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Interview: Actor-Comedians Bridey Elliott and Clare McNulty and Their Buddy Road Movie, Fort Tilden

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SXSW’s 2014’s Grand Jury Prize Winner for best narrative film Fort Tilden, a comedy about the single summer day odyssey two 20somethings take through Brooklyn in order to get to the beach. Starring as our anti-heroine BFFs are Bridey Elliott as Harper, the leader, and Clare McNulty as Allie, the follower. We sat down with the two discuss the movie and touched on how they landed their film debuts, their characters’ questionable co-dependent relationship, and why friendships can make us kind of stupid.

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Lesley Coffin (TMS): Did you two know each other before making the movie?

Clare McNulty: No, we basically were set up on a blind date. We had Chinese food together and were both nervous about meeting each other.

Bridey Elliott: Because there is all this fear about not liking your costar

McNulty: And on this film we were going to be spending 18 straight days together, and a lot of that time would just be the two of us.

Elliott: But it turned out okay.

TMS: Coming up through the improv community, were you two given free rein to improvise, or did you mostly stick to the script?

Elliott: We pretty much stuck to the lines as written. For a lot of the scenes between just Clare and I, the banter was really well scripted, and we didn’t even want to improvise, because the scenes go so fast and hit you over the head with how crazy and mean they talk. But with the bigger scenes, we had some great improvisers and felt free to go off-script a little—like that scene of the baby getting hit. There was room to improv there. Or when we were just walking around the beach.

TMS: Because of the way the movie was shot, there are people around who weren’t necessarily a part of the production. How was it playing your characters interacting with the real world?

McNulty: It was great, especially because the movie is kind of like a tour of Brooklyn, and it felt like we were really supported by the community. Every community we filmed in seemed really excited to be a part of it. For example, when we shot in the deli, that deli wasn’t the original deli we were going to film in and at the last minute, we had to find a replacement. They found that deli that morning, and the employees were so excited to let us film inside. They found us to be a hilarious interruption to their day.

TMS: Were the people featured in that scene working behind the counter real employees or actors?

McNulty: They are actresses—very accomplished actresses. But the people who worked in the deli were still behind the counter that entire time.

Elliott: The stipulation was “we’re not going to close.”

McNulty: I don’t think any of the places closed. Pretty Girl didn’t close.

Elliott: I remember filming that day in the deli, and a man came in and was looking at our butts, and the owner started defending us.

McNulty: It was so sweet, he was like, “Hey, get out of here.” He kept trying to protect us.

TMS: Were you familiar with the areas of Brooklyn you were filming in?

McNulty: I live in Brooklyn on the edge of Ditmars Park. So I live kind of in between where a lot of stuff was shot.

Elliott: I’m familiar with Brooklyn, but when I lived in New York, I was always in Harlem. I’m an up-towner.

TMS: Did you read for both parts or were you asked to audition for a specific role?

Elliott: Actually, we didn’t have to audition because the roles were kind of developed with us in mind, without us knowing it.

McNulty: We won a contest.

TMS: Even though you didn’t know each other at the time?

Elliott: I didn’t even know Sarah or Charlie (the writer/directors Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers). They knew me from the Internet and came to one of my comedy shows, but I think they saw I’d be right for the role because of some of my other characters. I kind of do this vapid character, and I think that was really what it was. But it was a big risk for them to take, considering their two leads didn’t know each other.

McNulty: They have a really wonderful sense of people, as you can see in the movie, so I think that played into it. I’ve known Sarah since college, but maybe they just knew we would get along.

TMS: Had you played a character like Allie before? Someone who wants to be motivated but is really just spacey and never follows through?

McNulty: I’ve played characters like Allie before. She just hasn’t manifested her own strength or just doesn’t know what she wants out of life yet. I really enjoy playing that kind of person.

TMS: The characters are very funny but at times can be really unlikable. If they were real people, do you think you would have liked them or wanted to be their friends?

Elliott: I think so.

McNulty: We empathized with them, I think.

Elliott: There was no judgment about them, because the script was so fun to read. I don’t think I even questioned or thought about that, because I was fascinated by the journey. But we know these people; we’re friends with these types of people—being in your 20s in New York and trying to figure out who you are, and the anxiety of trying to compete with people who seem to know who they are, or at least have a better articulated personality. You can relate to that anxiety. And sure, it’s horrible that they’re criticizing the world but won’t reflect on themselves, particularly my character, but you understand why she’s doing that.

