Aline Brosh McKenna - The Rom Com Queen Who Wrote The Devil Wears Prada

0:00It doesn't take a genius to figure this out. The minute we cast Merrill, I thought, oh, this could be awesome. At the end of the class, he said, I've never said this to anyone in seven years, but you need to move to L.A. and be a screenwriter. This is what you were meant to do. Here's when I knew it was not going to work. We shot it and the executive comes up to me and she goes, you know, whatever happens with this, this thing is a real feather in your cap. And I thought, oh, we're doomed. Welcome to How To Fail, the podcast that believes that sometimes the message is in the mess. Before we get into this conversation, please do remember to like, subscribe and follow so that you never miss a single episode.

0:40In 1987, a newborn baby is abandoned in a remote spot. Nobody goes down that lane. Why would you think anyone would have picked me up from there? For decades, Jess has searched for answers. Why didn't that person want me? But as she gets closer to the truth, things spiral out of her control. I think I'll always be angry. Could it have ended differently? From Tortoise Investigates and The Observer, this is foundling. Lies always come out, don't they? Skeletons are always going to come out eventually. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

1:16It's time to refresh your yard during spring backyard days at the Home Depot. Get low prices guaranteed on propane grills starting at$179, like the Next Grill 3-Burner Gas Grill. Or get$50 off a select Weber Spirit Grill and bring big flavor to your backyard. Then set the scene with Hampton Bay String Lights that bring it all together. Shop Spring Backyard Days for seven days at The Home Depot, now through May 6th. Exclusion Supplies, see homedepot.com slash price match for details. My guest today is a shaper of modern culture. The chances are you'll be able to quote a line of her dialogue or recognise yourself in one of her characters, or you'll be able to recall almost word for word one of her iconic scenes.

2:01Perhaps it's Meryl Streep's impassioned monologue on the power of Cerulean in The Devil Wears Prada. It might be Katherine Hagel singing drunkenly to Elton John in 27 Dresses. Or it's Stanley Tucci uttering the immortal line, gird your loins. Whatever your entry point to the work of writer, director, showrunner and producer Aline Brosh McKenna, the chances are it lives in your head, rent free. She was born in France where her mother had survived the Nazi occupation. The family moved to New Jersey when she was still a baby and later Brosh McKenna studied literature at Harvard. After working as a freelance magazine writer in New York City, she took a six-week screenwriting course and moved to LA, where she sold her first film script by the age of 26.

2:51But it was at 38 that her life changed, with the 2006 release of global smash hit The Devil Wears Prada, which earned her a BAFTA nomination for Best Screenplay. Further hit movies followed, including Morning Glory and I Don't Know How She Does It, before she co-created and show-ran the musical comedy drama Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Now, to the frenzied excitement of so many of us, she's returning with The Devil Wears Prada 2. Brosh McKenna's work is funny, heartfelt and endlessly rewatchable. Yet there's a deeper message too, a spotlighting of powerful women who might be misunderstood by others, but who come to understand the important balance between selfhood and connection, between work and love, in whatever form that love takes.

3:44Being funny, Roche McKenna has said, means you're honest, almost to the point of transgression. You're saying the thing that isn't supposed to be said. Aline Roche McKenna, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you. Everybody always like quells after your introductions and I feel all tingly. Oh, well, it is such an honor to meet you. Thank you. Thank you for all of the work that you put out into the world. It really has meant so much to so many of us. And I know we're going to talk about The Devil Wears Prada, obviously, but 27 Dresses was such a great movie. Thank you. I wrote that. It was inspired by my best friend had been in about 12 or 13 weddings at the time that I pitched that.

4:28And I thought that was psychotic and fascinating. To me, it was about being a people pleaser, which is a very common thing that happens to women. And it was interesting as we were trying to get it made, people and particularly male executives really balked at that idea, which they thought was about weakness. But I think that that ability that women have to sort of shape shift and understand intuitively what needs to be done in a moment is a strength. And I think she's a very strong character, actually. That really is what that movie is about to me, which is how you end up being so beloved by so many people.

