A One Day Wonder: Jennifer Lafleur and Jason Ritter Discuss Baby Kate

Paste is incredibly proud to be presenting the premiere of longtime friend Jennifer Lafleur’s first directorial effort, the short film Baby Kate. Lafleur will be familiar to readers not only from the pages of Paste but also from her roles in Jordan Peele’s Nope, Sarah Adina Smith’s The Midnight Swim, and a plethora of Duplass brothers films, among others. For both her film and for this conversation, she recruited fellow friend of Paste Jason Ritter. The conversation was as deep and tender as you’d expect, given these two wonderful souls.

Check out Baby Kate below, then come back here to dive deeper with Jen and Jason:

Paste Magazine: Jennifer, this is the first short that you’ve directed, right?

Jennifer Lafleur: It’s the first thing that I’ve directed. And that was really the impetus behind wanting to do it. I had this story really knocking around my brain for a while. And I wanted to kind of try my hand at directing. And for me, it was almost more of an exercise than anything. What can I create that I can shoot in our house, a couple of actors, one day? Just to kind of try my hand at it, and see if I can tell a story in a way that does it any sort of justice.

You’ve worked with some really great indie heroes of directing. Tell me about your longstanding friendship the Duplass Brothers, for instance. What have you learned from seeing them work and working with them?

Lafleur: Well, they are the very first directors that I ever worked with in film and television. So that was really an embarrassment of riches because they are some of the most open, collaborative, interesting directors that I think anybody could ever ask to work with. It started off with a small role in Baghead, and then that movie went on to premiere at Sundance and sell at Sundance and get a lot of buzz. I was like, “Oh, this is what it’s like to make a movie.” You make a movie and you go to Sundance and then you sell it and you get a lot of attention and accolades. That’s really cool. This is fun. Then that was the last film that I had at Sundance!

But they are the best. They are kind. And honestly, most of the best and my favorite directors I’ve worked with share this, they are deeply collaborative while also having a very clear vision of what it is that they want to make, but really being open about how you get there. You know, they have the end goal in mind, and then they really want to have you take part in how you get there, which is fun. And that obviously especially goes for the improvised movies that I’ve done with Mark and Jay Duplass, with Sarah Adina Smith, and some other directors.

But even for the very much scripted things, like Jordan Peele working on Nope, he had this brilliant script that was written, but also was like, okay, now what do you want to do? Let’s do another take. And now you do whatever you want to do. Let’s go again. And that was really funny. Do that again and then do something else. Just do whatever you want to do. And so being given that freedom is very exciting and gratifying. And also a little bit intimidating when you’re trying to do a bit for Jordan Peele! You’re like, I cannot do a bit close to your worst bit of your entire life, but I’m going to try my hardest.

I love what Jay and Mark say: When you go to film school, 5% of what they talk to you about is working with the actors and 95% is everything else. And they say it should be the opposite.

Lafleur: Totally. No, I mean, Mark has that great quote from his South by Southwest keynote where he says, you know, the cavalry is not coming. You are the cavalry. And I think about that all the time. I know a lot of people think about that all the time, where you have to make your own opportunities arise. And, you know, I’m a big say yes person, and I feel like you are too, Jason. At least you were for me, which I’m forever grateful for. I sent Jason the script and he read it in like 20 minutes and wrote back and had lovely things to say. He’s like, “Yeah, I’m in.”

When he showed up on set, I remember we went into our guest room to talk about wardrobe and run some lines. Because we hadn’t really run the scene. And it wasn’t like a rehearsal. It was just like, let’s run the lines and get it out of our mouths. And I remember when he started doing the scene with me, I thought to myself, wow, he memorized the scene for me. And of course he memorized his lines, because he’s a professional actor, and that’s what we do, we show up prepared. But I remember being so honored and feeling so grateful that he took this little project seriously and came and brought so much emotional depth to every single word that he delivered. Jason, I’ll always be in debt to you. You can say, “Oh, it’s just a short film, it’s just a small thing,” but it was something that was really meaningful to me, and to have had somebody like you, of your caliber and of your level of talent and kindness, was a true gift.

