In Amy Landecker’s For Worse, Lauren (Landecker) tries something new after her divorce: an acting class. When one of her fellow students gets married, she attends the wedding with a much younger group of people. As she feels more and more out of place, she meets another wedding guest at a different stage of his life, father of the bride Dave (Bradley Whitford).
Awards Buzz spoke with Missi Pyle, who plays Lauren’s best friend Julie, about what she loved about the role:
“I like that Julie is totally comfortable in her own skin and having fun. She loves this person fiercely but is also like, ‘I refuse to allow you to wallow in what it is.’ Obviously, I know, it’s really, really hard to get divorced and to change your life. You have a child and there’s this new woman and she’s younger and she’s got a gorgeous house and whatever, but fuck her. It’s just about friendship and she just has great friendships, and it’s really fun to be a woman in this movie. It’s just kind of magic.”
On how Julie compares to other characters that she’s played in the past, Pyle shared:
“It’s funny, because I just did a show called Sterling Point and I get to play a mom who’s a little bit similar to Julie. She’s super rich and a little bit drunk, even though I’m sober in real life, but I think, for me, a lot of the characters I’ve played have been, especially when I was younger, I wasn’t as comfortable in my own skin. I loved being in someone else’s skin. I got to actually be myself. I’m not as shy anymore, but I was really shy when I started out, and I’d have to go in these rooms and pretend. Auditioning all the time is so crazy. It’s a crazy thing to do. You’re constantly being like, ‘Hey, will someone give me a job?’ I would say, some of the more iconic characters that I’ve gotten to play, like Laliari in Galaxy Quest or Mrs. Beauregard in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and some of those other ones, they’re a little off. They have a flaw or a thing or they’re an alien. But this character, she’s a real person. She’s more relatable and she’s closer to who I am. So that was that was really fun.”
Watch the video above to hear her praise for Landecker and what it felt like to be so removed from the rest of the ensemble.
For Worse is now playing in theaters in New York and Los Angeles.
