It’s a breeze to promote a comedy about dating, the release of which is strategically timed around Valentine’s Day. But you have to be up for it – which Alison Brie most certainly is.
The 33-year-old actress is positively effusive about How To Be Single, in which she plays a single woman, Lucy, searching for Mr. Right online. She is joined in the film by Dakota Johnson (Alice), Rebel Wilson (Robin) and Leslie Mann (Meg), playing three other New York women who are navigating single life with varying degrees of contentment – and inevitable sexual misadventure.
“The film isn’t a romantic comedy, it’s more a street comedy,” she says enthusiastically. “I found it so easy to relate to it – and I think most people will, because our characters are all at different stages of their singledom, looking for relationships. So different people will relate to different characters.
“I’ve definitely had a Robin phase,” Brie adds, smiling – referring to Australian stand-up comedian and actor Rebel Wilson’s party-loving, sexually voracious character, Robin. “There are also those Alice moments of being in back-to-back relationships, or looking for what you need from men constantly – and having to get out of that mindset. So I think there’s a lot that both women and men will relate to.”
The film unapologetically focuses on its four lead actresses, with men occupying purely supporting roles. Alison is aware that it arrives in cinemas at a moment when gender equality issues in Hollywood are being debated.
“This movie is a great example, in that women are the main priority,” she says.
She makes the point that How To Be Single is unique for pairing Leslie Mann’s character Meg with a much younger man. But, of course, men are frequently linked onscreen with women decades their junior.
To put that in perspective, Maggie Gyllenhaal has revealed that at 37, she was informed she was “too old” to play the romantic interest of a 55-year-old actor. Meanwhile, Hollywood Golden Girls, Emma Stone and Jennifer Lawrence, both 25, have most recently played the romantic interests of Colin Firth (53), Christian Bale (42) Bradley Cooper (41) and Joaquin Phoenix (40).
“Men have significantly younger love interests in films pretty often,” the 33-year-old reflects. “I was recently told I was too old to play Jeff Bridges’ love interest, and I thought ‘how weird!’ So it is sort of strange.”
Age gaps aren’t the only trope that director Christina Ditter deliberately plays with. Subverting the usual themes of underserving men winning over accomplished women with pithy gestures, How To Be Single sees its women demanding more from their relationships: more equality, more effort and more, well, realism.
“That was my favourite thing about my character’s storyline,” nods Brie. “I really liked that the girl was like, ‘Not only am I not in love with you, but you’re not really in love with me. How silly would that be – we don’t even know each other?!’ It was kind of nice that another atypical relationship formed that’s deep but also silly – and grounded in a much more real way. It’s a nice, subversive ending. It’s not what you would expect.”
Brie is engaged to Scrubs and 21 Jump Street actor Dave Franco. She expresses concern over the recent trend for casual dating applications, suggesting that they cause us to objectify people.
“It inundates people with options, where you’re scrolling through saying ‘not good enough, not good enough’,” she observes, “where maybe if you met one of those people in a bar you’d have a spark with them.
“But on the flipside,” she muses, her optimistic nature shining through, “I don’t think it’s the total death of romance. I know people who have used Tinder and met someone that they are seriously dating – and are now madly in love with. Anything is possible!”
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How to Be Single is out in cinemas now.