“We shot some stuff that we stole going up the West Side Highway. I don’t know if there’s any cops here,” Will Arnett told the audience following a press and industry screening of Is This Thing On? at the New York Film Festival, “But one point we’re driving up the West Side Highway and Bradley’s on the dash shooting me…and I’m like ‘cop, cop, cop!'”
Laura Dern jumped in to confirm that this did, indeed, happen. “He’s not exaggerating,” she said, while joining in on the laughter with those in attendance.
Despite bending a few traffic laws while filming on the West Side Highway, Bradley Cooper, who directed the festival’s closing night film (and co-wrote it with Arnett), expressed his gratitude to be able to shoot in New York. “This city has so much magic,” Cooper said.
For Cooper, that magic lives most vividly in New York’s comedy clubs.”The opportunity to tell a story where [New York] is a central part of the film, and then going to comedy clubs, I went to when I was a kid. I still remember the first time I went to The Cellar, it’s just this magical [place],” he said, “To be able to actually shoot here and the Bar Six I used to go to in the late 90s…I really thought, oh, if we do that, and he goes to this, that could be a wonderful part [of the movie.]”
“Because it really is. There is something about New York City.”
World-building was easy for Cooper, who based it on his lived experiences in New York, and Christine Ebersole commended him for weaving his past life into the fabric of the movie.
“The generosity of Bradley Cooper, who really established the tone of the film, was just, it was otherworldly,” Ebersole explained. “It was something I really never experienced before, where you could really bring to the table, you have this kind of safe environment where you could bring to the table that anything could happen, and that’s the part that was really exciting to to have been a part of.”
Laura Dern agreed. “I just have to speak to, if I may, that the bravery and the discipline in the filmmaking and the trust of us together with you, Bradley, to find the unbelievable complexity of relationship without necessarily having to tell the background story, have to feed the audience what happened, why it happened,” she said.
“And to have that be the beginning of this journey as you go into your self-discovery, we each do, but also how you can find your way back to each other. There was just such incredible love and integrity and discipline in every way. Bradley invited us to discover that together.”
As for Andra Day, she was thrilled to be on board. “This is my fourth movie ever,” she gushed, “So the fact that [Cooper] called and was like, would you be interested? I’m like, ‘Yes, hell yes, I would be interested in working with this cast and with the script and with this story.’ And the energy, the vibe on set was incredible.”
“Is This Thing On?” is now playing at the New York Film Festival and will be released in theaters on December 19.
