I come from an Italian-American heritage and know the importance of family meals. And yes, many Italians love to cook Sunday sauce (or cook sauce, depending on who you ask) and eat dinner before most college children wake up from a Saturday evening. To break bread and share a meal, sit down the backbone of every united household. NonnasThe new Netflix Family Comedy understands this principle: food is love.
Already at a young age, Joe Scaravella (Vince Vaughn) immediately took the concept of Essen and family by spending time in the kitchen with the matriarchs. As a single adult who lives in South Brooklyn, Joe loses this healthy feeling after his mother’s death. Joe risks to open an Italian restaurant in Staten Island. The kicker? