EXCLUSIVE: It’s a decided turn for Molly Shannon who portrays a mother stricken with cancer in this semi-autobiographical film from Saturday Night Live veteran and head writer Chris Kelly. Other People, from Vertical Entertainment, follows a struggling comedy writer, fresh from breaking up with his boyfriend portrayed by Jesse Plemons (Black Mass), who moves to Sacramento to help his mother. Living with a conservative family, he feels out of place in his own home. Bradley Whitford also stars as does Jane Squibb (Nebraska).
Kelly said that he wanted an actors who could also play funny in a story that is largely based on his life going through a nine-month roller coaster as his mother died of cancer. “It felt like an absolute hell where I laughed every day,” he said. “It was sad one moment, then funny the next, then so so so so so lonely, then hilarious again. It was like that for almost nine months. And that’s why I wanted to cast this film with people who were not just great actors, but who were funny, too. People who could capture the tedious or small or absurd moments of dying that six years later I remember way more clearly than the ‘bigger’ ones.” The film marks Kelly’s directorial debut. It gets a theatrical release on Sept. 9.
The picture is a production of Park Pictures and Gettin’ Rad Productions. It is produced by Adam and Naomi Scott, Sam Bisbee.
