You all know Lake Bell right? The girl behind last year’s very excellent In A World or Nick’s unbelievably unattractive co-worker in New Girl? She’s also appeared in about a thousand other films and TV shows from How To Make It In America, to No Strings Attached to the hilarious Children’s Hospital. Now, she’s just about to hit the big time again in new film Million Dollar Arm alongside everyone’s favourite whiskey drinking man crush, Jon Hamm.
The film is based on the real life story of JB Bernstein, a down-on-his-luck sports agent who looks to India, and cricket, to find the next big pitcher in American baseball. Jon Hamm plays JB while Lake plays Jon’s sass-tass-tic next door neighbour Brenda. We caught up with Lake to chat filmmaking, how boring cricket is and the mobile phone game of choice for Jon Hamm.
The Debrief: Hi Lake. Your character in the film is called Brenda, and that’s cool because my mum’s called Brenda and she never thought it was very cool…
Lake Bell: Well the good news is that in this film Brenda is based on a real character and Brenda is an utter badass in this movie. She punches John Hamm in the proverbial gut to kind of snap him out of his selfish reverie. So Brenda’s a badass.
DB: I’ll tell my mum…
LB: For sure.
I’m not going to lie, I find cricket really boring and I know that’s not what this film is about, but do you understand the game after doing this movie?
No. I lived in London for four years, I also did not know a ding dong about it then and I still don’t know anything now.
It should just go on for an hour. Much more manageable…
I agree.
So what was it like working with John Hamm?
I’ve known him for many years, so this was cool that we could finally work together, but he’s actually kind of goofy and playful. I think from being on Mad Men he’s someone who knows how to drink a drink properly and has a cigarette occasionally. But that said, he plays Angry Birds or Candy Crush just like the rest of us. He’s very relatable and he is not the brooding cult figure that he represents in his Draper life.
I know you’re just coming off the back of your first film you directed, wrote and starred in [In A World] about a woman trying to make it in the voiceover world – do you think there's still a long way for women to go in Hollywood?
I think women are in a good position right now. As a filmmaker I would say there’s still a way to go, but in the independent filmmaking community, I do look around and see so many talented women that are making films abundantly and being very successful. But within the studio system there’s still a long way to go.
Why do you think this is?
I think it comes down to [the fact that] women have been successful for less time, so they are less inclined to just take on any blockbuster, or direct movies that may or may not fail. They’re a little more picky with what they choose, because if it does bomb, it’s a harder and much steeper hill to climb back up. Perhaps men are a little bit more forgiven in the industry.
What advice would you give someone who wanted to get into filmmaking?
I think in general, making content is easier now with the technology that’s available. You don’t have to be a millionaire to make a web series, for instance. Or even just a video or a sketch. For me, I’m just like, you need to start writing or collaborate with people who do write, and look for your community and look for your comrades who are likeminded and forge a community of people. It’s like, put yourself around people who are a step ahead, or on the same plateau as you. Get in a creative war room together and be bold enough to try to put some things forth.
Yeah, it’s so scary though isn’t it, though – knowing that you do have the possibility to do anything…
Oh it’s paralysing, but you do have a choice. You don’t have to think you’re going to win an Academy Award because you did one thing. I think you aim for goals that are attainable. With me, they were like, ‘You have this script, you should direct it.’ And I was like, ‘Hell no. I’m not going to direct a movie – an entire film without ever having directed anything? I don’t want to set myself up for failure like that.’ And then my agent said, ‘Well, then write a short film and direct that.’ And I decided that was something palatable, that was something I could do.
And that helped you move on to the full length film?
Yeah! I saved up and invested in myself. I was luckily enough to be able do that, because I had saved up some money from television. Then the short film went to Sundance and that’s just what happened. That was the beginning of my career as a filmmaker and it was absolutely invaluable, it changed my life. Because then I had a visual calling card for what I wanted to do and how I wanted to speak to the camera as an artist. So then I used that to find finance with my script In A World; to find finances for my film and everything just sort of went from there. But nothing will get done if you don’t do anything. It’s an obvious thing, but it’s a beautiful thing because it comes down to being easy if you allow it to be.
Million Dollar Arm is out on Friday 29th August
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.