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This summer, Alison Brie stars in Spin Me Round, a twisted, alfredo sauce-soaked rom-com she co-wrote with her friend and frequent collaborator, Jeff Baena. The film follows Brie as Amber, a manager at a fictional restaurant chain who flies out to Italy for a corporate retreat that goes disastrously, hilariously wrong. For their Eat, Pray, Love meets Taken send up, Brie and Baena tapped cast members from their nunsploitation flick The Little Hours, including Molly Shannon, who recently called up her co-star for a steamy chat about saunas, sad songs, and her real-life romance with husband Dave Franco.
ALISON BRIE: Hi Molly!
MOLLY SHANNON: You look so pretty!
BRIE: Thank you, so do you!
SHANNON: God, and your house looks so gorgeous too. So let me start by asking you—because I think of you as a very disciplined actress, very prepared—did you have breakfast today?
BRIE: [Laughs] I did. I have a little bit of applesauce before I work out. I literally had one of those pouches for babies. I squeezed it into my mouth, then I did a little workout. Did you have breakfast this morning?
SHANNON: I did. Well, I just went swimming before our interview.
BRIE: You love to swim.
SHANNON: I love to swim, and I listen to books on tape. I have waterproof headphones, so I read and swim.
BRIE: That’s cool.
SHANNON: But going to the movie, it was so fun shooting with you in Italy.
BRIE: It’s funny how different our trip was from the characters’ trips. It’s like we were all having the trip that the characters want to be having. And eating delicious food all the time.
SHANNON: It was so special. But what I want to ask you is, so you’ve collaborated now with Jeff Baena on so many movies now. Horse Girl, Spin Me Round, The Little Hours, and now writing, for the second time, a full screenplay. What is the difference between writing and acting for you?
Alison Brie is scheduled to appear on “The Late Late Show with James Corden” on Monday, August 22, 2022! Make sure you tune in on CBS to check out her interview.
From director Jeff Baena (The Little Hours, Joshy), the darkly twisted comedy Spin Me Round follows Amber (Alison Brie, who co-wrote the script with Baena), as she decides to go all-in on an all-expenses-paid trip to Florence, Italy for select managers of an American fast-casual restaurant chain to deepen their knowledge of the culinary arts and each other. While she thinks she’s going to be living the dream at a scenic villa surrounded by glamour and romance, Amber finds that the brochure was a less than accurate representation of an adventure that leads to an unexpected love triangle and a sense of danger that could play out in any number of ways.
During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, Brie talked about how her collaborative relationship with Baena originally started, her trust in him as a filmmaker, writing a full script for this project instead of just an outline, the story’s mix of tones, and the Amber/Kat (Aubrey Plaza) relationship dynamic. She also talked about her love for working on television, which show she’d love to be a guest on, and whether she’s considering directing a feature film.
Alison Brie still has no idea where those She-Hulk rumors came from. Or if they were remotely legit. But they were pervasive, to say the least.
“It was definitely odd. I went to pick up a sandwich at a sandwich shop and there was a man there who was like, ‘I just read that you got cast as She-Hulk,” Brie tells us in a new interview. “I was like, ‘Well, you’re the first one that’s told me about it. Maybe I should check with my agents.’”
This was back in early 2020, as unverified reports blazed across the internet that Marvel Studios was looking for an “Alison Brie-type” to play Jen Walters, the cousin of Bruce Banner who also transforms into a hulking green superhero, in their upcoming Disney+ series. (Emmy-winning Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany was eventually cast; Brie has said she was never approached about the part, casting heavy doubt on the validity of the report.)
“There’s a lot of misinformation going on,” she says. “But Tatiana Maslany is such a talented actress. I’m really looking forward to seeing what she does with it… She’s incredible. I loved Orphan Black. I watched every episode of that.”
Maslany would likely say the same thing about Brie, the 39-year-old actress who rose to fame with a supporting role on AMC’s hit period drama Mad Men and as one “The Gang” on NBC’s cultishly followed Community before hitting the wrestling mats in more recent years as the lead in Netflix’s series Glow.