McNulty: We’ve all had terrible moments like the ones they have in this movie. We’ve all done terrible things. But it’s just about being honest about them.

TMS: Is their friendship something which felt realistic in your own life?

Elliott: Very much so.

McNulty: During one of our few rehearsals, we talked about relationships like this in our own lives, and asked “were we the Harper or Allie in those relationships.” And at different times, we’ve each been one of them.

Elliott: And we talked about how very toxic that kind of relationship can be, because you’re trying to save each other. But there is something egocentric about these relationships that you don’t even realize when you’re falling into them—a codependent, bad relationship. I had an older sister who I looked up to and was the Harper of our relationship, and when we were in high school together, I just tried to keep up like Allie.

McNulty: And one of the questions we get a lot is, “Are they good for each other or bad for each other?” and I’ve asked myself the same question about friendships and relationships before. Sometimes you can answer definitively, and sometimes you can’t. We’ve heard Sarah and Charles say they aren’t good for each other, they are holding each other back, and I’m not sure if I always agree with that interpretation. It kind of depends on my mood and what is going on in my life. Sometimes I think, “Maybe they just need each other right now.”

TMS: Or maybe they can still be friends but shouldn’t be living together.

McNulty: As with any relationship, maybe they just need a little distance.

TMS: What is it about Harper that makes Allie go along with her plans?

McNulty: I think Bridey said it well: Harper just has a better articulated personality.

Elliott: But she’s a total fake.

McNulty: Yeah, she’s putting it on.

Elliott: But she’s such phony, and it is really easy to fake happy. Whether people fall for it or not, I think Harper has this façade that Allie kind of believes it and aspires to be like her.

McNulty: And Allie’s own falsity is really, really deep, just in the sense that she has no idea what is going on, and I think she sees in Harper the ability to move forward, which Allie lacks. She’s barely able to take one step forward in her own life.

TMS: I was definitely cracking up when you two kept asking each other if you should do something when your bike gets stolen, so scared to just make a move without the other’s permission.

McNulty: They’re frozen by fear or stupidity.

Elliott: It’s fear, I think.

McNulty: Or just confusion. That was one of the funniest scenes. I just laughed when I read it.

Elliott: We were thinking how you just become stupider when you’re around your best friends or with a friend who enables you to be stupid. When you do something stupid with your friends, it’s easier to put the fault on both of you, rather than owning your actions.

McNulty: And their sense of collective responsibility is their failing.

TMS: Did you two decide how long your characters had been friends? Because I know that phenomenon of “friends letting friends be stupid” seems worse if you knew each other at your dumbest age, because you just keep going back to that time.

McNulty: We assumed they had been friends since college, which is a time when people are really figuring out who they are and trying on new identities, and that enables people like Harper and Allie to get close to each other in a way which maybe is not the most productive.

Elliot: Definitely. And then there’s the stage after college. I kind of went to college, but I had the stage after college when, if you don’t have a job lined up or a clear path, it can really become a stalemate. And the pressure of your 20s is to like “Have fun. Don’t worry!” So there is this mix of, worry about your future and the pressure to have fun while you’re young!

McNulty: You’re hearing, “Don’t take things too seriously. You’ll get married and settle down soon enough, so you better have your fun while you can,” along with the pressure to get a 401K and plan your future.

TMS: The scene with the two girls who are Allie’s “friends” and are “acting” a bit more mature than you really brings out Harper’s animosity and shows two people your age who are taking a completely different approach to that kind of pressure.

Elliott: It’s funny that all their relationships have to be in quotes, because they don’t have any real relationships. It just shows the different paths they could take at this age. Allie’s friends did “teach for America,” and that’s their thing. And in a way, it’s just “their thing,” something to label themselves.

McNulty: They’re trying on a personality just the way Allie and Harper are, so it could be they are one step ahead, but it could also be that they are at the same place and just pretending to have their lives sorted out and acting more mature than Allie and Harper because they’ve done something tangible.

Lesley Coffin is a New York transplant from the midwest. She is the New York-based writer/podcast editor for Filmoria and film contributor at The Interrobang. When not doing that, she’s writing books on classic Hollywood, including Lew Ayres: Hollywood’s Conscientious Objector and her new book Hitchcock’s Stars: Alfred Hitchcock and the Hollywood Studio System.

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