'The Invite' screenwriters Rashida Jones & Will McCormack

Rashida Jones, and Will McCormick." They dated forced it in their 20s.

“It didn't work out, but what they found instead was one of the longest running creative partnerships”

in Hollywood.

Their first screenplay together, Celeste and Jesse Forever, from 2012, followed two people

who couldn't stay married, but also couldn't imagine life without each other. It's the kind of complicated relationships stories that they've returned to throughout their careers. Their latest screenplay is the invite, directed by Olivia Wilde, who also stars alongside Seth Rogan, Penelope Cruz, and Edward Norton.

The entire film unfolds in a single San Francisco apartment. Two couples gather for dinner, and as the evening unfolds, the stories they've been telling about their relationships and themselves fall apart. It was inspired by the 2020 Spanish film, Sentimental, The People Upstairs, by Cess Gay. In this scene, a couple who live upstairs, played by Cruz and Norton, have just arrived

at their host's apartment, played by Wilde and Rogan. "It took you a while to come to the door." "No, I want it." "And it sounded like you were arguing." "No, feel better."

"No, I just want to be honest. We were at the door before we rang, and we could hear you were fighting." "Oh, we were talking, we were, um, we were fighting." "We were fighting, yeah."

"We were a bit of a contentious environment, and here's what I understand if that's

repellent to you. No hard feelings. You know what I mean? Completely understand. You know, we love a contentious environment.

We love it." "Okay." "Well, really? It's fine." "You had the jackpot then, my friend."

As the evening goes on, awkward small talk turns into an unexpected invitation. Rashida Jones is an actor, writer, producer, and director. She won a Grammy for co-directing "The Documentary Quincy" about her father Quincy Jones, and recently earned an immunomination for her performance in Black Mirror. Wilma Kormick is an Academy Award-winning writer, director, and actor.

He won the Oscar for the animated short "If Anything Happens, I Love You." Wilma Kormick is with me in our Los Angeles studio, and Rashida Jones joins us from London and welcome both of you to Fresh Air. Thank you. Thank you so much, Tony, it's so great to be here with you.

All right, let's start with this first scene that I just played because there is a rule

that we all live by, and nobody ever says out loud if you hear a couple fighting through a door. You pretend you didn't hear it, and then this movie actually opens with that rule being broken. Take us inside of the writer's room when you decided that these four will start with

that rule being broken. Well, it's kind of the beauty of this match of these two very different duos, where you have a couple that is boiling over by the time their neighbors arrive, and then you have this couple who has decided to kind of take the honesty of life and turn it inwards into their own kind of fantasy and excitement.

So, you know, it's his theme stated they're coming in, they're going to perhaps bring a wrecking ball to this already fragile relationship, right from the start. Yeah, well.

“Yeah, I think Hawk sits the tone right from the jump, you know, tonight we're going”

to sing it like we feel it, and I think that there's something really refreshing about that to Joe as well, like it does make them comfortable, but I think that it's so unvarnished and it's so raw that it's actually intriguing. And this is a night where people will have to reveal some hard truths, and Edward gets the party started right away.

As I mentioned, earlier is inspired by this Spanish film that was under a different name, and will you actually came up with this idea of the invite being the title of the movie? And it has double almost triple meaning. Yeah, it felt like it worked in a lot of ways. It also just felt like classic, it felt sort of iconic, like the graduate, I just like

the sound of it. There's something horror like about it. Right. We talked about that a lot, which I think plays in well now with the tone and the propulsion of the movie.

Yeah.

“There will as a as a as an expert title creator just to say, it's really the only thing”

I excel at, it's titles, but it is, there's several different invites over the course of the evening, and those are fun to peel back where you think, oh my god, there's another invite. I didn't see that coming.

explosive entrance, but the evening is still getting started, Hawk, who was played by Edward

“Norton, and his partner, Pina, who was played by Penelope Cruz, they're admiring the”

apartment, and Hawk is complimenting the decor, he's walking around the living room, and it feels like harmless small talk, and then it turns into something else. We start to see beneath the surface of Angela and Joe's marriage played by Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogan. Let's listen.

You've really got some beautiful pieces. It's all Angela. Well, I know what I like, but it's actually not all expensive. Some of it is. Some of it is not.

Most of it is not. Not everything. But not everything.

I guess what I meant to say is you can tell that it's been done with a lot of care, and you

have a really great eye. That's true. I can feel it. I feel you put so much love. I did that. Thank you.

