One of the funniest movies at this year’s Atlanta Film Festival also has one of the simplest premises. Two girls find out they’re dating the same guy. Chaos ensues.
“Danny Is My Boyfriend,” written and directed by filmmaking team Lucy Sandler and Mechi Lakatos, stars the duo as two girls who find out they’re both dating a guy named Danny. Instead of doing the reasonable thing and both breaking up with him, they decide to get even in the most convoluted way possible. The film plays at the Atlanta Film Festival on April 25 at 4:15 p.m.
The film is entirely improvised, but at the time of conceptualization, neither Sandler nor Lakatos had any improv experience (Sandler has since started taking classes). This approach to the story is one of many ways that “Danny Is My Boyfriend” represents a departure for the duo. The film’s production value is more lo-fi than they’re accustomed to, and this is the first time either of them have acted in a serious way. It pays off – there’s something immensely charming about their home video approach, and their combined sense of humor leaps off the screen.
Ahead of the screening, I spoke with Sandler and Lakatos about their approach to the film. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How did you two meet and start working together?
Lucy Sandler: We need, like, a shark attack-style story. You know what I mean?
Mechi Lakatos: I feel like we were trying out a story where I saved you from a shark attack. The real story is we met in an uninteresting way. We worked together on a project. But we did become BFFs overnight, which in retrospect seems like a mystery. I don’t know how that happened.
Sandler: Yeah, no memory. Just zero to 100, you know? That was 2017 or 2018.
Lakatos: Similarly, I don’t really know how we decided to start working together … you’d think you would remember something like that.
Sandler: Yeah, I don’t think we ever really spoke explicitly about, oh, let’s collaborate. Which, when you’re looking for a collaborator, that’s usually how it happens. But I feel like we just met at a time in our life where we were young and messing around. It was just sort of a natural thing that happened, rather than really explicitly stated.
Why do you think that your creative sensibilities, or working sensibilities mesh the way they do?
Lakatos: There’s a combination of the kind of person you are, how you experience the world, and then the kind of artist you are and how you want to translate that. I feel like you can have one thing in common with someone, but not the other thing. Maybe you’re similar people, but you make different art, or you make similar art but you’re really different people. I don’t think we’re exactly the same people – I think we compliment each other – but I feel like we have those two things. There’s a similarity in them … We’re not having to translate to each other what the tone or what the meaning of our project is. We both are on the same page. So it makes it easy to dive into different types of things and be starting at the same place.
There’s a language that already exists.
Sandler: I think with other people that I’ve collaborated with, oftentimes you just have to communicate a lot more, and it’s a lot more difficult to explain. Like you said, Mechi, tone can be really amorphous. If you’re not working with someone that understands what you’re going for – it’s like color correction, or something. You can only take your words so far in articulating what you mean and what your intention is. Then you kind of just have to find someone that sees it the same way, that you don’t have to explain it to. I feel like that’s what we have.
Where did the idea for this originally come from? When did it start percolating?
Sandler: It was two springs ago that we probably started talking about it – not last May, but the May before that. I think that we were both just feeling really disconnected from our creativity and having fun making things – just having a sense of play in our lives in connection to process and making films. We both sort of felt a bit disconnected from what it used to be like and how playful it was, and low stakes. We made a short film together that was quite serious and also high production value. It was just – I don’t know – a lot of disappointment around doing the festival circuit with that. I just think that we wanted to have a different type of experience. So we came up with the idea one day and then just immediately started to run with it. I think we started talking about it in May, and we shot in August. So it was really fast.
It was really about making something with no attachment to the final product, and just being really present in an experimental process. Making rules and then stepping into that world and just seeing what happened, instead of having the meaning before and trying to inject it into the movie.
I know this was a really improvisational script. I’m curious about the idea of scripting something like that. I’m sure you had an outline and kind of knew where everyone was going to end up. But a lot of that probably depends on who’s cast, and who comes in and what happens on what day. What is the writing process like for something like this?
Lakatos: Like Lucy said, it was pretty quick. We got the idea we were going to make a movie. I feel like we maybe decided to not write a script because we had spent so many years – what are you laughing at?
Sandler: [Laughing] I think we were just like, that’ll take too long.
Lakatos: We’re revising an old project right now and back in that space of writing, and I’m like, oh my god – it’s so intense. You’re just alone in a room, it’s not fun. Of course, there are fun moments, but we were like, let’s skip that! We have no improv background. Well, now Lucy’s started doing improv classes, but at the time we didn’t. So I think we also just didn’t really know. We were just going, this seems like it’ll work! And then we would try it.
We were casting concurrently while we were writing. We came up with the core idea, which is two girls who have the same boyfriend, and then figured out the beats. We were working on the outline and texting people – “Oh, this person maybe could be a character, let’s see if they’re available. Okay, they’re available, let’s add them in. Okay, this person isn’t. Let’s go in a different direction.” We were sort of coming up with the ideas specifically for story beats based on who would come and be in it. Which is a really fun constraint. You know, we can’t do this because we don’t have a person who will do that. Let’s do something else. It’s kind of a funny way to build a story.
What’s the pitch, when you’re reaching out? I feel like normally, you’d have a script or whatever it is, and I’m sure you’re reaching out to a lot of friends, but I’m curious.
Sandler: We had an outline, but I feel most people did not read the outline [laughs]. I feel that most people just showed up. They were mostly our friends, and we just told them when we were gonna be shooting and when to arrive. We would have people drop out, like, day of – usually the people that we didn’t know as well. But we would just recast people in real time, and be like, who can come out? Luckily we’re in Los Angeles. There are a million people that are just available to come be in a movie for the afternoon. So we were lucky on that front – and really talented people, too.
