Alana Haim and Mamoudou Athie on Bringing ‘The Drama’ to the Twisted Romance’s Other Complicated Couple

There’s not just one couple at the heart of Kristoffer Borgli’s twisted, already-controversial “The Drama.” Yes, sure, most of the film‘s titular drama centers on the suddenly fractured relationship between sweet but maybe not-too-bright Charlie (Robert Pattinson) and his massive-secret-carrying betrothed Emma (Zendaya) on the eve of their wedding. But the revelation of said secret is only made possible by the good-natured, wine-fueled meddling of the pair’s best pals: Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie).

The fallout of Emma’s big secret reveal (which we will, for the benefit of our spoiler-averse readership, attempt to dance around) is immediate. And while much of Borgli’s film is focused on how Charlie handles it, both Haim and Athie make off with scene-stealing turns as they grapple with the news, their parts in it, and what this will mean for the world’s most ill-fated wedding.

The stars of “The Drama” joined IndieWire on Zoom the week before the film’s release, and even from separate locations, the pair’s easy chemistry and affection were clear. As Rachel and Mike, the duo have their own big problems to sort through, but the “Licorice Pizza” and “One Battle After Another” breakout and the “Kinds of Kindness” and “Elemental” stars delighted in taking on those problems together (and with a generous dose of vitamin C).

Ahead, Haim and Athie take us through their own reactions to that big “twist,” what they think of spoilers, the joys of acting drunk, not wanting to make “content,” going to parties alone, and why Haim couldn’t stop breaking wine glasses.

The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

IndieWire: Mamoudou, I’m really going to age us because I looked back, and we last spoke for “Unicorn Store” in 2017.

Mamoudou Athie: Oh, my heart. I love that movie so much.

And your answers were so lovely. I think you were at a pizza shop or something, and we were just on the phone.

Athie: [Laughs] Likely. I’m an addict!

Kristoffer Borgli’s work is so specific. What was the first project of his that made you think, “Oh, I like what this guy is doing”?

Haim: I mean, all of it. My introduction to Kris was through “Dream Scenario.” I went to the “Dream Scenario” premiere, and I went alone, so it was like the first time I had seen a movie alone. My sisters couldn’t go with me, which is very rare. I remember being in the theater by myself and watching this movie, and it was such an interesting take. How it was shot, how it was written, I was just so obsessed with that movie. I went to the party afterwards. And again, I was alone. [Laughs]

Athie: So bold!

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Haim: So it was very scary. I didn’t know anybody. I think it was like the first time where I was like, “I don’t know anyone. I can’t talk to my sisters and pretend like I’m having a good time.” But Kris came up to me at that premiere, and we started talking, and it really did feel like we had this instant connection; it felt like we went to high school together.

It kind of snowballed from there, we went to dinner and we spoke about the film, it wasn’t called “The Drama” at that point. It didn’t have a title, but he had told me the premise of this movie, and I was just so in awe, and I wanted to just be in whatever Kris Borgli world was happening. And bada bing, bada boom, Rachel was born.

I read something that you called her vindictive. I don’t necessarily see her in that way.

Haim: Oh, great. I mean, she’s scary.

I said to someone, if I was seated next to her at a wedding or a party and I started talking to her, I’d be like, “Oh, no.”

Haim: You just slowly turn away?

Mamoudou, what was your introduction to the wild world of Kris Borgli?

Athie: I saw “Sick of Myself” first, regretfully not in theaters. That would’ve been an awesome one to see in a theater. Then I saw “Dream Scenario.” I was acquainting myself with Kris’ work. I wasn’t invited to the premiere. [Laughs] I was just an immediate fan because I love people that just really want to make a movie. Do you know what I mean? I want to make a movie, not like I want to make something that’s already been done or hashed, something that’s really original, and you just want to make it and scare yourself a little bit.

Someone who doesn’t want to make content.

Athie: Exactly! Ugh.

Haim: Bingo.

Athie: Don’t get me started. Don’t get me started! That fucking word. I lose my mind when I hear “content.” I’m like, “What does it mean?” So content, it’s like litter. It’s trash. Like, what are we doing? What are we doing? We’re calling it content? I won’t call it content. I’m watching a movie or a short or a TV show. You guys watch content. I’m good. … Ooh! I get hot.

What was the first encounter that you had with the actual script? I imagine, about 20 pages in, you were like, “Oh. OK.”

Haim: It genuinely was a page-turner. After page 20, you’re like, “What? Where do we go from here?” It was just this wild ride that, again, as Mamoudou said, was such an original idea. And by the time you get to the end, you’re just relieved. You’re like, “Ugh, OK.” I couldn’t put it down.

