Opening on a failed suicide attempt, you’d never expect to dovetail into a charming and winding meet-cute over the course of a Christmas Eve. Yet that’s exactly what the Jay Duplass-directed The Baltimorons does in this utterly lovely holiday romcom.
Cliff (Michael Strassner), fresh from attempting suicide, cracks his tooth on Christmas Eve. Newly sober, ousted from his improv troupe, and fighting tensions with his fiancé, Cliff makes the trek to an emergency dentist to get it fixed. His dentist, Didi (Liz Larsen), is fighting similar holiday blues as a complicated relationship with her family has her drifting through the motions. Through a series of very silly events, the pair find themselves repeatedly stuck together into the night, and, as these things are wont to do, the younger Cliff and slightly older Didi develop feelings for one another.
Drawing from star and co-writer Strassner’s real life, the film threads a delicate balance between painful and funny, landing somewhere in a sweet spot that feels so familiar if you’ve ever fought depression. Strassner and Larsen’s delightful chemistry is apparent from the second they meet. A light-on-their-feet screwball energy permeates the air, and watching them catch feelings amidst a chilly, festive backdrop is enough to warm the hearts of even the most miserable of souls. That an impromptu improv performance at a comedy club houses one of the most romantic scenes of the year is The Baltimorons in a nutshell.
As The Baltimorons hits theaters, I sat down with Duplass, Strassner, and Larsen. As soon as you get them talking, you instantly understand what drew the former to the project and the two stars to each other. They’re as buoyant a trio as you’ll ever meet and have a habit of finishing each other’s sentences. Larsen even made all four of us cry at one point in the conversation. Speaking with them is like living inside their lovely film, which made for one of the best 4DX experiences I’ve ever had.
Brandon Streussnig: The movie opens with a traumatic moment, but moves on in a way that feels so honest yet funny. I’ve known people who have attempted suicide, and when you see them either before or after, you’d never know it. Can you talk about your approach to portraying depression and suicide?
Michael Strassner: That opening is my life. That’s how it got me sober, you know? Three nights before, I was on stage doing a show. I think it’s important to show mental health in movies now, and in a light that also has a lot of comedy with it, because I feel like that’s what saved my life, too. I can laugh about such a terrible event, but I had to get through it to actually be able to laugh. I’m so grateful that the belt snapped or broke because I was holding a little bit of holiday weight. I still am holding the holiday weight, but it was a super powerful way to open the movie, and it was Jay’s idea. I think it also puts people at ease when it doesn’t happen. It’s like, “Okay, we’re actually going to be on a ride with this guy now.” It’s the best way we could open the movie.
BS: Jay, this feels more personal to Michael than to you. What drew you to his story and this script that made you say, “I need to direct this”?
Jay Duplass: I mean, what originally drew me to Michael is just the most sensitive, sweet, gentle woodland creature inside the body of a 1978 Chicago Bears linebacker. [laughs] It’s a great combination. It’s very original and it’s real. I just loved his penchant for comedy. He also isn’t shying away from the big, scary things in life.
When I first sat down with Michael and just started talking to him about his origin story and his life, when he said to me, “I’m sitting here with you today because the belt broke, because I was holding a little bit of holiday weight,” I was like, “That’s the tone of the movie that I’m going to make with this guy.” You know?
A lot of it was circumstantial, too, like me not having made a movie in 14 years, my own original movie. I mean, I know I make a lot of stuff. I’ve been in TV, and I’ve become an actor since. But people who really know me know that all I ever really wanted to do was to be the Coen Brothers 2.0 with my brother, and I had a nice run of that from 2005 to 2011. Then Mark became famous and got more into writing and producing, and it took us a long fucking time to realize that he didn’t really want to direct movies and that I did. That was actually the most important thing to me as a person or as a creative. That, coupled with turning 50 and being on the tail end of the pandemic and strikes, I was just like, “I need to make a movie as soon as these strikes end, and it needs to be a movie that can’t be stopped. It needs to be a movie that doesn’t need outside funding.”
I wanted to go back to my roots of just telling stories about the people who really have gone through these things, that undeniable reality, and Michael had that. Super-riveting person, and he was from Baltimore, and our permit to shoot on the streets of Baltimore for the month of December cost $45. He had friends there who were dying to produce a movie, and it felt like the kind of movie that couldn’t be stopped. We could get out on the streets of Baltimore during Christmas. We didn’t have to hang the lights ourselves. They were all there, you know? We just needed 15 tough motherfuckers to do it because there were no warming tents. And the toughest of all those motherfuckers was Liz Larsen.
BS: Well, there’s no more perfect a segue than that. Liz, you’ve been in the business for a long time, tons of TV and stage work, but this is a genuine starring role for you. What did that mean for you at this stage of your career?
Liz Larsen: I was dumbfounded and shocked, and I felt like an imposter, but Jay and Michael were so loving to me. I mean, I’ve done a lot of stuff that is this supporting role or that supporting role, but to actually be a love interest and make out with the guy who’s the lead, that doesn’t happen in movies for me. So that was really exciting and shocking at this age. You want to see me at this age do this? Let’s go. I love it.
MS: Yes, yes we do!
LL: I do have to say, having Michael… now I’m going to cry. Having Michael be alive, I cannot imagine you not being here. I am so grateful that this magical, magical thing happened with that belt breaking and that you meeting Jay, and it’s just… Michael is like the poster child for getting sober.