Jason Ritter: Oh man, that’s so nice.

Jason, what were your reactions to that first little meetup about it?

Ritter: Jen and I had known each other for a while and she sent this script, and it was so beautiful and so interesting. And it just really hit me. Then there was also something about the character and the whole story that I really understood on a deep level. Sometimes I can enjoy a script, and like it and even see it being an incredible thing, but I feel like I’m not the guy for it or something. Like, I don’t have something to offer, or it’s not clicking with me somehow. And this one, it was so beautifully written. That’s another thing that I always look for. If something emotionally knocks me out. If I’m having an uncontrolled reaction. I’m not making a logical decision. I’m just experiencing it. There was just something so raw about the story. I was so excited about it.

It’s stupid to say Jason’s character is so important. There are three characters in this movie. So obviously his character is so important. But we don’t have to hear about all of the struggles of Jen’s character, sliding down this hole, because we just take one look in Jason’s eyes and we see it.

Lafleur: I totally agree. I wanted it to be very tender and vulnerable. And I just knew that he would be the person that would be able to do that. Then when he came, he even then surpassed my expectations and hopes and dreams for how connected it could be. It made it so easy to play opposite of him, because as the writer and the director and, you know, one of the actors in the film, it’s very easy to get stuck in your head and think about the shots. And I didn’t have that for a second when we were working together. I just knew that we were well taken care of: We had our amazing DP, Shaheen Seth, and my husband, Ross Partridge, who’s a brilliant director, was producing, and he was on monitor. They knew what I wanted. They had it taken care of, and all I needed to do was focus on Jason. And he pulled me right into that world where that’s the only thing that I had to be concerned about.

Ritter: One of the magic tricks of the script, is what you think about him initially in the way he’s talking about his daughter. You can think he’s being cold or whatever. But you know it’s one of those things that I love where you can watch something one time and you have a certain experience, and then you go back once you know the whole story, you watch it again or you go over it in your mind and you go, “Oh, that’s why that is like that.” We had to find the balance where both things work in both of our performances.

We both understood enough about the world of grief and pain and relationships, that we were able to look in each other’s eyes and go, “Oh yeah, okay. So let’s just pretend that we’ve been through this with each other together.” And it was there. We didn’t even have to talk much about it. That’s awesome. But that was also part of, you know in her writing, there was, in a short, you have such a short amount of time to get a lot of information. And without being expository, you get so much information in such a beautiful, subtle way that we had so much to work with.

Lafleur: That’s very nice of you to say. I mean, I do not consider myself a writer at all. That was the only thing that I’ve ever written other than, you know, improvising on movies. But that’s kind of different. That’s just in the moment. This is the first thing that I had ever kind of sat down and put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard on before. So I felt and still feel wildly insecure about my abilities as a writer.

Specifically as a director, watching him on Lamb, tell me about what you learned from Ross.

Lafleur: Yeah, I was one of the producers on Lamb. And I was often on monitor, you know, for any of his coverage. So we kind of swapped places here. And then we just made another one this past summer called Birthright that will hopefully come out next year. But Ross is just one of my favorite people to work with in general because I feel like in so many ways, we are exactly the same. I have the type of brain that reads something and knows exactly how it should be delivered, the intention, how it’s going to go. It’s very clear in my mind. And then he will make a suggestion where, you know, in our earlier days together, I may have said, “No, that’s not right.” But he would say, “Just trust me, just try it.” And when we would go again, I would be like, “Oh yeah, he’s right. He’s right. That’s a more interesting way to look at it.” So kind of mashing together our sensibilities elevates both of our work, both as actors and as directors. He’s one of the most interesting and soulful people that I’ve ever met with, met, or worked with. And I think it benefits us both.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

You can learn everything about Michael Dunaway here.