Athie: I got it, and I was like, “Man, this is … They’re making this. That’s … Yeah, OK, let’s do it.” I’m not going to lie, I was a little scared of it, but that’s always the most intriguing script to read where you’re like, “I don’t know, man.” I’m so glad I was able to do it. I try to be very honest with the movies. I think this one’s awesome, it’s so well-made, and everyone’s awesome in it.

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I will be very gentle about it. I love spoilers. I know not everyone does. So I did go into it knowing what the spoiler or the “twist” is.

Haim: No!

Athie: That’s crazy.

Haim: No!

Athie: I used to love spoilers, too, but I beat the sickness. I used to read the last few pages of a book. That’s how bad it was for me. I would spoil everything for myself.

Haim: Because you didn’t want to leave this Earth without knowing the ending?

Athie: Just in case. Maybe it was a touch of neuroticism. But I was eventually like, “What am I doing? I’m ruining the journey for myself.” But you know, you spoiled the movie. That’s fine.

[Laughs] For something like this, where this “twist” or spoiler is within the first 20 pages, the first 20 minutes, is it a twist or a spoiler, or is it just the plot of the movie?

Haim: People that want to be spoiled, go be spoiled. Done. No judgment. But somebody came up to me at the LA premiere and was like, “I’m so happy that I didn’t know anything before walking in. I knew nothing. I knew that it was about a wedding, I didn’t know what the twist was, and it was such a surprising experience, not knowing anything.”

It’s for interpretation to anybody that sees it. For me, it was really fun being in a theater with everybody and hearing gasps, hearing laughs in very intense moments, hearing that you could hear a pin drop. It’s so amazing seeing this film in a theater, because it does feel like this collective experience of everyone experiencing the same emotion at the same time.

Athie: I think it’s just part of the story. I think there’s a little extra something when you are surprised by it, but it’s more about how they deal with it. That’s the movie. Like, how do you move forward? What do they do afterwards? That’s the movie. You can spoil it, but there’s still plenty of movie to just enjoy. But I’m against spoilers. I don’t watch trailers for that reason.

The trailers for this are very good about not giving it away.

Athie: I know! I was like, “Finally!”

You’re both very believable and credible as a couple that has been together for a long time. How did you build that kind of chemistry?

Haim: Meeting Mamoudou was the easiest relationship to just slip right into. He’s so incredible, such an amazing actor, but also just the most amazing person. I feel weird talking about you while you’re with me. It feels crazy.

Athie: I’m like, “Yeah, no, no, go on.”

Haim: I’m blushing. I feel like I’m like, “Oh, Mamoudou.” But it was so easy, and there was just so much room to be funny because our relationship is just funny in itself. It was open season of being funny and getting to improv. We had these rehearsals, and he was so sick.

Athie: I was disgustingly sick.

Haim: Mamoudou was sick, and I literally gave him my tour list of how to get over sickness in 24 hours. A lot of Lypo-Spheric Vitamin C.

Athie: I had some. I incidentally had some!

Haim: When it works, it works. I was extremely lucky to have Mamoudou as my husband because he was so welcoming, so loving, and so much fun to work off. I mean, we really did work well off of each other. It was a beautiful experience. I love you, Mamoudou.

Athie: Aww, I love you, too. Now I got to say a bunch of nice stuff. Alana is multi-talented, but also just very kind. I remember doing a movie early in my career, and I was [part of] the subplot love story, and I was like, “Oh, shit, we have no chemistry.” I went back to my school just to visit, because I had some time off, and [the class] was doing a scene from “The Rainmaker,” and my teacher was like, “Let’s talk about chemistry,” and I was like, “Oh, my God.”

And he was like, “You know what chemistry really is? Say you go see a play, and you see two people feeling completely disconnected from each other. What it really means is that person’s doing whatever they want, and that other person’s doing whatever they want, and nobody’s actually talking and listening to each other. Chemistry’s all about listening.” And that was an easy thing for Alana and I to just fall into, because we were interested in what the other person had to do or say. That’s the basic, simple way of building a relationship. Just listen. I think that goes for life, too.

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Mamoudou, you come from a background in Yale Drama, very studied as an actor, whereas Alana didn’t train in that same way, but obviously has plenty of experience with performance. How did you mesh what would seem like two different schools of thought or two ways of doing things?

Athie: The whole reason for me to go to school was just to be as free as possible in as many circumstances as possible. That’s the whole reason I went to school. So I can do Shakespeare, I can do Molière, I can do Tennessee Williams, I can do a Kris Borgli movie with the same level of adaptability and emotional access. And then when somebody has that for free, like Alana—

Haim: [Laughs]

Athie: And they don’t need to go to school. They’ll just do it, and then they’ll be like, “I’m going to work with PTA and Kris Borgli and Kelly Reichardt…” [Laughs] I imagine there’s certain incongruous schools of thought with acting, but not the way I think either of us approach it.

