From writer-director, Nicole Holofcener, A24’s comedy drama You Hurt My Feelings is, like Holofcener’s previous work, a study in human connections and emotions. It stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tobias Menzies as the film’s main focus, and Succession’s Arian Moayed and Michaela Watkins as the sister and brother-in-law whose quiet troubles reflect their family’s. While promoting the movie for its Memorial Day weekend release, Collider’s Steve Weintraub spoke with Moayed and Watkins about relating to their characters and filming on location in New York City.

You Hurt My Feelings zeroes in on married couple, Beth (Louis-Dreyfus) and Don (Menzies), and their happy-go-lucky companionship in NYC. Beth, a writer, is understandably anxious about the success of her memoir, while Don, a shrink, is worrying about aging, and subsequently losing touch with his patients. Watkins plays Beth’s interior designing sister, Sarah, whose husband, Mark (Moayed) is an actor, and their relationships in the film all coincide around bumps in the road, telling white lies in order to placate your significant other, and whether truth really equates to love. The movie also features David Cross, Amber Tamblyn, Owen Teague, and Jeannie Berlin.
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While discussing the movie with Collider, which you can watch or read below, Moayed and Watkins could easily find common ground with their characters. “Being an artist is just full of [insecurities],” Moayed admits, though the duo muse that this may not necessarily be a bad thing. They talk about the characters’ relationships and the future they see for them after the credits roll, as well as what it’s like filming on the streets of New York City, and “the insight and the nuance of characters” in Holofcener’s scripts.

COLLIDER: I’m a fan of both of your work, but there’s going to be people out there that have never seen it. So, if someone has never seen anything you’ve done before, what is the thing you want them starting with and why?

MICHAELA WATKINS: Oh, that’s a great question. Start with, I guess, Casual. I don’t know if that’s a great indicator of what I do because I did kind of come into this business as a comedian, but I love that show, and I think that is a great show. So I think if you’re gonna introduce yourself to my work, yeah, start with some great writing and a great cast and great directors. It’s all indie film directors on Casual, starting with Jason Reitman who produced it. I think it’s a great show because it sort of centers a brother, sister, but the sister is in her forties, and with real women problems, not bullcrap women problems [laughs], and it’s very honest, and I’m very proud of that show. I don’t know what to say, it’s four seasons of fun. What would you go with?

ARIAN MOAYED: I mean, I guess I would go with Succession. [Laughs]

WATKINS: Obviously!

MOAYED: Yeah, Succession or Inventing Anna. I mean, in seventh grade I did– No, I’m kidding! And there’s a VHS of it floating, you gotta find it. It was called Give My Regards to Broadway. It was a review.

WATKINS: I was in a chorus in The Music Man.

Image via A24

Arian, I have a question for you. How hard was it for you to get inside the role of an insecure actor?

MOAYED: Very easy. Super, duper, duper, fast. Quick. I mean, to be honest, being an artist is just full of [insecurities]. I don’t care who you are. Like, I’ve had the great privilege of working with Robin Williams, and I saw his insecurities. Everyone’s got it because we’re always trying to strive to be better, no matter where you are. And so, along the way, as good as you might think it’s going, you’re like, “Oh, wow. Wow, I really sound like that. Wow.” I was just saying that I’m in a play right now, A Doll’s House, and sometimes in the middle of the show, I’m like, “Well, everyone realizes that I’m a fraud.” So it never ends, that feeling never ends.

WATKINS: God, isn’t that something?

MOAYED: So, so crazy. Isn’t that nuts?

WATKINS: I come from improv and sketch comedy, as well as theater background, and I was doing a show recently, and I had to be backstage because it’s been a while and I was afraid I was gonna go out there and really just, you know, crap the bed. And I remembered, “Oh, I know how to do this,” like, “I’ve put in my 30,000 hours,” or whatever they say, “I can do this.” But I’m like, how is it that I’ve been doing it this long, and I still have to put myself up to go on stage, you know?

