In the movie, debuting Wednesday, Shlesinger plays a trusting, successful woman who is deceived and manipulated into romance by a man who builds himself up on a tower of increasingly elaborate lies.
He lied about his job, where he went to college, where he lived, and played on her sympathy with tales of illness and personal hardship that all turned out to be bogus.
I would say Andrea is a little bit tougher and a little bit, I don’t know, is blunter is a word? This girl isn’t a delicate flower.
And every single lie that Dennis Kelly tells in this movie, those are lies that I took from memory that were told to me.
I was coming home from Thanksgiving; I got on the plane, and there was a guy sitting next to me who was my age.
“Where’d you go to school?” He said, I went to Yale and I said, “oh, my cousin, went there.” And he told me he was a hedge funder, which as a comic, I’m just like, “I think I know what that is…” We really enjoyed each other on the flight, and I think I had the guy I was dating picking me up.
But I invited him to a show just saying, you know, if you and your girlfriend ever want tickets, come on out.
What’s even stranger is because he didn’t go to Yale, I’m now like, is that a handle that he kept around for when he lied to women? Was that something he created on the plane when I wasn’t looking? I don’t know, but it checked out.
An interesting thing in the movie is that your character is not attracted to him.
No! So I’m glad you picked up on that, and I’m glad you used the word unctuous, because I think that that’s something we can apply to him now that we know the story.
Only in our society do we tell women to give a guy you’re not chemically attracted to a chance.
I love you for all these reasons, but I can’t be your girlfriend.” I was trying to be as kind with the words as possible, and I said, you know, if this relationship makes you uncomfortable, I understand if you don’t want to hang out with me.
It was almost like, if I can posture like this, then nobody will question me.
I remember thinking, “Okay, I can kiss you when I’m drunk, but I need to be able to kiss you when I’m sober!” Like, trying to get there.
I remember—and this is in the movie for a very specific reason—I was honest about the fact that I would go on dates and that I had a type of guy that I liked.
Looking back on this moment, which to me was the linchpin of all of it, I believe he saw that Instagram post, saw the person I was out with, and he thought I’ve got to kick this up a notch.
It’s easy to say, why didn’t you ask her, but it’s so indelicate to say to someone like, “Hey, how’s your cancer?” So I didn’t say anything.
We went to the bar, we had the birthday, and at the end of the night, he was sitting on the fire escape in the back of the bar with his head in his hands, because we owed the bar a thousand dollars or whatever.
The character Margaret Cho plays is an amalgamation of three women: my best friend, my mother, and another friend.
I don’t have my diploma hanging on the wall.” Even I was just like, yeah, I guess my college degree is in a frame in the closet.
I remember he had said that he purchased a house in Beverly Hills and it was under construction.
This happened.
So I don’t ever go to my house.” When you invoke the cancer card, I’m thinking like, oh my God, I don’t want to bother this woman in her home, in her like final weeks on this planet.
But when you love someone, and when you’ve known someone for a year and they’re telling you their mom has cancer, you’re just trying to show some deference, I guess.
I can’t remember all the pieces, but I remember I was flying home from playing the Tempe improv and had just had enough.
I remember thinking like, “Well, first of all, we’re definitely over.” I reached out to the roommates who I’d met that one time, because I said, I’d love to get more information, I’d love to just get some closure.
I put it on Instagram because I was, you know, in my early 30s, I’m single, and who cares? And I remember he sent me an email, chastising me for posting such a picture.
Had he said nothing, I would’ve probably just been like, okay, he’s a worm and he slithered away.
A friend of a friend of a friend reached out a couple of years ago and they were like, “Did you know Dennis is getting married?” This is not someone I think about.
The mother responded with, “Iliza is a failing actress, and she’s addicted to drugs, and Dennis is sometimes too giving when it comes to women.” So, this is what he told his mother—or, she’s in complete denial.
I thought there’s no point in warning her because he’s either told her I’m crazy—in which case I will look crazy if I reach out to help her—or he’s reconciled, come clean.
I think there’s a lot more of this in our society than people realize, because you don’t think about it until it happens to you.
When I think of the story, I picture Ryan Hansen and Margaret Cho and Kimmy Gatewood, and the process to make this movie.
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