Haim: I always wanted to try to act, but I was kind of in this music land. I just cherish the art of acting so much. And the fact that I got the opportunity to work with Paul Thomas Anderson was insane. Still, to this day, I am like, “Pinch me, this is crazy.” It was my first movie!

Josh O’Connor, when we did “The Mastermind,” our first conversation, I literally said, “I am here to support you. I want to support you. I think you’re incredible.” I’m so obsessed with collaboration. I think it stems from being in a band with your siblings. Collaboration has been my whole life.

And you both do some great pieces of classic acting. Alana, you’re wonderful at drunk acting, both at the dinner scene and then at the wedding.

Haim: Ah! Oh my God. That is the biggest compliment. I don’t know if you remember this, Mamoudou, but I was so nervous to not be like real drunk. I really wanted to just take 15 shots and do that scene.

Athie: I’m glad you didn’t do that.

Haim: I didn’t do that. No, it was full just me pretending. But thank you for saying that, because I loved shooting that [wedding] scene. All I can say is, I’ve been drunk many times. I’ve been drunk a number of times. And my sisters will tell you that, when I’m drunk, I love making speeches. It’s not Rachel speeches. It’s more like, “I love you guys.” I’m a very lovey drunk. I just want everybody around me to know how much I love them.

Not Rachel. Rachel does not do that. It was really fun doing that scene, because we had an amazing group of people that were at our table. It really did feel like a wedding. It was one of the most beautiful weddings I’ve ever been to.

The problem that I had was, after I cheers, I was so angry that I kept slamming my glass on the table, and the glass kept breaking. And the prop people had to come up to me and be like, “Can you just lightly put…” Because the glass is filled with wine, so the wine would spill everywhere. We would have to clean it up in between every time. And I would just get so lost in it that I’d be like, “Cheers,” and then I’d slam it down, and the glass would just break. It became an issue.

I think I spilled wine on Mamoudou a million times. The glass would break, and it would just go on everyone. And then of course, people-pleaser me, I’m like, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God! We need to clean this up. We need to clean it up. I’m so sorry.”

Athie: It was so funny.

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Mamoudou, what is the secret to good fake crying? You cry when Charlie is trying out his vows on you, and it’s both very funny and incredibly sincere.

Athie: I think you just do it for real and let people laugh at you crying. You know? I mean, otherwise it’s not going to work out so well. Unless you have that physical trick where you can just cause your eyes to leak, but that’s not the same thing. I don’t think it has the same emotional impact on an audience. I don’t know.

I was surprised that he wanted me to cry for real. I was like, “What? Oh, shit. Give me a second.” Couple of takes. Couple of takes!

When you were filming the dinner scene, I know that you shot it like a play. You went all the way through.

Haim: Oh, we didn’t know that we were going to do that. I’ll never forget, me and Mamoudou, the night before we shot the dinner scene, we met up just to go through the dialogue because we knew it was such an-

Athie: That’s right! You saved me.

Haim: It’s such an important scene to the movie that we really needed to get right or the movie wouldn’t make sense. But it was really funny, because when we met up, we’re thinking we know anything. We were like, “We’re probably going to shoot this in chunks. There’s no way we’re shooting this all the way through.” Like we were really going through the lines, kind of flubbing some things, and we were like, “We’ll probably do this scene first and then this part and then this part.” Literally, why did we think that? I have no idea.

Athie: [Laughs]

Haim: And then we both walk in thinking we know the plan. Like, “Oh, yeah, me and Mamoudou made this plan,” as if we’re the directors. No. We sat down, and Kris was like, “OK, let’s do it all the way through.” And I grabbed Mamoudou’s thigh under the table. I was like, “This isn’t the plan. This isn’t the plan. Our plan is not planning. We didn’t know we were going to do this.” In hindsight, now I can’t imagine shooting it any other way. It needed to be shot that way, obviously.

Haim: We did it a number of times. I mean, I forget how many miles of film we—

Athie: Miles.

Haim: Like it was miles and miles and miles of film. By the end of it, it genuinely felt like four friends having a conversation. We did get lost in that scene, like the cameras didn’t exist anymore. Our plan would’ve been way worse. Our plan was not a good plan.

Athie: The thing about good writing is it’s extremely easy to memorize, it just adds up, it’s like your brain wants to soak it in. So I’m so grateful we ran it because the cues are another thing. But, yeah, you saved me that day. Oh, my God, Alana, you just reminded me how bad you saved me.

Haim: I know.

Athie: Doing a oner like that is a joy. I love just doing it straight on. And it was nerve-wracking. I was like, “Oh, man, we’re doing it all at once?” But once we started doing it, I was like, “Alright, this is the best. This is how I want to shoot movies.”

A24 will release “The Drama” in theaters on Friday, April 3.