‘Slow Learner’ Stars Sarah Burns and Adam Pally Compare Acting To Being a Kid, and Pick the Two Greatest Female Directors
Sarah Burns and Adam Pally are familiar character actors in film and TV. On TV, Burns starred in the series Enlightened and is currently on the FX series Married. Pally starred recently in Happy Endings and The Mindy Project. But in the romantic comedy Slow Learners, they take leading roles as school teachers who use their vacations to reignite their stalled love lives.
Directed by the husband-wife team of Don Argott and Sheena Joyce, the comedy costars comic actors Catherine Reitman, Kate Flannery, Reid Scott, Kevin Dunn, Cecily Strong, and Bobby Moynihan. The film, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, opens Wednesday in limited theaters and VOD. During the festival, we spoke with stars Burns and Pally about the film and their UCB connection.
The Interrobang: You two knew each other before even getting cast in the movie?
Adam Pally: Yeah, we came up together through the Upright Citizen Brigade. And Sarah and I actually played husband and wife in a movie before this. So we just had good chemistry and a rapport already, so we were lucky enough to get cast in the movie together.
The Interrobang: Was it just happenstance that you were both asked to audition for roles?
Adam Pally: Sarah was brought in first and then it came to me, and I wanted to work with Sarah again.
Sarah Burns: I was so excited when he got cast in the movie.
The Interrobang: The directors said from the very beginning they encouraged the cast to improvise. How was the experience of improvising a film the majority of the time?
Adam Pally: It was great and it was why it was so nice for us to be working with two directors who had been documentary filmmakers. Because they allowed us to figure out where the story was going during production.
Sarah Burns: They are used to having to sort of mine for gold as filmmakers, so it gave us the opportunity to really try different things.
The Interrobang: Do you seek out projects which give you the opportunity to improvise.
Adam Pally: Sometimes.
Sarah Burns: I’m working on a show right now, and I don’t need to improvise on that show because the writing is so tight. We can and they are open to it, but it isn’t necessary. But on something like this, all the other actors cast were strong improvisers too, so it wasn’t just like 20 minutes of going off book and having diarrhea of the mouth. So I enjoyed doing it on this film, but I don’t know if I would want to do it on every project.
Adam Pally: It really just matters the project you’re working on. Some movies like this one, or another I just finished, are very loose and barely even have a script. Like I love Joe Swanberg movies. But sometimes you really do need rooted and planned out dialogue, to match the rooted and planned out story. And then you are lucky to get a script that you can dive into. So it really does depend on the type of project you’re working on.
The Interrobang: Going from the weekly routine of working on a weekly TV shows to doing a movie like this, did it feel looser on set?
Adam Pally: I wouldn’t say it was looser, it just felt different. It was a different environment on this film. Because when something is improvised, time is still tight and things like cinematography and camera work is still very important.
Sarah Burns: And we had six day work weeks.
Adam Pally: So we did feel like we had to be very focused on set. So in a way, this movie was tighter than doing TV. But Sarah is such a hurricane on set you have to be loose enough to keep up with her.
The Interrobang: What kind of projects did you perform in when training at UCB?
Adam Pally: We did everything. Sketch, improv, short films.
Sarah Burns: It was actually great because at the time that we were coming through UCB, people had realized you could make your own short film and put them on the internet. So the stuff Adam and I were doing got seen all over the place, including some of the casting directors who ultimately put me in films and TV. And people can spend years at UCB trying to get someone in the industry to come see their show, but if they see your short on the internet, it has a much broader reach.
Adam Pally: People call it training in hindsight, but when you’re doing it, it really is just a job. And if you look at it like that, you end up doing better work. So even though it is a training ground in retrospect, it was more like a gym I had to go to.
The Interrobang: So all good memories of your time there.
Adam Pally: Very. I had a UCB patch and had this really nice designer jacket for like 5 years. I took it to the dry cleaners and said “put that patch on it.” And the guy was like “this is a nice jacket” and I said “I know. Put the patch on it.” And it is no longer a nice jacket. It is jacket with a patch on it.
The Interrobang: But you made it into a designer jacket.
Sarah Burns: I feel a sense of pride about coming out of UCB, almost like “we helped build that into what it is now,” even if people don’t remember us from it. Although, people do still come up to me and tell me they remember something I did there. Actually, the creator of the show I’m on now, Andrew Gurland, told me “we used come see you at UCB and have wanted to cast you in something since then.” But in LA it is different because the whole audience seems to be part of the industry.
Adam Pally: And now it’s different because UCB is so well known as a place to find new talent. But at the time we were there, we never knew.
