In Jim Rash’s Miss You, Love You, Jamie (Andrew Rannells) arrives at the home of his boss’ mother Diane (Allison Janney), sent in his place to help her plan her husband’s funeral. Unsurprisingly, she’s not very happy he’s there, but they soon break down barriers and discover how to be there for each other.
Awards Buzz spoke with Rash about the personal inspiration for his latest solo project after previous collaborations with Nat Faxon on The Way Way Back, Downhill, and their Oscar-winning screenplay for The Descendants:
“Like with anything, The Way Way Back, all these had a little bit of truth in them. This time, I pulled from an experience when I went home for my dad’s funeral, which was over eight years ago now, who had Parkinson’s, so I obviously was using and writing and understanding that. My sister was dealing with work stuff and her assistant came along to lend a hand. I had never met him, he had never met anybody. So I just thought that was very curious to me, just the basic premise of being, through his eyes, the lens of somebody in such an emotionally vulnerable place with a bunch of strangers. From there on, it was just crafting it based on that scenario and then creating Jamie and Diane and just seeing how that would operate. From there, I just started using things, hodgepodge of truth.”
He shared how he wanted to tackle grief in a way that felt authentic:
“My approach to grief in this particular thing was also to layer in for these characters, it’s a grief of obviously a loss of life, but there’s grief and pining for someone. Love that’s not there anymore. A person’s not there anymore. A son that is no longer the same. And then I wanted to shade in this resentment theme, the harboring that we need them here-type philosophy. Or, selfishly, we want them or need them in our lives. I like that element to grief, where you’re angry at them for not being with you, even though that’s not possibly in their control.”
Watch the video above to hear about finding his stars and how his acting work has shaped his approach to directing.
Miss You, Love You premieres Friday, May 29th at 8:00 p.m. ET/PTon HBO and will be available to stream on HBO Max.