In between that steady stream of 175-plus episodes of popular TV shows, Brie has appeared in films like The Lego Movie (2014), The Post (2017) and Promising Young Woman (2020). Her credits exhibit her versatility, but if attempting to decode what an “Alison Brie-type” means in Hollywood, the actress has certainly mastered the art of playing seemingly tightly wound women who are ultimately far more complex — and venturesome — than we thought.
If you managed to make it to 2010 without seeing the name “Alison Brie,” then it’s clear that you weren’t watching the right TV series. Between playing Pete Campbell’s wife, Trudy, on Mad Men and the start of her six seasons as Annie Edison on Community, Brie took TV by storm and became a regular fixture until the end of both shows in 2015, by which point she was already a year into voicing Diane Ngyuen on Netflix’s BoJack Horseman. Of course, during the run of that critically-acclaimed animated series, she started doing double Netflix duty, also starring as Ruth Wilder in G.L.O.W.
While in the midst of all of this small-screen work, however, Brie has also managed to carve out a consistently strong movie career, one which continues with Spin Me Round, which premieres today in theaters and on AMC+, and reunites her with writer/director Jeff Baena. During the course of her rapid-fire promotional junket for the film, Brie discussed her many collaborations with Baena both in front of and behind the camera, the comedic chemistry of Spin Me Round cast, coming to terms with the cancellation of G.L.O.W., and her continued hopes for that oft-discussed Community movie.
Decider: I had a chance to watch the movie last night, and I have to say that it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a comedy that kept me guessing so much for so long.
Alison Brie: I’m glad! I take that as a very high compliment.
It’s probably safe to say that Alison Brie likely gave husband Dave Franco a heads up about some very spicy moments in her latest movie.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, Brie, 39, opens up about her wild new comedy Spin Me Round. The film — which she also co-wrote alongside frequent collaborator Jeff Baena — sees Brie star as Amber, a woman whose company flies her out to an Italian immersion program. But the trip’s romantic and dreamy beginnings soon take a chaotic turn.
In the movie, out in theaters and available to stream on AMC+, the GLOW alum had to shoot a few steamy kissing scenes — including one with costar Aubrey Plaza, who is married to Baena, 45, and once shared an onscreen kiss with Franco, 37, in 2017’s The Little Hours.
“Dave and I usually do have some kind of conversation before any job, I think just to give the other person a heads up of sort of like, ‘Oh, I have some romantic scenes in this movie,'” Brie tells PEOPLE.
Last summer, Alison Brie took part in the most idyllic Italian getaway. Settled in the Tuscany region between the beautiful cities of Lucca and Pisa, she found herself surrounded by good people eating incredible food and drinking amazing wine at a time when the country was just starting to reopen. “It felt like our secret trip,” she shares on a Zoom call. “[We were] going to these places where we felt like we had it to ourselves.” It was the Italy trip the characters in her new romantic comedy/thriller, Spin Me Round, wished they were having.
The film, which had its world premiere at this year’s South by Southwest festival and hits theaters and AMC+ August 19, follows lowly Tuscan Grove restaurant manager Amber (Brie), who wins an all-expenses-paid trip to her company’s infamous “institute” outside of Florence. However, when she catches the eye of the chain’s handsome and charismatic owner, the vacation of her dreams takes a turn for the chaotic. Instead of exploring gorgeous Italian villas, indulging in local cuisine, and partaking in romantic sightseeing adventures, Amber, along with an unhinged group of franchise managers, finds herself put up in dingy, motel-like accommodations and spending most of her time indoors learning how to make the restaurant’s far-from-palatable dishes.
Like the title infers, Spin Me Round is a wild ride that manages to get more fun and dizzying with each turn. “We really love to take characters and put them in awkward or uncomfortable, very human situations and play out in real time the reality of how one might react in those situations,” Brie tells us of her creative process with co-writer Jeff Baena. Brie has worked with Baena on four projects now, including The Little Hours and Horse Girl, and the two have a proven track record of writing films that feel fresh and exciting in a sea full of adaptations and reboots. There’s an artistic freedom that comes with working together. They get to make the movies they want and go down some “strange roads” together.