I truly feel as though everyone was like, “What are these girls doing?” But they love us, so they just showed up. But I don’t think anyone was invested in their [character]. I guess Rachel [Brunner] was and Michelle [Thompson] was. There were a couple people that had a relationship with their character before we went into filming. But a lot of people just kind of walked on.
Lakatos: I remember the first time that [the actor who plays] Danny came to set, I was like, “You have to go get mic’d.” He was like, “What? You have a sound person?” And we were like, “Yeah, we’re making a movie!”
Also, we had such a small crew, and we were shooting on MiniDV cameras, so it really looked like we were just kids in our backyard or something. Which was what we wanted it to look and feel like. Since the movie has finished, a lot of people that are involved in it have been like, “Wow. Who knew?”
Sandler: You guys really did it!
What was it like directing when maybe some of the people involved had a little more experience with improv than you did?
Lakatos: I guess some of the people involved had experience doing improv, but I feel like we weren’t really aware of that. We were wearing so many hats – we were doing everything – that we didn’t have time to worry about, do we seem like we know what we’re doing in this arena? We were also acting in it, and we are not actors. So we were just like, okay! Here we go. I feel like it put us into a flow state that was worry free, because our minds were so filled up with a million different things, which ended up making it a really fun experience – kind of counterintuitively.
Sandler: I think if anything, the people that were actors were more [challenging]. The improvisers were really easy to work with, because they were so open to – just do this. They would just do it, and it would be their take, and that’s kind of what we wanted. I feel like everyone was bringing themselves to the character, which is totally our intention, and that’s why people were cast. We gave a lot of space to do that. But there were moments with people that were more actors than improvisers where we would have to be like, “I don’t care how you get there. I don’t care where you came from. Sorry there’s no context. Just say it. It might feel ridiculous, but just say it!” Which I think was a lot easier for the improvisers than it was for the actors, because the actors are used to having a lot more of a sense of space.
I just finished Improv 101 [laughs], and there is this element of when you’re in a scene, you’re just giving people information about yourself and about them. You’re giving the gift of, “Yes, and because you’re a 65-year-old woman who has just shaved her head and opened this hair parlor, I think blah, blah, blah.” That’s kind of what the movie was sometimes. You just had to say the thing and give the gift, because that’s what was gonna happen in the scene. Just find acceptance and your own take on what that meant and why.
You are co-directors. What is the working relationship like in terms of directing when you’re on set together?
Lakatos: I feel like this was a unique experience, because we were both acting, and it was basically our first time doing that. Either we were both in the scene, in which case, we were basically acting and talking to the actors, but it wasn’t a traditional experience. Or if one of us was not in the scene, then it was like, okay, that person can take on the directing role. And thank God – we can each just have one role right now. But most of the time, we were both in the scene.
Was that always the plan, for you two to act in it?
Sandler: Yeah. Again, it’s weird. I don’t remember why.
Lakatos: Well, I feel like I keep trying to get Lucy to act, and she’s been really resistant to it. In the short film we made, I was in a very small part, and I wanted Lucy to also be in it. She was like, “Absolutely not. I’ll never do that.” [Laughs] So I was pushing. I don’t know why you agreed though, Lucy.
I think a big goal with the project, in addition to having this experience of play, was doing things that felt uncomfortable and just leaning in – like acting. We came up with this idea for my character to have a dance element, because I feel insecure. I don’t think I’m a good dancer. So we should put that in the movie, and I’ll have to dance in the movie. Lucy dressed herself in her worst nightmare of clothing, and was dealing with telling people, “This isn’t how I really look!” when we were on set [laughs]. I feel like wherever we could find an opportunity to make ourselves uncomfortable for a positive [reason], I feel like that was part of why we wanted to act.
Sandler: I think we’re both so particular, normally, and perfectionists. Not to say that that didn’t come into this process. It did, obviously. That’s why the movie works. [Laughs] I think if we weren’t those people to start, we wouldn’t have a movie at the end of doing something the way we did it. But it was sort of shedding – what if we didn’t agonize over a script for two years? What if we didn’t care that much about how it looked? What if we had no lights? What if we acted in it because we’re the easiest people to get to show up? Just sort of disbanding this false sense of control, and being present in whatever is going to happen. I agree, it was about doing things in a way that we just normally wouldn’t.
I dabbled in improv in high school, but I remember being really resistant to it, because I was worried about being funny. I don’t think I’m a very funny person. I remember my teacher kept saying, “You don’t have to be funny.” I never really believed him, but there are moments in this movie that aren’t funny, but rather emotional, which I love. I’m curious if that idea ever came up, being stressed about the film being funny, or worrying over that?
Lakatos: I don’t think we were thinking about it being funny. In fact, we sort of – I mean, it sounds weird to say, but we weren’t really thinking about the movie being a comedy. We were just thinking about creating strange situations and strange characters and then seeing what happened, and it was funny to us. But I think it wasn’t until later that we started to realize, oh – people are laughing out loud. This is a comedy.
Sandler: Yeah, totally unclear on the genre. No worry about it being funny. No awareness.
That’s probably a good thing in some ways, right? If you’re not aware or you’re too busy, you don’t have time to be stressed.
Sandler: I think that’s why it’s funny, because we were just taking it so seriously.
Lakatos: And we have a lot of different types of personalities. People are funny in different ways, which I feel makes it more relatable or interesting than sort of a typical – you know, a bunch of guys trying to crack jokes. You’re kind of like, okay, I see what’s going on here. But [what] our cast brought to their characters is their distinct senses of humor, but also grounded in something that still feels real. I feel like that makes the comedy feel connected to something.
“Danny Is My Boyfriend” is playing on April 25 at 4:15 p.m. at the Plaza Theatre.