The Interrobang: The characters in the movie are suffering from a bit of an arrested development. And it isn’t that they are losers or children, but they are just at a bit at a standstill in their lives. Have you two ever felt that way, like you were falling behind?
Sarah Burns: I felt that way about my work for a while. Like I had to keep stressing about getting more and more work. And had to eventually step back and realize, “I’m getting work, I’m making a living.” But doing this job, you can definitely feel a bit like an overgrown child.
Adam Pally: Yeah, what we do is inherently childlike. My wife calls it a scam, and it is a scam. I have a pretend job where I go to work and get to do fun stuff all day, and then come home and pretend I’ve slogged it out all day. I’m like “I worked really hard today” and she’s like “oh really, what did you do all day”…”Oh, just my dream. I’m living my dream and got paid money to do it.
Sarah Burns: It is so funny, because we do get depleted, because you are putting yourself out there. But then you think about the people who go to work and have to sit in a swamp all day. And then you’re like, “my job isn’t that tough.” People who are dealing with a plague or something, but we’re complaining “hair and make-up is at 5:45.”
I will say this without question. Paul Feig and Judd Apatow are the two greatest female directors of our time.
Sarah Burns: Actually, one of my favorite movies of all time is Moonstruck. I could watch that movie anytime it’s on. But before production I watch a bunch of romantic comedies as prep work. I watched Crazy Stupid Love. But I don’t think I had any in mind while filming.
Adam Pally: It is a strange romantic comedy in a way, because the two leads are working in congress with each other. And usually in romantic comedies they are in opposition. Or in something like When Harry Met Sally, they are doing different things to each other. So in this movie, we are both experiencing the same things, going out in the world, simultaneously. So we didn’t have a lot of movies to compare this one to. But that was why it was so nice for improvising, because we always had someone to do things with in a scene.
The Interrobang: At certain points the movie feels almost like a buddy comedy.
Adam Pally: Yeah. Which is kind of a nice twist on the romantic comedy, to have them really being buddies.
The Interrobang: Kind of a twist on the Nick and Nora Charles relationship.
Sarah Burns: I love the Thin Man movies. The dog Asta. I love that he’s like “enough of this crime stopping, its cutting into my drinking.” That is a man I can understand.
The Interrobang: And the characters aren’t fighting as much as we are used to seeing in romantic comedies.
Adam Pally: I liked that aspect. That they had a simpatico relationship.
Sarah Burns: And that they’re kind of equals. There is none of that “the guy gets to be really funny, and the girl is just ticked off.”
The Interrobang: We’ve seen some big improvements in the past few years, just with people like Paul Feig and Judd Apatow really advocating to work with funny women.
Adam Pally: I will say this without question. Paul Feig and Judd Apatow are the two greatest female directors of our time.
Sarah Burns: They have been so good to women.
The Interrobang: Have you two considered moving into writing or directing your own projects?
Adam Pally: We kind of started there, so that is a natural thing to want to do. Coming from UCB, it is ingrained in you to want to write shows and sketches. So now that we have that foot in the door, there is still a desire to want to write shows and movies. So that impulse probably never goes away.
Sarah Burns: It is always good to generate your own work and make your own opportunities. I mean, look at someone like Jason Segel, who couldn’t get cast in anything, and Judd Apatow told him “write something for yourself.” And he wrote Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I mean, he was doing okay because he had How I Met Your Mother.
The Interrobang: But that was probably pretty early in the run of the show.
Adam Pally: I don’t know the oral history of Jason Segal.
Sarah Burns: I do. And I’m proselytizing him all the time.
The Interrobang: Well, you’ve worked with him…
Sarah Burns: And since that day, I’ve been on the pay roll to talk about him all the time.
The Interrobang: Do you have a favorite scene in the movie
Sarah Burns: The make out scene.
Adam Pally: Do you know how many times Sarah wanted to do that scene?
Sarah Burns: That was just a really nice scene. But I laughed a lot on this film. I really like the dinner scene.
Adam Pally: I laugh hard at the book club scenes.
Sarah Burns: Those scenes are so funny.
Adam Pally: They were hilarious, and I like not being the type A in the movie, so it was good to get to just serve up other people’s laughs.
The Interrobang: What was it like working with the directors’ baby?
Sarah Burns: She is so good in it. Very dramatic actress.
Adam Pally: She can turn on the waterworks fast. Sometimes we weren’t even ready for it. I had a screen test with her, and she wanted Casey Affleck.
Sarah Burns: But Casey wouldn’t work with her again.
The Interrobang: Diva at 7 month olds.
Sarah Burns: She’s the Christian Bale of babies
Adam Pally: Christian Baby
The Interrobang: Thanks, for the pun.
Adam Pally: You’re welcome.
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