Kate Mara didn’t know exactly what she was getting into with Tim Robinson before joining the cast of “Friendship.” She wasn’t familiar with “I Think You Should Leave,” the absurdist Netflix sketch comedy created by Robinson and Zach Kanin – and “Friendship” very much plays like a 97-minute version of the series.
Thankfully, the screenplay by writer-director Andrew DeYoung painted a clear picture for Mara. “It was all on the page,” the “House of Cards” alum tells Variety. “It was such a great script, so funny. My reaction was, ‘Wow. Why did he think of me?’”
It’s a fair question. Mara, known largely for her work in drama series like “House of Cards” and “A Teacher,” hasn’t gotten to flex her comedy chops as much. In “Friendship,” she plays Tami, the wife to Robinson’s lonely marketing executive, Craig. Tami isn’t outwardly funny at first, serving largely as a straight-man, but emerges as the film’s secret weapon, frequently kissing her son on the lips, waxing poetic about her ex-boyfriend Devon and complaining about her comically small car.
“Andy really wanted me to come at this performance like a dramatic film. You’re not playing any of the funny things, which is why it becomes so funny,” Mara says, adding that she’s since become very familiar with Robinson’s brand of humor. “Now I’m totally obsessed. He’s just so unique. There is nobody like him.”
One particularly memorable scene sees Tami descending into a hidden tunnel system beneath the town with Craig – and an unexpected guest found its way into the scene. “I thought for sure it would be on a stage. But it definitely was not,” Mara says with a laugh. “It was gross and wet and cold. And then there was a bat above my head, a little baby sleeping bat! Right before a take, I just looked up and thought, ‘That’s a weird place to put a boom.’ I couldn’t compute that it was real. And then when we all realized that it was real, we obviously put that in the scene where there’s a bat!”
The tunnel mishap only furthers the rift between Tami and Craig, whose relationship is fraught with tension. Enter Paul Rudd’s charismatic weatherman Austin Carmichael, who charms Tami on a visit to the news station where he works. “I mean, one of the characters is treating her like a really interesting queen, and the other is treating her like – I don’t know. His little sister? They got married when they were young, and had a kid right away. They’re so familiar with each other. A lot of us just sort of become way too comfortable in a space or a relationship or whatever, and so you get lazy,” she says. “And then this magical sort of unicorn shows up and sees you, and is interested in what you’re passionate about. So then you light up. It’s actually very easy. Paul Rudd is like a unicorn.”
If working with a unicorn isn’t enough, Mara will next team with her own sister, Rooney, on Werner Herzog’s “Bucking Fastard.” “It was one of the greatest experiences ever, like a dream scenario,” Mara says of the film, in which she and Rooney play inseparable twin sisters. “Werner Herzog, there’s nobody like him on the planet. So to be able to have that experience with him was magical. But then to have it with my sister, it’s sort of what dreams are made of.”
She adds, “I feel like me and my sister fell in love, in a way that when you’re on set with someone, it’s so different than when you’re at home or when you’re just friends,” she says. “Our characters speak in unison, and we dream the same and we dress the same and we eat the same. It was most bonding experience ever.”
“Friendship” is now playing in Austin, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York City, Portland (Ore.), Raleigh (N.C.), San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington DC. It will be in theaters nationwide on May 23.
