Kendrick and Rogen also got to play something not so common in movies: a cheerful couple. Their opponent is an internal, philosophical question, not
Kendrick and Rogen also got to play something not so common in movies: a cheerful couple. Their opponent is an internal, philosophical question, not their partner who disagrees with them. Rogen’s Aaron is ambivalent about having kids, and Kendrick’s Annie just isn’t sure.
“The capital-P problem in the movie is never the relationship,” Kendrick says. “The relationship is not toxic. They’re never completely out of alignment. They’re never arguing with each other over what to do. They’re facing problems and decisions as a unit. It would just be so much easier for Lauren to have allowed herself to have a scene where me and Seth are in this, like, awful bickering fight, but that’s just not always the case. That’s one of my favorite parts of the movie, how connected they are. And again, watching [Rogen and Miller Rogen] together really helped me feel out how our relationship should feel onscreen, because, truthfully, we should all be so fucking lucky.”
“Even if it wasn’t a surrogate of me, it was a role I would have found very interesting because it obviously speaks to me very personally,” Rogen says, “and I’m always really interested in showing marriage dynamics that are not traditionally shown in film. Conflict is usually the ingredient while portraying a marriage on camera for the most part, and that’s not what our relationship is like at all. Not to say we aren’t facing hard things in our real marriage. Although life is not easy, and there are hard choices to be made, and hard things you are dealing with, our conflict with one another is not a prevalent theme in our lives. I thought that was a really interesting way to approach this as well, where I was able to play a member of a healthy relationship, which I think is rare. I think it’s interesting.”
The movie isn’t all feelings talk and fun-uncle stuff, either. There are also kid-typical (read: unhygienic) shenanigans and goofiness. Miller Rogen is quick to point out that though the film’s premise is based on the time the couple’s friend and her daughter lived with them, the daughter, now 13 and ready to see the movie, is not canonically responsible for all of the actions of the child character in the film.
“She’s amazing. We’re still very close,” Miller Rogen says. “She is not at all the reason for not having kids [in real life].”
While “she knows that the character is not her,” there’s still one thing Miller Rogen would like to make clear for the record: “She never had bathroom issues. She doesn’t know that’s part of the story because I didn’t let her read the script, but I feel like that’s going to be her biggest concern. Like, ‘You’re telling people I have issues.’ She did not.”
