Chelsea Peretti is a comedy legend, perhaps best known for playing Gina Linetti in Brooklyn Nine-Nine. She has also written and appeared in everything from beloved sitcoms like Parks and Recreation to sketch series like Kroll Show. Peretti wrote and stars in her newest project, the hilarious First Time Female Director, which also serves as her directorial debut. (Meta, right?) The film follows a woman named Sam (Peretti), who is tapped to direct her Southern melodrama at a small Glendale theater after her male predecessor is fired for inappropriate conduct. It’s a challenge made even more difficult by her eclectic, judgemental cast that includes everyone from a narcissistic social media star (Meg Stalter) to a scheming thespian trying to sabotage her at every turn (Benito Skinner).
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I got a chance to speak to Peretti about what it was like seeing her movie with an audience for the first time at the Tribeca Film Festival, the biggest lessons she learned throughout the process, what kind of projects she’d like to direct next, and more.

COLLIDER: This movie was so much fun to see with the crowd. I’m curious about what it was like for you to watch it with an audience. I’m sure it’s a little bit nerve-wracking in a different way than performing live since the product is now out of your hands.

CHELSEA PERETTI: It definitely is. Someone described it as an out-of-body experience, and I would agree. I’ve been saying it kind of felt like having a newborn and then just hundreds of people piling into the hospital. It was really intense. I try to always remind myself how lucky I am and try to enjoy things, but my brain is extremely active. I’m like, “Oh, I should have cut this” or “I should have blah blah blah,” you know. But no, it was just a real finish line and a really long journey. And to have everyone from every stage of my life there was really meaningful for me.

Image via Roku

Obviously, you’ve worked with a ton of directors. Is there anyone that you really enjoyed working with as an actor that you were like, “This is the kind of director I want to be”?

PERETTI: Yeah, Nicol Paone was really fun — she did Friendsgiving, which is a very silly movie. What I loved about her was she really just let me play around, and it made it so fun. I loved working with Stella Meghie on The Photograph. I think she’s so awesome, and I really was a fan of her films, and Numa Perrier, who is in my movie. I just saw her movie [The Perfect Find] last night. It was so amazing. Also, she did this web series called The Couple I did, and that was really fun, too.

I think, for me, the people that I love the most are people who respect the comedy brain and want to hear your ideas and stuff. You know, it’s funny. Speaking of directors is John Francis Daley, who did Game Night. I had a small role in Game Night because I was pregnant — I had auditioned for a larger role. But anyway, he was really fun, too. And then we became friends after that. In the pandemic, we were paired by someone who was like, “They’re being super cautious about COVID.” Anyway, I’m on a weird tangent, but yes, there are a lot of fun directors out there. I think Nicol Paone was fun for me because it was a great reminder to trust people’s instincts — the actors’ instincts, you know. And let them do their thing.

I think that definitely shines through. You can tell everyone is at the top of their game in this one. This is such a weird, specific question, but I love the statues in the rich donators’ house, and I would love to know how you worked with your production designer to choose those. The popsicle really tickled me.

PERETTI: That’s so cool. Rosie Sanders was our production designer. She worked with Tim Heidecker a lot, and she happened to be a mother at my preschool. So I met her that way, and I was like, “Would you ever want to do this?” And she’s like, “Yeah.” And the thing that is so amazing about her is she’s such an artist. She has a vision. And when I was talking about rich people, she was referencing some rich person’s house she had been in that had some kind of garish art. And it was just such a funny touch — they’re slumming it in their guest house, but they have some huge art pieces in there as well.

The juxtaposition is so funny.

PERETTI: Like a literal elephant in the room. [Laughs]

Literally! I don’t really want to spoil the ending, obviously, but I was sort of surprised by the note it ended on. I’m curious how you think your character feels at the end of it. Do you think that she is happy and fulfilled, or do you think it’s a darker ending?

PERETTI: I love this question. You know, initially, I was looking at really down-and-out kind of tax return places. You know, you drive by, and there was one that was electric lime green, and it’s the size of a shoebox, and it’s just like “taxes” on the front. But then when we were scouting the mansion venue and we saw that other space, I kind of fell in love with this sort of Mad Men fantasy that she’s put onto the world of finance to kind of convince herself that she is happy.