5:06And is there a cost to that? So interesting. Have you had your people pleasing years? You know, it's funny. That's the one that is the least like me. And that movie is written from the point of view of the best friend, Judy Greer, in a funny way, if you look at it, even though she's not in every scene. The movie, the, the movie's POV on her is what are you doing? I'm half Israeli, half French, North African. And we had very honest, outspoken set of parents and our family, my brother is too. And so I was not taught some of the American, but both my parents are immigrants and we were raised in New Jersey, which is just, it was a strange sitcom.

5:48But I wasn't socialized in girls having to please others. My mother was a grand dame, actually born quite poor, but like all French women, she was a queen with Hermes. They sort of somehow hand you Hermes when you're, you know, not anymore. It didn't used to cost what it costs now. For example, every dating story my mother ever told was, you know, I was very beautiful and I met a man and he wanted to marry me? And I said, no, you are not handsome enough. You are not rich enough. So all of her stories about dating were very grand. And they always encouraged both my brother and I to be very outspoken.

6:32And so I'm fascinated anthropologically with the sort of apologies and the abnegation of self that women are taught in America. It's really interesting because I think people think of Americans, women as being sort of brassy, but we're actually taught a lot of dissembling. So often I work, when I work with younger female writers and I'll hear them saying, well, I, you know, this is probably terrible and we don't want to do this, not this, but, you know, this is not what we want to do, but maybe, and I had a crazy idea and a bad idea and their legs are cinched together, much like ours are, to sort of occupy the least amount of space on a chair.

7:16And then boys are really encouraged to splay in every way imaginable. And I wasn't taught to sort of smallify myself by my mother. And that's maybe one of her greatest gifts. That idea of women littering their ideas, their emails, their communication with mitigating words, I relate to it so deeply. And something that helped me almost overcome that, I'm not entirely there yet, was writing a bombastic male character in a novel of mine. And I realised that if I could imagine this bombastic, unscrupulous billionaire man, then it was within me to lean into that. And so I set myself this challenge of acting 5 % more like that character.

8:06Have you found that writing characters has helped you develop as a person. Well, I mean, no one gives you more permission to speak your mind than Miranda Priestly. So that was, I always loved that about that character. If it becomes necessary to apologize to the furniture a little bit to get what you want, I think it's okay as long as you're aware that you're doing it. As a tactic or a strategy, I think it's completely fine. The exclamation points and the, listen, I also think, you know, being kind and stopping to praise someone, which are again, let's say typically female attributes are great in the workplace.

8:48But yeah, anytime I, the two care, Miranda Priestly, and then I wrote a movie called Morning Glory with Harrison Ford playing a aging news anchor who was really outspoken. And that was a ton of fun. And I could just make him say anything. and I think there's a tremendous amount of wish fulfillment in writing those characters because we all want to be able to do that we all want to be able to be cranky the devil wears prada I refuse to believe it's 20 years since that movie came out but apparently it is yeah that's what the chronology of time tells me yeah you were 38 when that movie came out so 20 years on now So I'm just really interested in how different you feel as a writer.

9:33Well, I thought I was ancient. I mean, I felt very ashamed that my first hit. I had made two movies before and a bunch of TV stuff, but it was, you know, my first big successful thing. And I kept thinking, my God, I'm a 38-year-old mother of two, wife and mother of two, and it's taken me so long and this is so embarrassing. And now, of course, I look at 38 year olds and they seem like little babies to me. I don't know why I wasn't more generous with myself, but it felt, you know, I had been working for 15 years. The world has changed so much. It was ever thus, you know, the world changes and so much had changed for these characters.

10:15And for a long time, we weren't going to revisit it. And then every industry that is touched by this movie, fashion, publishing, journalism, has just all been turned upside down in the last five years, especially. And that's how it became more and more interesting to us to sort of talk about, you know, what do you do when the world is changing all around you and obviously happening in the movie business, but kind of everywhere, you know, because I did always think about over the years where those characters were and what they would be doing. and now it's they're presiding over tremendous change the the managing a downturn so you know it's as fun a movie as you can make about managing downturns I think and was that the pitch yeah did you find it at all intimidating given the success of the first movie that idea of coming in with a sequel.

11:15Do you have moments of self-doubt when you're like, am I funny anymore? To get the band back together. So it started with me over the years because David Frankel, who directed the first movie and I have stayed friends and sort of things would happen that felt like were pertinent to the Prada world and we would chat about them. So it started to be more and more interesting to us. And then we heard that Meryl was open to hearing some ideas. And And at that point, I had accumulated quite a lot of them. So as I turned to these collaborators from 20 years ago and and it seemed like there was more to explore.

11:51And then as we, you know, as as the script went to Anne and Emily and and and Marilyn and Stan, and we were able to sort of talk about, you know, what was relevant and where these folks were. And it felt like it made sense. You probably can't tell us anything, but can you tell us anything about where The Devil Wears Prada 2 meets all of these legendary characters? It's funny because the trailer that they released in which Miranda doesn't remember her, I saw some people saying, oh, does she, you know, is she sundowning? Does she have dementia? And I'm exactly the same age that Miranda Priestly would have been in the first movie.

12:36and the idea that 20 years from now that I would remember somebody who I spent a year with, even if I wrote them a recommendation letter, it's believable that, you know, it's somewhere in there. But yeah, she doesn't remember her when she sees her was, it struck me as tremendously funny because, you know, the idea of the first movie was always that your boss is really interesting to you and you are not as interesting to them. And so I always felt like the first movie was tinged with Andy's perception of her, who she was, but also Andy's perception of her. And similarly, in this movie, there's the reality, but it's tinged with Andy's perception of who this woman is now, now that she's a woman in her forties.

13:26It was sort of like I discovered an old dollhouse and I got to go back there and set that all up again. Well, what a privilege and a joy it will be for us all to watch it. Let's start with your failures. Your first failure is not being talented enough, these are your words, to be an actor or a singer. Well, I have video evidence of this, sadly. When I was a kid, I was good at school, but I had trouble finding my people and I didn't have a ton of friends and I was quite shy, which no one who knows me now can believe, but I was quite shy. So for some reason, I decided that because I was shy that I should go out for the play and that that would help me with my shyness.

14:12And so I auditioned for a play in fifth grade. And so I did this play, I had one line, but I really loved the people. And I felt like, even though I wasn't really getting very big parts, I loved being around the people in the process. And I felt like, oh, these are my people. And then I moved to a smaller school. You know, as Darwin would dictate, there were fewer people there. So I got better parts. And when I was in ninth grade, I got a lead. And so I really, I had to sing a lot in front of people. And I just did it. And I really loved being in a play, being part of it. I'm friends with a lot of performers.

14:50And when you turn the light on, people who are really performers, they come to life. That's where they belong. And I never quite felt that, but I felt like this zone of show people is where I should be. So I kept trying and I kept auditioning because I was in this really small high school. They kind of let me sing and perform on the regular. So I, I sang at my graduation, which was hilarious with my friend, John. And many years later, I said to John, you know, I really don't sing in tune very well. And he said, now you're now after you've said in public so many times. And I would have loved to, if I had a magic wand, that would be the thing I would know how to do is to like be a great singer.

15:29So I went to college and the way they do it at Harvard is that you audition for all the student plays or student run. There's no faculty. And you audition for all the plays in the first week, common casting. And there's about 50 plays. They're all student runs. They're all over the campus. So those seem like good odds. So I went and I auditioned for you audition for all the plays at the same time. And then I went there the day that all the cast lists were posted and there was, you know, 50 cast lists, which is a good amount. And there was another kid who was in a freshman and I watched him, his name appear on this.

16:03And like, I think he got like seven leads and I didn't get a single part in any play, which is kind of hard to do. Like I shot the moon of bad acting. And so I really had to lick my wounds And again, I just felt this pull towards theater people and people who wanted to sell stories and creative people. And so I ran the light board and I was a stage manager and I did stuff like that. And then I had applied and forgotten. I applied to direct a play and forgot that I had applied. And I got a letter one day saying you have five hundred dollars to put on a play in the freshman union. So I did that and I found I really enjoyed marshalling a group.

16:46and so that's what I did in college is I directed a lot of plays um and wrote a little bit for the newspaper but I never you know I think I never have lost the sense of wonder that I have around actors and performers I did Crazy Ex-Girlfriend with Bloom who was my Rachel Bloom was my creative partner and I knew what she was capable of so writing for someone who I knew what she could do and what she would crush, you know. And then that's been true. I mean, just imagine writing lines for Harrison Ford, you know, just write. And then imagine writing, you know, lines for Meryl Streep and knowing that you're going back to writing for these four people who are, you know, in the 20 years since have only become more esteemed, you know.

