visits Hollywood to try to sleep with Jon Hamm, the celebrity her husband agreed she could sleep with as a free pass on monogamy.
In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Deutch, 31, said she approached it as sincerely as her recent Netflix romantic-comedy, Voicemails from Isabelle, which she filmed after Gail Daughtry.
“She’s on a quest to save the most important thing in her life, her marriage,” Deutch said. “Along the way she finds herself. It is a tale as old as time and it’s beautiful.”
Gail’s impending marriage is in trouble because her fiancé, Tom (Michael Cassidy), took the celebrity sex pass deal literally and slept with his, in a celebrity cameo that should not be spoiled.
From left, Ben Wang, Ken Marino, Zooey Deutch, John Slattery and Miles Gutierrez-Riley star in “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass,” in theaters Friday. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
In Los Angeles for a hairdresser convention, Gail and her friend Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) join up with a CAA assistant (Ben Wang), paparazzo Vincent (Ken Marino) and John Slattery himself to help Gail find Hamm.
Hamm does appear in the film. Director David Wain, who co-wrote with Marino, was surprised how easily both actors agreed.
Ken Marino plays Vincent and co-wrote “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass,” in theaters Friday. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
“Unbelievably, they both read it and both quite immediately were like ‘sure,’ which we were not expecting would necessarily be the case for many reasons,” Wain, 56, said.
Marino, 57, joked that they had prepared a backup plan in case Slattery wasn’t interested.
From left, John Slattery, Ben Wang, Miles Guiterrez-Riley, Zooey Deutch and Ken Marino star in “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass,” in theaters Friday. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
“We thought Bradley Whitford could play the character of John Slattery and nobody would notice,” Marino said.
Marino was inspired by photographers he’s met in his Hollywood career to play Vincent.
Gail Daughtry (Zooey Deutch) wants to fulfill her celebrity sex pass before she gets married in “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass,” in theaters Friday. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
“Not any one specific but just a hodgepodge, Frankenstein monster of the different kind of paparazzi people I’ve met throughout the years,” Marino said.
Thirty-three years after The State premiered on MTV, Wain said he is happy he and Marino can still periodically return to this absurd style of comedy in films like The Ten and They Came Together.
Wain also directed A Futile and Stupid Gesture, the biopic of National Lampoon co-founder Douglas Kenney, and the TV comedy Mr. Throwback.
“I really love going back and doing the really kooky stuff that we’re doing in this movie,” Wain said. “I value the youthful and almost childlike silliness of these sorts of things that, in some way, I hope doesn’t evolve.”
That is not to say anything goes. Wain and Marino will discuss whether or not a joke fits the tone, based on what they’ve learned since The State.
“Back in the day, it was fun because we were just throwing stuff up against the wall and seeing what sticks,” Marino said. “It was a fun time.”
As a newcomer to the group, Deutch would perform multiple readings per take so Wain had options.
“I knew that they’re not going to move on if they don’t have it,” Deutch said. “I just tried to play it as straight as I could and I hoped that I was hitting the notes that they needed for the movie.”
Wain credited Deutch with grounding the movie for the rest of their absurdity.
“Zoey’s unique skillset and presence is what makes the movie work at all,” Wain said. “The whole thing falls apart without her both grounding and just leading this charge.”
At the airport, Gail accidentally switches suitcases with gangsters (The State member Joe Lo Truglio and Mather Zickel). Wain and Marino also enjoyed paying homage to classic comedy tropes that predate them.
“What’s Up Doc? is one but there’s been others,” Wain said of the “wrong suitcase” plot. “I think Ken and I have a real affection for classic, well-worn comedy tropes from the past.”
Wain filmed the gangsters’ pursuit of Gail and Otto on Hollywood Blvd. With real tourists around, Lo Truglio had to think fast, Marino said.
“Somebody recognized Joe from his part on Brooklyn Nine-Nine and said, ‘Oh, Charles Boyle,'” Marino said. “He just stayed in character and said, ‘I get that a lot.’ We used that in the movie because the rules of our movie, that fit.”
The daughter of Lea Thompson and Howard Deutch, Deutch said the Hollywood filming allowed her to rediscover her hometown.
“It was the first time I’ve ever walked down Hollywood Blvd. like that and I’m born and raised in Los Angeles,” she said. “Those were some real reactions, raw, real reactions you were getting from me. It’s a wild place, a really wild place.”
Alas, not all of the natural real-world interactions made it into the film.
“There was a woman we had all this footage of Zoey and Miles dancing with, and she was fully performing for the camera for a while,” Wain said. “Then at the end she wouldn’t sign a release.”
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