Yeah. I love it. I do love it. I really care. I do.

Thank you for saying that. See you. I care. I do care a lot. I don't know why.

I get emotional. I don't know why, but I thank you. Thank you. For saying that. Yeah, it has.

It's a great energy. We talked a lot about how to capture energy as though that was a real thing we could do. That was a scene from the invite written by my guest today, Rashida Jones, and Will McCormack, and Seth's character. It's interesting his responses, his quips.

He is a musician whose band had one hit years ago, and he's kind of still carrying this around, and what struck me is that it's such an ordinary kind of disappointment. Their lives actually look really great, you know, and from the outside, but there's this private grief over the person that they thought they'd become.

“Yeah, and I think Joe is defensive about this conversation about energy because he's uncomfortable”

because his energy is completely stuck. Yeah. His energy is for sure whack, but it's completely stuck, right? He's inert, and, you know, I think that being an adult is sort of like reconciling who you are with who you want to be, and it's great to have dreams, and sometimes dreams

don't control, but that doesn't mean you can't have another. That doesn't mean life goes on, right?

Like you don't always get that dream to come true, but you can pursue another and he's

just stuck, and it just becomes toxic. I love what you said, Tony, about private grief, because that is, it's like that this night is about exposing this very private grief that's like they haven't processed the pain, the death of their old selves, both with each other, and for themselves, and like they're forced to do it in this one-faithful night.

Are these the kind of conversations that you all are having as you're building out these characters and actually writing them, take us to this writing room where you're kind of delving into these deeper things? It's literally all we talk about, whether we're writing or not, it's all we talk about. So selfishly, it's great that we can channel the thing we're most interested in, which

is like relationships, living with other people, being parents, losing parents, being alive, getting older, being middle-aged, looking down, straight down the barrel of the back half of life, all these things we got to bring to this script. Angel Bexpert Esther Perrell consulted on this film, is there a particular note or assessment that she gave you?

That's your favorite, that's sort of stuck with you or deepened these characters? So many. I mean, I think the truest one for the theme of our movie is this idea that like when you've

“had such a difficult relationship that at a certain point you have to almost acknowledge”

that the relationship is over and then you can make this decision to start another relationship maybe with each other and maybe with somebody else. That to me is like the essence of her teaching and also the essence of this movie, which is like, it's about moving on, it's about letting go of a past and really accepting your future as you are as the other person is, as you want to be and maybe can be with that

acceptance. And I want to start at the beginning because there is the story that you all met in the late '90s because your sister will felt like that you two should be together at least go on a date. Tell me the story.

Yeah, Mary and my sister Mary McCormack, the greatest sister in actress, she was doing a film with Rashida and I think she told you Rashida, right?

She said soulmates. She said soulmates. She showed me some picture of you on a sports team from college. Definitely not college would be high school probably. Maybe high school.

You were with a bunch of people and some math that I care, but she was like, this is your soulmates. Wait, were you? And do it. Yeah, yeah, I was fully into it.

I was nearly out of a really bad relationship, but you can't even remember what sport it was. And you don't have to qualify it, okay? You were, I was like he's cute, he looks intense, which is fine, I'm intense. Scorpio.

Scorpio. Full Scorpio 5. Full Scorpio. Yeah. So you went on the date?

We went on a couple of days, right? Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty casual. It was like a lot of people, it wasn't like a foes like a 90's date when you were like

group dates. Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, we've known each other for so long, but we're like, we're really like brother and sister who dated briefly, which is not weird, but you know, no, we dated

“for a second, but I think we both knew right from the very beginning that we were connected”

and that we had to be in each other's lives and it took us a minute to sit down to

write, but finally we did, and I'm so glad we did.

Well, did you understand what your sister saw because that's pretty profound to identify that two people are soul mates, you know? Yeah. No, it's heavy. I mean, I think what she's right about, Will and I share a voice, so somewhere in the

ethers, there's like the two of us have the same clip, the same rhythm, and we're so different in so many ways, but we did like we just kind of like fit like puzzle pieces, conversationaly, very quickly, which is like, you know, a wonderful thing to have with a writing partner, like sometimes it's good in a romantic relationship, and sometimes it's not, but for writing, it is exactly what you're looking for in a partner, which

is like, we have a, you know, we have a voice separately, we write separately, we write together, we're in an open relationship as writers, very healthy open relationship, but when we come together, like there's a thing that happens, that's like, it's like the, it's like this expression becomes this sort of collective expression that's like just us two together make that thing happen.