17:35So I've never lost the sense of being tickled by great acting and singing, although there's not a lot of singing in these movies because I was never able to do it. I did a cameo on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend with Rachel and I had we came I played the prosecutor and I came out and I said my line and she just doubled over laughing and I said what's wrong she goes that was so bad. And I think sometimes when people get into trouble it's because they hold on to dreams that are not related to their aptitudes. And I think your aptitudes and your dreams are in a conversation with each other and with the world.

18:18And I think because most people enjoy doing well, finding something that you're good at is also part of finding out what you're not good at. Yes, that's so well put. When I started this podcast, I honestly felt like I I was learning a brand new language overnight. Scripts, artwork, scheduling, tech. Suddenly, I was the entire team and it was kind of overwhelming. There were so many moments I wished I had a proper business partner to help me figure it all out. That's why I love Shopify. It's the commerce platform behind millions of businesses and it gives you everything you need in one place. You can build a beautiful online store in minutes with hundreds of ready-to-use templates.

19:06Their AI tools help you write product descriptions and even polish your photography, which is a lifesaver when you're spinning 100 plates. And you can manage everything, inventory, payments, analytics, without juggling 10 different tabs. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing. Sign up for your£1 per month trial today at shopify.co.uk slash fail. That's shopify.co.uk slash fail. Ready to soundtrack your summer? With Red Bull Summer All Day Play, you choose a playlist that fits your summer vibe the best. Are you a festival fanatic, a deep-end DJ, a road dog, or a trail mixer?

19:49Just add a song to your chosen playlist and put your summer on track. Red Bull Summer All Day Play. Red Bull gives you wings. Visit redbull.com slash brightsummer ahead to learn more. See you this summer. Good sleep is everything. That's why Oli's science back support is made with a blend of melatonin and L-theanine for both kiddos and grownups. So when your mind won't switch off, you've got something that can help. Erasing thoughts and restless nights won't stand a chance. Find Oli's sleep solutions for the whole family at Oli.com. That's O-L-L-Y dot com. When you work with these legendary actors, I mean, you mentioned a few of them there.

20:32I know you've already said that what you notice is that they come alive under the spotlight. Is there another thing that links Meryl Streep, Harrison Ford, Rachel Plume, Stanley Tucci, that you can now see, oh, that's how they prepare. That's what makes them different. You know, everyone's very different in terms of process. And one of the things that I learned from working with actors is I also made a movie. I directed Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher in a movie. We Bought a Zoo. That movie is called Your Place or Mine. It's a Netflix movie and it's a romantic comedy, but I did also work on We Bought a Zoo.

21:15What I learned is that everyone is really different. And one of the things I enjoy is meeting an actor's process where it is. Some people like to rehearse, some people don't like to rehearse. Some people like to talk about the material a lot, some don't. Some like to know exactly what they're doing and some don't. And I actually love that. I love sort of finding the person, the artist, where they are. And I don't have rules ever as a director or producer or anything, which is like, this is how we do, apart from some larger things of like, we don't run and we don't yell. I don't have set precepts about how we need to work.

21:49So if an actor wants to talk exhausted, wants to send me a six page email after a run through, great. And if they don't want to talk, great. And every actor you just mentioned is completely different. The movie with Harrison had Rachel McAdams and Diane Keaton in it. All very different actors. So were Reese and Ashton different? Is that why you mentioned them in this context? I just was remembering that like Reese has a different, I would go to Reese and I would say, I would say something about the character and she would say, am I saying that or am I thinking that? And I would say, you're thinking that.

22:23And she was like, okay, cool. You know, like she was, she, and she also likes to do a scene in the moment, right as you're about to do it. And then, and then talk to me. And so that was interesting because it makes it more alive for her. Like she's extremely prepared. And then you come and you do it. And then we would look at each other and be like, oh, we'll go this way. In fact, when we were making this movie, we shot some of it in New York. And I remember we went out on the pier and Reese did the scene. And then she turned to me and she goes, I don't think that works. And I was like, I know, I don't think that works either.

