Kay Cannon Turns Parental Angst Into R-Rated Laughs in New Comedy Blockers

Kay Cannon Turns Parental Angst Into R-Rated Laughs in New Comedy Blockers

Director Kay Cannon bounded onto the stage of the Paramount Theatre Saturday night at the South by S..

Director Kay Cannon bounded onto the stage of the Paramount Theatre Saturday night at the South by Southwest Film Festival with an infectious excitement for her directorial debut, the Leslie Mann-starring comedy Blockers, about three parents trying to stop their teenage daughters from having sex on prom night.

“I am a woman. I directed something. It’s rated R. And a comedy. And studio-released. And I feel pretty good about that,” she said, setting the tone for what was to come next—and specifically warning to the audience not to try at home what already might be the film’s most talked-about moment. “Don’t drink out of your asshole,” she said to roars from the audience, referring to a scene in which John Cena imbibes beer via a tube connected to his rear end. “I will butt-chug cock block you so hard. I’m a mom.”

That contradiction—bawdy humor allied with parental wariness—is the same tone you’ll find in the film itself, and from Cannon in person. It’s a confidence that comes from years of running such television shows as The New Girl and Girlboss, from working with mentors like Tiny Fey and Liz Meriwether, and from writing Pitch Perfect and its sequels. Yet even with Cannon’s success, she never thought about directing a film until a producer suggested she give it a try.

“He said, ‘Aren’t you tired of other people doing your own material?,’ ” she said in an interview Sunday. “It wasn’t until someone asked me that question that I thought, ‘Hey, you know what? I am tired of that. I want to start to do my own stuff.’ ”

It helped that back in 2016 a group of women, including Cannon, were asked to come to a writers’-room session to help infuse the Neighbors 2: Sorority Uprising script with a healthy dose of estrogen. Cannon arrived prepared, gregarious, and hilarious. Directing seemed like the obvious next step for her, at least to producers Nathan Kahane,Seth Rogen, and Evan Goldberg.

“We had been targeting Kay as an overall talent since Pitch Perfect,” said Kahane, co-founder of Good Universe, which produced Blockers with Point Grey’s Rogen, Goldberg, and James Weaver. “However, Seth, Evan, and James brought her in to consult on Neighbors 2, and she was so smart, so helpful, and she literally commanded the room. After everyone left, the Point Grey guys looked at me and said, ‘We need to find something for her to direct.’ ”

Then came the script for Blockers, which Cannon connected to immediately (she has a 4-year-old daughter)—and perhaps more importantly could envision how to structure. She once again shot some estrogen into the screenplay—originally written by five men—by beefing up the high-school seniors’ storylines, giving personality, agency, and hilarious lines to the three girls, played by Kathryn Newton (Big Little Lies,Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Gideon Adlon (American Crime), and Geraldine Viswanathan (the upcoming TBS show Miracle Workers). (All three are terrific in the movie.)

“Some of the things just didn’t feel right,” said Cannon. “For example, it was very important to me that Kayla (Viswanathan) gives consent, [that] she says to Connor (Mozart in the Jungle’s Miles Robbins), ‘You know, before I have a sip of alcohol, I want you to know I want to have sex tonight.’ ”

Cannon’s attention to consent and agency infuses a somewhat predictable set-up with a progressiveness that never flounders into preachiness or loses its humor. Cannon also managed to channel her own parental angst—imagining the world she wants for her own daughter rather than what it often has been for teenage girls.

“When I got the script, I thought a lot about her,” said Cannon. “She’s just so perfect. She’s funny and sweet and smart and blah, blah, blah. And one day, she’s gonna grow up and, like, maybe some bad things will happen to her. [There’s] that constant worry. You can be the most progressive parent, but it’s just . . . this worry.”

That anxiety manifests itself in ridiculous, immature behavior from the purported adults in her cast. Stars Mann, Cena, and Ike Barinholtz were up for the task, collaborating closely with Cannon, who was constantly punching up the comedy and even re-writing a key end scene while her adult stars were getting prepped in hair and make-up.

Kay Cannon speaks at the Blockers premiere at SXSW with, from left, Leslie Mann, John Cena, Geraldine Viswanathan, Gideon Adlon, and Miles Robbins.

By Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images.

To Mann, the movie was a chance to closely examine the pain she had just experienced after sending her oldest daughter off to college. (Maude Apatow, her first child with comedian and producer Judd Apatow—who has starred as her daughter in both Knocked Up and This Is 40—left for Northwestern right before Mann began shooting the film.)

“It’s the hardest thing ever,” the actress said in a recent interview. “And if there are parents out there who are going through sending their kids to college, they will find some relief in watching me suffer.”

That suffering, coupled with Cannon’s big comedy set pieces, are what makes the film work. And it’s a tone the director worked hard to find.

“Sometimes I get nabbed on tone, where people don’t feel comfortable seeing these big comedy moments . . . with something heartfelt. They don’t like it when you try to bridge it,” she said. “But I think we should have more movies or TV that do that same thing. It’s not enough that you can have people just laugh at movies anymore. There’s just too much content out there. You have to make them feel something, too.”

To Cannon, Saturday night’s Blockers premiere was a dream. The rapturous audience response and waves of laughter loud enough to drown out lines of dialogue allayed the pressure she feels as one of only three women to direct a studio movie this year (A Wrinkle in Time by Ava DuVernay and The Darkest Minds by Jennifer Yuh Nelson, are the other two).

She finds that reality mind-blowing, by the way. “In 2015, women dominated the box office. There was like a four-month stretch with Spy,Pitch Perfect 2,Mad Max, and Trainwreck—films either produced by women, written by women, or directed by women. Yet the narrative of that year was that it was the year of Amy Schumer, who had an amazing year . . . instead of, ‘Holy crap, look at all the box office of all this female-driven stuff.’ I can’t believe that in 2017 and 2018 we don’t have higher numbers based on the success of 2015.”

If the SXSW premiere is any indicator, Cannon will be back in the director’s chair soon. The film opens nationwide on April 6—a day that can’t come soon enough for her.

“I think if it does well, it will change my life in ways yet to be seen,” Cannon said. “There’s not a lot of men on the list that make comedies, especially R-rated comedies. That list is actually short. So, if I can get on that list, that’s a big deal.”

Get Vanity Fair’s HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Nicole SperlingNicole Sperling is a Hollywood Correspondent for Vanity Fair.

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