“Yeah, and I think we always found the same things funny and the same things humor, that's”

where she was going at first, or you think? Yeah, I think so, and I think also the same things sort of broker hearts, and I think that we wanted to try to say something together, you know, the, the, the movies that appealed to us both, and there was a voice that we shared for, if they were getting, there was just an easy rapport.

Do you remember, when you all first found that spark, because really, you all be developed into writers together, you weren't writers before this, you were primarily performers. Yeah, that's summer. Yeah. That's summer, 2007?

Yeah, I, yeah, I wanted to be a writer of my entire life, and never quite had the courage

to sit down and write, and I was always sort of judging myself, and when I sat down to write, I was writing like other people, and often when I sat down to write, I would write about wanting to be a writer. You know, I just didn't feel like I had the confidence, and it wasn't till I met Rashida that I could really hear the sound of my own voice, and, you know, she gave me the courage

and the confidence to actually become a professional screenwriter, which is what I always wanted to be. When I was younger, I was an actor, and it, it came easily to me, and that's something to say, it was any good, but I just had a lot of emotion, and they came easily to me, and I got a couple jobs, and, and that was my entrance into the business, but I had always

sort of wanted to write, and it wasn't until, you know, I sat down with Rashida that I felt like, oh, this could actually happen.

Your first film is a Celeste and Jesse forever, 2012, and Rashida, you start opposite Andy

“Sandberg, and will you play skills with a Z at the end, a weed dealer, with the wisdom?”

And it's about a couple whose marriage is over, but the friendship won't die, and I'm curious, once you had to speak words, you'd written yourselves, did you discover things that you didn't hear on the page, because that's an interesting thing to write something, and then to see it turn into something with actors, but then you all being the actors who had to say the words, what was that experience like?

Well, we act while we're writing, but that's how we, that's our discovery process of dialogue,

So, so often we act out the scenes, and if it's not working, it doesn't feel right, especially

“if it's something we're going to say on screen, that's easy to fix, you know?”

Yeah, we get it allowed pretty quickly, and that's been helpful, and, you know, having been an actor prior to being a writer, we both read thousands of screenplays, and sometimes you feel like, oh my gosh, is anyone ever said this out loud? So, you know, being actors, we get it out loud as soon as possible. I actually want to play a clip from Celeste and Jesse forever, and I wanted to choose one

with you, both of you in it, but will the two of you all spend most of your time getting high together, is something you've got to watch, you know, from the movie, and not listen to. So, in the scene, Celeste and Jesse are still trying to figure out whether their marriage is really over, and Jesse has begun dating someone else who is now pregnant. And this big

fight that they have that we're about to hear, it happens after Jesse has come to see Celeste the night before, after they've broken up, and they're talking about giving their relationship another try, and she asked him a simple question, let's listen. Why'd you come over, let's say, I don't know.

“I think you do know. It was a mistake, okay, I shouldn't have come.”

You're f***ing coward, I'm having a baby. I need to figure out a way to make it work with Veronica, okay, I'm trying to change. Why did you change for me? I don't think you really wanted me to. Wow, wow, all I did was wait for you to grow up, I ruined it for you, I paid for everything,

I did everything for you.

Yeah, and I was never your equal, and you know what, I think you preferred it that way.

Wait, I know that my success was never okay for you. What do you want? I want you to admit that you're wrong, wrong about what? What did you expect me to do, sit around and wait for you to meet someone first, is that how you saw it happening?

Look, I didn't expect to meet someone so fast, but I did, and now I have a real chance of being happy, I don't want to blow that. Well, you know what, Jesse, you definitely will blow it. Wow, you know, I feel sorry for you. You might actually be alone your whole life.

Don't ever call me. Yeah, don't worry about it. Oh, that was a clip from Celeste, Jesse. Oh my goodness, what was going on? We definitely know how to sing 'em, ha, dude.

Well, you said you all were just recently talking about this scene. Yeah, because we're writing another breath break, I've just, I got emotional listening that you were so unique and you were so incredible. I remember I could hear the knot coming down your face and that clip and it, it's just so raw, it's just such a raw performance.