22:59And I took a piece of paper and I put it on my knee and I wrote a new scene and I handed it to her and we looked at it and then we did that. And then with Rachel, you know, Rachel was so is so flexible that you can sort of say to her, like, do this line and hold your arm out at this angle. And she's like, I got it doing it. And I mean, I could go on and on about how brilliant they are, how brilliant all of these folks are. I mean, I, Emily and I, I love to run a joke into Emily Blunt. That's my favorite thing to do is she'll do a tick because because when you're on set and the actors have done a joke a couple of times, and you feel like you have it, then it's really fun.

23:38My favorite thing to do is run in a new joke. Does that just mean you're throwing it in from the side? I'll just come in and say, what about this? You know, like maybe you say this this time, as long as the director, as long as David feels like he has it. And so that's absolutely with Emily, often I'll run out and give her a joke. And then the problem will be, she'll say to me, I just don't know if I can get it out without laughing. And that's just the best is seeing her like do the line and then just bust out laughing after they say cut. On the first movie, I remember Stanley was about to do the scene where he tells to Andy, you deign to work here.

24:12And I remember I said to Stanley, do you want me to make any adjustments or, you know, change anything for you? And he said, no, I'm good. And that was like as meaningful a collaboration to me knowing, okay, that's where the target zone is for him as it is when an actor sometimes wants to come over and really like go through every scene. And then in both Prada movies, Annie is in almost every scene and has to carry, you know, the entire soup to nuts story. I mean, literally soup to nuts. And so I always have worked really closely with Annie about the complete arc of that character because it's so much work for one person.

24:53It's so much through the scrim of her perception. Before we get on to your second failure, your collaborative approach with actors led to one of the great speeches of all time in movie history. The speech about Cerulean that Meryl delivers as Miranda Priestly, which goes to the heart of so much of what fashion represents to so many of us and is so beautifully done. Can you tell us about how that came about? Yeah. Meryl had looked at those that those few lines had been in the script for a long time. And I would say maybe like five or six days before we shot it, David said Meryl wants to talk about that scene and she feels like it could be more and it could be built into a speech.

25:40and I started working on it and I started making it longer and longer. And then, um, and then I wrote, there was a day where, so I had little kids when we were making the first one, they're grown men now, but they were little kids. And I, it was on the weekend day. So I went to the Starbucks and I was sitting there and I was emailing the speech to David, who was emailing it to Meryl and then getting notes from Meryl and then conveying them to me. So for instance, I said, had written the, the, in the section about blue, I sent a list to him that said, um, lapis, azure, cerulean. And she picked cerulean.

26:17She said, great, you know, and it, and as we worked on it, it got larger and larger and larger. It wasn't really meant to be so much of an aria, but I thought, you know, knowing how movies are and this, you almost, you do this often, which is like, okay, well, it's going to be, I'm going to write this thing that had been three or four lines will now be a page and a half. And so I kept building on it. And it was really thrilling, you know, knowing that it was going pinging for Meryl back to me and getting her feedback. And then I sent it back and said, you know, here's this big chunk. I don't know.

26:51You can cut it down. You do use whatever you want or, and they shot all of it and it's all in the movie. On that first movie, I was so eager that when I, I tried to be on set as much as I could. And then when I wasn't there, I would wake up in LA, I would wake up at their rehearsal time. And then David would call me after the rehearsal and say, what about this line? Or maybe could you improve this or you could prove that. So I sleep clutching my phone and then get up for the rehearsal and then write a bunch of alts and send them to him. For example, the Gird Your Loins line that Stanley has, I think I sent David eight things for that, but I'm the Gird Your Loins, I believe Stanley came up with.

27:33I'm pretty 99 % sure Stanley came up with it. And I was trying to beat it. And I was, you know, sending in stuff to David. I wish I still had those emails. And then at night, I would read the scene for the next day and send him alternate lines and suggestions. I was obsessed. And you had two young children. And I had two young children. And by the time the first movie wrapped, I had pneumonia, my husband had pneumonia, my son had pneumonia, our babysitter had pneumonia. I kind of ran myself into the ground. But I was, I had, I mean, it doesn't take a genius to figure this out. The minute we cast Meryl, I thought, oh, this could be awesome.