MS: Aw, geez.
LL: No, it’s true! You are!
JD: He’s also the poster child for not killing yourself. Because you look at him now and it’s like, “think twice because…”
LL: …Look what’s on the other side!
MS: Well, now everyone’s crying. [laughs]
BS: This conversation is answering a question I had right in front of my face in such a lovely way, but I want to ask it anyway. Liz and Michael, how did you develop your chemistry together? It’s apparent here now, but I know you come from the world of improv, Michael. How much of that came into play on set versus what was written?
LL: Mostly for me, it was just listening to him, and I loved him immediately. It’s impossible not to love him because he’s like this kid. This kid, whom I made out with in a movie. I kept having to ask Jay, “Do I love him too much? Do I love him too much?” Because all I wanted to do was appreciate him as I was listening to him during these scenes, and laugh at him, and get him, and I couldn’t, as my character. I had to warm up to him in the movie. So, that was really helpful for Jay tempering me, because I was the opposite. I was like, “Okay, come on, man. Come on, man. Control it.”
JD: Get ahold of yourself, Larsen! [laughs]
LL: Yeah, he’d yell, “Get a hold of yourself, Liz. You don’t love him yet.”
MM: We also didn’t have any trailers. What we had was the Mercedes to sit in and the Cadillac to sit in. In between shots, we got to continue to fall in love with each other and just hear about each other’s lives, and that’s what truly brought it in. Then we had a full written script. The whole thing is written, and then I feel like Jay would just kind of say, “Okay, on this one, you can throw a little improv, or try stuff here.” But it was mostly stuff that had already been written, especially the improv scene. The improv scene was fully written. Twice!
BS: That’s incredible, even more so because it plays so much like you’re riffing as you go. That’s very hard to pull off. Jay, you mentioned this being a throwback for you as a filmmaker. How exciting, after years of working with bigger budgets and movie stars, was it to go back and work on such a scrappy, seat-of-your-pants film?
JD: The most exciting and absolutely necessary, you know? I hadn’t made an original movie myself in 14 years, and I had bigger scripts that I was having a really hard time getting off the ground. Part of that’s the climate at the time. Part of that is the sort of contraction of independent filmmaking or of small studio filmmaking, the rise of TikTok as the major art form in our country right now, which it is. Part of it is just like, Hollywood doesn’t care about what you’ve done. They only care about what you’ve done lately.
I think also, there’s probably a little bit of a question of, “Can Jay make a good movie without Mark, creatively?” Mark produced it and supported us through the whole thing. But it was very necessary to go back to my roots and make a movie that was cheap enough, budgetarily, so that it couldn’t be stopped, you know? My brother and I paid for the movie, and I was kind of at the end of a personal rope at the time, to be completely honest. I had turned 50, and I was really languishing, creatively, and really feeling like I had waited too long to come back to making movies. So I just needed to be on the ground with two people that I loved tremendously and irrationally, and who loved me that way, making something that everybody told us we’d never be able to make our money back on, or get a theatrical release. All that’s been proven untrue in this incredible turn of events. So, it feels like a miracle for me.
MS: A Christmas Miracle.
BS: I have to say, as a lifelong Pittsburgher until last year, the Baltimore of it all felt so familiar to me. They’re such similar cities. Our accents are similar. The gray, overcast environments are similar. You have that great scene that calls out the loaded Lamar/Flacco debates. We have the similarly loaded Cowher/Tomlin debates. What do you all love about the city? You have John Waters and The Wire, of course, but it’s never been rendered this lovingly.
MS: I think it’s that, similar to Pittsburgh, the reason why Pittsburgh Steelers and Ravens games are the most watched of the year is because it’s, and I’m going to use the terms of Cris Collinsworth, but two smash-mouthed football teams going at it, you know? It’s just so similar. It’s a blue-collar, working-class city, and it isn’t shown in film that much.
Honestly, it hasn’t been shown in a positive light probably since John Waters. So, that was really important to me because I grew up there, and I really wanted to show the beauty of it. Even in the darker areas or the rougher parts, but then also that there’s this whole other side as well, with some Christmas lights to make it colorful.
JD: I feel like Pittsburgh and Baltimore both have these kinds of dark, scary, gray places, but there’s magic hiding around the corner, you know?
BS: Absolutely. It’s why this movie felt so much like home for me, despite our hatred for one another. [Laughs]
JD: People hold that light because they have to. I mean, I’m from New Orleans, which I think is a sister city with those kinds of cities where it’s like, these are tough places, but there’s magic there, and people need to hold onto that magic, and they fight for it. They need those football teams. They need Christmas, you know what I mean? They need Christmas to be magical because you’re in the middle of a deep, dark winter, and this is all we’ve got. You know?
BS: I appreciate you guys taking the time today, and I just want to say, as we close, Michael, I can’t say I’m going to be rooting for you guys this year. I can never throw in with the Ravens, but at the same time, I am devastated about my quarterback.
MS: Yeah, I was about to say, “Good luck with Aaron Rodgers!” [laughs]
BS: I did just move to New York, so maybe it’s a nomadic season for me.
JD: Now you switch to the Jets!
BS: Oh boy.
LL: Welcome to New York! [laughs]
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