I remember writing that scene with you and your couch and that fight really did just come as like a column of thought. It was like a song came out and we wrote it and it all, it was like one take of writing. But God, it's really hard. It's the timing of that relationship of Celeste and Jesse is pretty heartbreaking and, you

know, the movie sort of posits like, do you want to be right or do you want to be happy and that they're in that, they're in that fight that every couple has where they're saying

that really hard things that they've never said before and it's, oh man, that's, you're

just, you're great in that scene. I almost fainted while filming that, I remember I was just a close, I've never come to fainting, yeah, because I was just like panting, I was so, I was so emotional, I had to take like a break and sit down for a second, so if it felt very real to me, I guess

“that's what acting is, but yeah, it's funny actually, listening to that, it also feels”

very much will like the things you do in your 30s and this, you know, because this movie was really about that first big heart heartache when you are with somebody and you kind of see your whole life together as adults because, you know, like there's that move from like, oh, we're dating, we're having fun and we're young to like, okay, I'm gonna commit to being with this person forever, I'm gonna, I'm gonna look very deep into the future

and see myself with this person, which is a big step in one's life and, and this, these kind

of giant declarations like you're gonna be alone forever, you're never gonna find anybody,

you didn't change for me, you're not gonna be happy, you're gonna blow it like, wow, like, those things are so meaningful when you're in your like early 30s and you're just trying to figure out who you are and you're trying to just stay where you are and like be committed to the

the writing team behind the new film The Invite. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tonya Mosley and this is Fresh Air.

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check out NPR+. Find out more and support the shows you love at plus.npr.org. This is Fresh Air, I'm Tonya Mosley and my guests today are writers and performers Rashida Jones and Will McCormick. They've been creative writing partners for more than two decades. A partnership that began with a failed date, and turned into the screenplays for Celeste and Jesse Forever, and now the invite,

directed by Olivia Wilde, and starring Wilde, Seth Rogan, Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton. It's a comedy about two couples and one dinner party that unravels everything. Jones is also an actor, producer, and director. She won a Grammy for co-directing Quincy about her father Quincy Jones and was nominated for an Emmy for her performance in Black Mirror. McCormick won an Academy Award for his animated short film. If anything happens, I love you.

When we left off, we were talking about how Will and Rashida are drawn to writing about heartbreak and loss. As writers, I noticed that you all gravitate towards, I don't know if I call it an emotional traffic jam or that moment, that moment of clarity. It's the hard moment. It's the part that we all know. It's inevitable that we experience, but why do you want to live there

as writers? It almost feels like that's the thing you always are going towards.

Always. We are always there, aren't we?

“I don't mean to sound morbid. I don't mean it that way, but life is really just a series of losses.”

It's one loss and one heartbreak after another. When you're little summer ends and you don't want to end and then you get your heartbroken and then you have kids and they're going to break your heart and then your parents die and then you start to lose bone density and then you start it's like, but I say that because I really believe that those are the gifts, right, of being human because it's in those moments where we feel the most vulnerable, the most alive. Those moments

can actually be the funniest because they're so raw and it's when we feel connected. Like heartbreak is the thing that binds us. Like no matter who you are or no matter where you are or no matter how old you are. Like you're going to go through heartache and when you do you feel less alone, you feel more connected because that is the thing. It's like the great connector. It's it and you know

“for better or for worse and for the most part in my work and in our work together I've been”

able to dig into those moments because I find it hard for me personally to live life without stories that help me get through those moments. I find it actually impossible. Like I need music, I need poetry, I need films to help me get through those moments because they're really really hard and to be able to dig into some of those moments with Rashida has just been such a gift and you know I don't I don't I don't take that for granted. We will do that for living. I also think

that we will and I like the dissonance of the inevitability of loss and heartbreak and letting go, budding up against the need like the survival skill of waking up every morning and believing in the best of people and believing that things are going to be okay and believing that you know your dreams can come true that like this life that you want to build can come true and then you know being crushed by by realities in circumstance and random things and then the things

that are just built into being alive like losing people and your your kids you know like letting go of your kids from the minute they're born like there's something so interesting to us about this inherent distance of being alive and there's something really funny about it for us and

we are never above a laugh there's nothing that's a grave enough for us not to laugh about because

