Perhaps better known for their other comedic efforts, as seen in “Step Brothers” and “How I Met Your Mother,” Kathryn Hahn and Josh Radnor star here in first time writer/director Jill Soloway’s indie hit “Afternoon Delight.” The pair play Rachel and Jeff, whose unsatisfying marriage leads Rachel to bring young stripper McKenna (Juno Temple) into their home, leading to unexpected revelations that challenge the couple’s faithfulness to the core. With its distinct tone and strong feminine point of view, the film landed Soloway the Directing Award in the Dramatic Category at this year’s Sundance, while also giving Hahn and Radnor the opportunity to showcase their dedicated acting chops. I had a chance to sit down with the pair of longtime friends to talk about all things “Afternoon Delight” in this winning effort of a film. Special thanks to Ginsberg/Libby.
CINEMACY: So you took the film to Sundance, it had the reception that it did winning the Directing Award for Jill, what was it like when she won that award?
Kathryn Hahn: Well we had all left at that point, but it was so exciting, I mean I got a flurry of e-mails and texts when she won, I was just so excited for her. It’s awesome for her first feature, just so thrilling.
CINEMACY: As far as pole dancing, and the exercise form that it’s become for women, is that part of some larger feminine “owning of sexuality”? It’s a relatively new thing.
KH: I don’t know, I mean I’m not sure myself but I- yes I think there definitely seems to be that happening right? Like we were, Jill and I were talking about like how moms that go install stripper poles, and that’s just how they work it out at night. It sounds exhausting to me, to be totally honest. I can barely go to a spin class. But yeah, I get it. Especially post-children, for a lady, if you want to reawaken that
Josh Radnor: Inner pole dancer
KH: Exactly
CINEMACY: Was this the first time that you had learned about pole dancing?
KH: Yeah they wouldn’t let me pole dance in this movie for some reason.
JR: Insurance wouldn’t cover it.
KH: And also who needs to see it!
CINEMACY: Moving on, I think it was Jerry Seinfeld who once said that in every comedien, there lies the desire to be taken seriously. How does that work into both of your efforts as comedians and taking these sorts of projects?
KH: (Laughter) How serious do I take myself?
CINEMACY: What’s that draw, or that balance?
KH: I mean I probably should take myself a little more seriously. It’s so weird, because I don’t look at is as, I just so can’t believe that I’m able to work so I think any kind of project that comes my way, that I’m lucky enough to be cast in, I feel like it comes from the same starting point, right? I mean I think that you can smell that a mile away too if someone’s taking themselves too seriously with their work or their “precious-ness.” It’s just never that fun to be around even on a set, so I feel that you have to have loose borders, and not take yourself so seriously, in order to just be open.
JR: I also feel like there’s an idea that actors are constantly like, mulling over which direction they’re going to go-
KH: There’s like three people that can do that.
JR: Yeah. It’s like fifty percent, “OK, I have an intention or this is kind of what I’m looking for,” or maybe, well OK, it’s like twenty five percent that, and seventy five percent is like, “This is what’s in front of me!” Like, this is my next job . And one of the things for me, I never though of myself as a comedic actor, I just thought of myself as an actor, and I got known for this big comedy, which I still get to do pretty serious stuff on, but I’m just looking for interesting stuff to do, like very simply. Like one of the things that’s kind of hard about doing a long running show, like I love going from thing to thing, and doing lots of different things, so when I’m not doing the show I want to do something that feels like it’s exercising muscles that aren’t getting used, more than anything else. But if I do something super heavy, I want to do something light next time, if I’m doing something too light, I want to do something a little heavier.
KH: I don’t have those options by the way. That would be amazing!
JR: Well I get to, I write stuff.
KH: And he makes his own, I just make children.
JR: What I do is more important.
CINEMACY: Can you talk about any specific challenges you faced while making this? While it’s very intimate, and there are moments that are light and funny, but then it also is very heavy towards the end.
KH: The thing that I’m the most proud of with this actually is this relationship that we were able to make because I feel like it’s really, I shouldn’t say rare, but it was very imperative that it not be, to me and to all of us, a cliche marriage, that you see immediately this history like the second you see them together, and I’m really proud that we were able to get that. Like we know each other socially, which sometimes even makes it that much harder to get that intimate with somebody like in front of cameras! Especially knowing my “hubs”-
JR: Yeah, I know her husband.
KH: But I’m really really proud of that. I remember us talking, like one of our code phrases early on was like, we kept talking about “soft belly,” about how like when you’re with someone for a really really long time that you don’t have to like…
JR: Suck in.
KH: Suck in!
CINEMACY: That’s true love.
KH: That’s true love!
JR: Jill had a line in the script that I really loved, she said something like, “Casual married nudity,” like the kind of like, you’re just not thinking, it’s so not a first date, it’s like your fifty-thousandth date, so things change, and a certain self-consciousness goes away, that also in some ways can hurt things. You know, you hear different people talk about like, the genius of separate bedrooms, or like separate bathrooms-
KH: Or separate apartments!
JR: Yeah to keep, you get the sense that there’s a danger of overfamiliarity, you know? I love the scene, it’s just a one shot when they’re in the bathroom together, he’s flossing and she’s, what are you doing?
KH: Cutting my bunions.
JR: Cutting things off her toes! And then you know, you think, ten minutes later we’re going to make sweet love. Like, no! There’s too much that’s been seen.
KH: Yes, this is real. No party manners.
JR: And I think there was also a thing, we talked through how we met, when we were together, when we were not together, what was the arc of this fourteen, fifteen, seventeen, however long they were together…Kathryn’s actually had this kind of, she met her husband in college, I haven’t had that long term relationship, so it was just about creating a very specific world where we were together.
CINEMACY: Can you guys talk a little bit about Juno, because I feel like you share a really-
JR: I’d rather not (Laughter)
KH: She’s not here to defend herself.
CINEMACY: A really natural chemistry!
KH: She’s amazing, are you kidding me? She just sets the bar like, I just think she’s extraordinary. The way the schedule was set up, was that it was kind of very “Juno-heavy” at the beginning of the shoot, and then it was our marriage towards the end. And so it was actually, there was a second where I thought like, “Oof, we gotta believe in this marriage, but this relationship is so intense, I’m so glad we were able to like, I mean we really did, it totally not only balanced out but I feel like you really want Jeff and Rachel, you root for them, but we fell madly in love. I just think she’s extraordinary. I’m so excited to see where she goes.
JR: Yeah, you hand kind of two marriages in this movie, I mean you had two relationships that you had to really-
KH: And it was like really a fulcrum in the middle, it felt like there was just a fulcrum right at about like two weeks in.
JR: I always think of, like a chemistry experiment, like you have this marriage in this petri dish, and then, the “McKenna” character is like this dropper, or some other element that’s dropped in, and what it does to that existing thing-
CINEMACY: It alters it.
JR: Yeah.
KH: Oh that’s good!
CINEMACY: And I just have to say, I couldn’t even recognize you watching the movie initially, because of the characters that you’ve played before, but in such a great way.
KH: Ah, thank you!
CINEMACY: I feel like this movie totally expanded your range, like, completely.
KH: Oh that is the sweetest. I feel that way too, like I will hold this experience to my heart because it was so fun and meaningful to be asked this of, I guess as a performer, rather than just growing out my armpit hair and wearing a long gray wig. And on that note, “Afternoon Delight!”