I find it so fascinating. I’ve spoken to so many actors, and I find it fascinating that no matter how high up on the food chain, you’re always thinking about it. But maybe that’s what keeps you–

MOAYED: That’s what I think it is, actually. I think it’s a real hunger for trying to get better, you know what I mean? And the older you get, more vulnerabilities are put out there, and more insecurities can be tapped.

WATKINS: Yeah, it’s almost like if it stops being scary, are we done?

So, I’m a huge fan of Nicole’s work, it’s unbelievable how she is able to portray these real relationships, so honest and complicated, and I’m just curious, what it’s like reading that on the page for the first time?

WATKINS: I mean, I get tickled, like, genuinely tickled. Because it’s, like, the insight and the nuance of characters, relationships between characters, her observations, you can tell Nicole is sort of– who is that guy on 60 Minutes who was always like, “You know what I don’t like?” Andy Rooney! I feel like that’s a character in Nicole’s brain [laughs]. There’s all these tiny, tiny, tiny little observations that she makes about her film where I’m like, “It’s so true! I never throw out my underwear,” because there’s a line where I say, “He even throws out his underwear,” and she’s like, “You don’t?” And I was like, it’s true, if I spent a pretty penny on a pair of underwear, I don’t care if it’s 40 years old, I still move it from house to house, apartment to apartment, never wearing it, but I was like, “That was expensive, I should probably keep it.”

MOAYED: “Hold on to that one!”

Image via A24

One of the things about this film is that you’re filming in New York City, and I’m curious, what is it actually like filming in New York City? Has the city reached the point where they no longer care when you’re walking by with a camera?

MOAYED: Totally, 100%. We were shooting outside of Paragon and some gentleman, who was wearing a mask at the time– The PA is like, “Please, can you move out of this shot because this won’t work?” And the guy said, “Move to a studio!” [Laughs]

WATKINS: I was impressed he knew what a studio was.

MOAYED: Yeah, exactly. And then we’re like, “Okay, well, New York, here we go, baby.” I mean, that’s the beauty of shooting in New York, on location in New York is just the most exciting, dangerous, insane– especially if you have no money, then it’s really like, “Good luck out there!” It’s just a fun experiment.

WATKINS: A walk-and-talk where you’re stepping over dog poop, you know, and people are just giving you the finger.

Yeah, that must be nice. I definitely want to know, for each of you, what do you think happens to Beth and Don?

WATKINS: I think they get superpowers and then take over the world. They’re sort of like a Mr. and Mrs. Smith kind of thing.

MOAYED: Yeah, that’s exactly what’s gonna happen next. We don’t want to spoil it, but that’s You Hurt My Feelings 2.

WATKINS: Quite honestly, I think they work through something. If I were to guess, it’s a fight that’s gonna resurface probably two or three times, and it’s gonna escalate because it’s always gonna be like, “Well, except for that time that you lied about– Are you lying to me now about my hair like you did about my book?” I bet that’s gonna happen.

MOAYED: But amazingly, I think, actually, both of the couples are really great models of what a good relationship could look like because I think that will happen, but I don’t think that they will break because of that. I think they will keep pushing forward, and I think that’s what’s so magical about both of the couples.

WATKINS: I think there’s a lot of love between the couples in this movie. A lot of love here, a lot of love there, and a lot of love between the sisters and the brother-in-laws, which is very sweet, and the the kiddo, and our mother, despite her fuzziness. There’s a lot of love in this movie, even though everybody seems to be quite pissed all the time [laughs].

Image via A24

I think one of the things is that all the people in the movie communicate very well, and unfortunately some relationships are not like that, but communication is the key to everything. So Michaela, what is it like reading in the script that you’re going to do a walk-and-talk and also have to eat ice cream? Because with the ice cream, you know that’s not one take.

WATKINS: Yeah, that’s great, I have no problems with eating lots of ice cream if that’s your question [laughs]. I was a little bloated later, I am lactose intolerant, but I didn’t care. Then Nicole would come in and be like, “Are they just gonna throw it out?” And then she would take a big mouth and just shove my ice cream cone into her mouth during COVID. It was great.

You Hurt My Feelings is in theaters on May 26. Check out Collider’s previous interview with Moayed where he discusses Succession, A Doll’s House, and more, below.