“that's how we release that's how we process our pain is like we laugh we laugh through death and”

sickness and and and sadness and like I I believe that that's like that is the medicine that's the thing that brings us together we have to do that well when did you realize that um living in that space in the uncoffitable space the inevitable grief and pain that we feel is where you where you like to be where you want to explore you know it's it's it's something that I've been able to trace through you know the projects that I've worked on but you know um that space of

heartbreak is a place that I always go back to and a place that I'm always trying to examine

and that I'm always trying to wrestle with because you know creatively it feels like the most interesting to me like the thing that I'm most scared of which is getting my heart broken which happens over and over and over again just as a human being and actually is the thing that I want to write about but it's also the thing most people want to avoid which is why I'm interested in and why you want to you keep returning there and I say that because I mean you also you made this

beautiful 12 minute animated film called if anything happens I love you it won an Academy Award congratulations and you decided you wanted to write about this along with your writing partner after you became a father it's about a school shooting it's the thing that parents most parents don't even want to think of will turn off the television if something comes on about an event happening in real life you know yeah my friend Michael Govey and I made it anything happens

I love you and you know school shootings have they're just had become their quotidian and they're just part of everyday life and I just was not okay with that you know and my wife was pregnant

with our first son Sonny and I really wanted to try to write about something that I was terrified

of you know it's and when when when when she was pregnant with Sonny it all just became a lot realer like it was it's unfathomable to me that you could send your child to school which should be a place of safety and learning and peace and and have them not come home like it just didn't I couldn't do the math on that how does that how does that happen and how does that happen so frequently but I wanted to dive into that because I thought this is what I'm

“terrified of and I have to face it and the truth is you know we took that movie all over town”

and everyone said oh it's beautiful it's just really sad and no one's gonna want to watch that because it's so sad and of course they were wrong billions of people on Netflix have seen and aliens it became a worldwide phenomenon and because people do actually want to fill those feelings it is cathartic and kids were getting shot in schools and no one's doing anything so it was just a really great moment of just believing in a story that you feel like you have to tell and telling it

take me to the the building of the idea you went out and talked with with real people yeah you know you don't want to get that movie wrong because it's so sensitive and so nuanced and so fragile that we did talk to a lot of parents who have lost kids to gun violence and we partnered with every time for gun safety and this script is only told page is long and it took us a year to write because we wanted to be super scrupulous and thorough and festidious and thoughtful

about how this story was portrayed. Rashida before we started taping will and I were talking about this as it relates to anticipatory grief because I mean to me this is what it also sounds like often will you're making yourself feel the thing because you anticipate that at some point you're going to feel it you know and I'm curious for you Rashida is this a feeling that you also are moving towards do you see it in that way as well definitely I've I've actually just today I was meditating on this

“realka quote be ahead of all parting and I think it does feel like our jobs whether”

or not we really want to admit it whether or not we want to face it whether or not we want to turn

that because it feels like as somebody who has lost both my parents and you know will continue to lose people and one day it'll be me it feels like there's a great opportunity to prepare for that and to and to find joy within that and not to just fear it and and wish it away because that's not

“going to do anything and I think you know when I made the documentary about my dad while we were filming”

you know we filmed but I filmed for six years and this second the second to last year filming

he went into a diabetic coma and we stopped filming and luckily my brother filmed a little bit in the hospital because we were going to kind of show him what he had been through if and when he came out and we were so lucky he did come out at 82 and you know decided to stop drinking on his own because he's that kind of he was that kind of beast but he you know having that moment where he was that close to death and and then deciding to to put that in the film and show him

overcoming that I think was my my way of sort of preparing for the inevitable you know and I was so lucky to have him for another nine years after that but ultimately you know I knew what was coming

and and you know and it was really a love letter to my dad but also a way to kind of like

hopefully reach out to other people and say listen we're all going to go through this and and we want to be honest about what it's like for our family to to come to the other side of this I was wondering about you witnessing him and how that impacts your your collaborations particularly with will and other people because I mean your dad is kind of the master collaborator with Michael Jackson Frank Sinatra read the franklamian I can't even list all of the people that he's

worked with they're all such different people and talents and personalities and proclivities and different things like that how much did growing up around him shape the way you kind of think about

making things and collaborating with people well I can't even imagine doing it another way

because of him probably I I love collaboration I love collaborating with will it feels so good to be able to celebrate something with somebody you love and and somebody that you you know you've kind of worked hard together to make this thing so it's it is just feels like it was in my bones