In this movie, I was trying to meditate on a lot of different things at the same time, but one of them was these people who are dedicating their lives to the arts for 10 years and then just have to drop out. People are like, “Whatever happened to this comedian?” And they work at Heinz Ketchup now or whatever, you know? They work in advertising or whatever it is, and how does that feel to let that dream go? And sometimes it’s the right thing to do. You don’t have what it takes. And I think, for me, yes, there is a darkness to it in the same way in that I ended my stand-up special with the whole audience asleep. I think there’s a desire in me to not succumb to the false glossiness of a lot of production that you see.

Image via Roku

I really love the inclusion of the audience Q&As because I feel like I’ve been to enough screenings that those can go really off the rails.

PERETTI: Yeah. [Laughs]

I’m curious if you have any particularly chaotic audience Q&A horror stories.

PERETTI: I mean, I don’t even know if I have a particular one in mind, but I do just think they’re really funny in general. And what everyone says is so up to interpretation and how things hit you. I mean, after my premiere, it’s like people say so much weird stuff to you. The other day, I had a fan run up to me, and she was like, “I’m shaking. I’m so excited to meet you and da da da da.” But like in the middle of this long monologue, she was like, “Gina Linetti was so annoying, and I fucking hate her, but then I loved your stand-up.” And I’m like, “Whoa, this is intense.” [Laughs] And I think people say weird shit all the time. So, in a Q&A, there’s no turning back. It’s like, it’s been said — you can’t unsay it. There’s something very high stakes about it. It’s not recorded. It’s not for later. It’s just everyone in a room together, and everyone heard what was said, you know?

Yeah, definitely. Speaking of Gina, of your characters, who do you think would make the best director?

PERETTI: Hm. I feel like Gina was a director in an episode or something. I remember wearing a beret or having a scarf on or something. I can’t remember the episode, but I do think Gina would make a good director possibly. I mean, she definitely is opinionated. You know, everyone would be in purple pants. I’m trying to think…I mean, Farley from Kroll Show — she would probably be a good director. I don’t know what she’d be directing. Probably reality TV.

In addition to directing, acting, and producing, you also wrote it. What was the thing that changed the most between the first draft and the finished product you shot with?

PERETTI: If you can believe it, I think there was another character that got cut. I’m pretty sure. Because Amy [Poehler] was always like, “I think you should lose some characters.” But yeah, it was pretty ambitious for a first movie to have such a large cast. There were so many drafts, and then, even in the edit, so many things changed. It’s kind of all a big old hodgepodge in my brain, but I do think the first one that comes to mind is there was even one more character in the cast that it was like, “All right — enough is enough.”

But it’s such an amazing cast and such great cameos. I am curious if there’s someone that you didn’t get a chance to work with on this project that you’re dying to work with in the future.

PERETTI: There is. I think there always is. And now that I feel like I caught this bug of wanting to make movies, I kind of keep a mental list in my head of people that I want to do something with in the future. But I can’t tell you because then someone else will get them.

Image via Fox

That’s so valid. That could jinx it. You just said that you’ve caught the directing bug — can you tease what you would want to do next? Or what your dream project is even if it’s not the next?

PERETTI: I think I probably want to do something with fewer characters. I’d like to do a two-hander with two women. I think that would be very fun. My ideas are ranging from really silly and light to really dark and creepy, so I don’t know at the moment, but I’m kind of putting a pause on everything for now until this strike is resolved.

My last question for you is what’s the biggest lesson that you learned from this movie that you would like to take to future projects as a director?

PERETTI: Well, we didn’t have the budget to storyboard. I very much will be storyboarding my next project. I’m very much looking forward to that process, and that’s probably one of my big takeaways. I loved my producers, and I think that’s also another takeaway — having seen people working with producers who didn’t foster their voice in the same way, I feel very fortunate that I had people who really empowered me behind me, like Amy and Deanna [Barillari], and I just felt very much like they believed in me. They believed I had the answers, which was an incredible, incredible resource to feel that way.

Roku has acquired the rights to First Time Female Director and is planning on a 2024 release date.