“from from a very early age and you know I think his his warmth like he knows how to make bring”

the best out of people because he was warm like there's a great clip that from we are the world which is in that documentary the greatest night in pop we're we're Bob Dylan looks a little like shell shocked at being there because I don't I think he probably works a lot on his own and doesn't collaborate very often and all of a sudden he's in a room with all these bright shining stars yeah having to be in a chorus of people he just looks like what the hell

am I doing here and my dad kind of comes up to him and makes him feel really good about his vocal performance he's like oh you're great man you sound great sound great it's just so lovely to see that because that's who he was he was so warm and he made people he pushed people to be their best selves but he did it with love you know and and he worked with some of the biggest stars in the world and when they were in that room like regardless of you know what happens

before and after that when they're in that room their partners they're working together to make something great my guests today are Rashida Jones and Wilma Cormic the writing team behind the new film the invite we'll be right back after a short break this is fresh air

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invite a comedy about two couples and one dinner party that goes places nobody expected

“it's directed by Olivia Wilde and stars Wilde Seth Rogan Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton”

we spend a lot of time talking about you guys this partnership and I just want to diverge into your lives your careers individually just for a moment Rashida is something that I'm very interested in what a fascinating life you've lived so far I want to know particularly about this moment when you're in college at Harvard University you're planning to become a lawyer is that right that was kind of your trajectory yeah yeah I was rebelling from my my Hollywood upbringing you know

everybody has to rebel that was my form of rebellion but then it was the OJ Simpson trial

that turned you around that said no wait a minute maybe laws not it for me what was it about that case in particular that made you rethink this you know it's funny because now now looking back I think at the time I had a very kind of black and white no pun intended vision of justice you know

“and and I think that's what attracted me to law was like oh there's there's a right there's a wrong”

that's it and now kind of with distance and understanding and like you know great pieces like as her Edelman's made in America and and time it was that trial that moment was such a complicated moment and I think you know I had this thing where I was like I was living in a predominantly black dorm and we were all watched the verdict together and you know half the people were cheering and half the people were just kind of like perplexed and I was like summer in the middle where I was like

is this a win question mark you know like is this a win and is this a guy that deserves the win and I guess maybe in a weird way that's when I sort of decided that I'm more interested in culture and at the time I didn't know it was going to be a writer but I think culture and politics and justice and and art all kind of line up for me constantly like I can't avoid it that it

“that does feel like the pattern of my life and I think going into law is stopping interesting”

to me because it didn't feel like it was really about justice it felt like it was about maybe more a more complex thing than that you know especially like defense layers who are you against something and they believe very strongly and I think maybe the heartbreak of that would have been too much for me it's so interesting to think about your yeah I'm thinking about your young self thinking very much in black and white right and wrong because it seems like when I look

at the stories from that time that you talk about about yourself that you are really kind of reaching out to the world I'm thinking in particular about this letter it maybe it happened a few years before when you also wrote the rapper Tupac who had criticized your father in the source for his marriages to white women and you said down and typed this guy an open letter defending your family and you mailed it in and then I you know it became a whole thing and you he became

like family to you but the fact that you saw what you thought was wrong and said I want to make this right and I'm going to assert myself when you look back at your 17 year old self making that decision what do you see so percosious my god so you know I mean I was I was I did feel very protective and and furious but you know it's a great lesson because that letter led to us meeting and finding things in common and he was a member of our family and

such a bright dynamic interesting talented fascinating guy you know and I got I had a chance in college that I wrote that letter in high school but when we were family and and friendly I interviewed him for a paper I didn't college and we had a really long great conversation about culture and his life and history and American history and yeah what an opportunity like I guess if

I hadn't been so straightened about my you know beliefs I would have never met him and we would have

never had that moment to be able to see what we had in common so in that way it's good but like yeah my my understanding of gray has only expanded as I get older and my and I've really tried to

wrong in that way people are very complicated and interesting and and worth listening to

if you're just joining us my guest star Rashida Jones and Wil McCormack together they wrote the new film the invite which was directed by Olivia Wilde and stars Wilde Seth Rogan Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton it's in theaters now we'll be right back after a break this is fresh air on this season of planet money summer school we follow the money and not just the dollars we're following the yuan the naira the crona and more every Wednesday this summer we're taking you on a

world tour to meet the people trying new solutions to old economic problems planet money summer school perhaps in friends pack your bags and don't forget the sunscreen listen on the NPRF or wherever you get your podcasts okay so you're driving to work or you're on a walk or you're at the gym or whatever and you just need to clear your head that's the perfect time to hit the play button on NPR's all songs considered it's not the news it's not work or whatever else is weighing you down

it's just a good time with good friends and great tunes listen to all songs considered every Tuesday in the NPR music podcast this is fresh air and today I am talking with Rashida Jones and Wil McCormack writing partners for more than two decades and the team behind the new film the invite will your becoming started in New Jersey your parents raised a West Wing star your older sister Mary a former chief justice your sister Bridget who let the Michigan Supreme Court and then you

an Oscar winner what was expected of you kids growing up this is what a family you know oh my gosh yeah you know I've been thinking so much about my parents recently

“who are both gone and I miss them so much every day but you know I think what they did with us was”

they really let us be us and I think that you know my dad never ended up doing what he wanted to do

in life and I think that for his kids the thing that he wanted to instill in us was that he would be most proud of us if we did what we wanted to do in life and that's my earliest memory he said if you love it and if you believe it do it and you know being the youngest and having to older sisters I really idolize them they were smart and funny and beautiful and they were my heroine so you know they were just heroes in my life and I do remember being a kid and thinking oh no

maybe I'm the runs of the litter here got a lot to live up to yeah but then I got my act together you know the sobriety's a big part of my story too I've been sober for 19 years and when I became sober I really started to write like I drank with like reckless abandon and I

“I really wanted to make a mark in my world but I think I felt a pressure from a young age to to”

make it too and I felt like I was sort of in the shadows of my sisters and but I really remember my parents saying you know we will be happiest if you do what you love what you want to do and I'm so glad that I found storytelling I fell madly in love with storytelling when I was in college I worked at a movie theater and I saw thousands of movies and it did plays and I took Shakespeare and I thought oh this is a way for me to be in the world you're dead what did you do you know

what he wanted to be you know it's interesting my dad was so funny he was my dad was the funny his person I've ever met and he was so sharp he's a hoya he went to Georgetown and then he was he worked for General Motors and then he had a couple small businesses I don't know I I really think

he would have been like an incredible educator he would have been an incredible professor he

it's so much charisma my dad and he was so funny and so sharp that he was so magnanimous you know and people just gravitated towards him so I he mentioned a couple times

“that he would have liked to have been a teacher but I think the thing that he was proud of us”

most proud of was being a father and he did as well as one could do it I think maybe one thing I just want to know before we go what are the parts of you that only it can exist together you know that you make that only you can make together because you have so many things that you also have done apart you know hmm that's a great question it is a great question I mean I really will is like my closest chosen family in a way and

we really like it's almost like oh I don't want to get emotional but I I feel like will and I see

kid in each other because some we're both very hard on ourselves and I think both being like the

young guest with their assisting it's like we do it we do it we do it we deserve to all the love

“they respect like do people love us yet um and we I think we quell that in each other like we”

sort of like very kind of gently love and respect to each other and and give each other the benefit of the doubt that we might not give ourselves um and then I think born of that is this sort of like thing that lives in you know in the intersection between pain and humor and maybe hopefully

something divine like hopefully we leave some room as my dad always said for God to walk in

the door because that's really our job ultimately as to channel and so hopefully there's something

“about us coming together that allows that to happen oh I get emotionally there but what she said”

yeah what she said well this has been such a pleasure I really enjoyed the invite and just reviewing all of your work and seeing the through lines um thank you both so much thanks Tanya thanks Tanya Rashida Jones and Will McCormack wrote the screenplay for the new film The Invite it's in theaters now tomorrow on fresh air the story of a Cuban immigrant who showed up for routine immigration check-in last October and left in handcuffs bound for a tent camp in Fort Bliss

now the largest immigration detention center in the country we talk with New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer about life inside camp east Montana I hope you can join us to keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews follow us on Instagram at NPR fresh air you can also catch some of our interviews on YouTube at this is fresh air. Fresh air is executive producer is Sam Briger our technical director in engineer is Audrey Bentham our engineer today is Adam

Stanachewski our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Philis Myers and Marie Boldenado Lauren Crimson Theresa Madden Monique Nazareth they a challenger Susan Yacundee and Abalman and Nico Gonzalez-Wisler our digital media producer is Molly C.B. Nesper Roberta Sharak directs the show with Terry Gross I'm Tanya Mosley on NPR's wildcard podcast writer Terry Tempest Williams on what it means to be a woman with a big

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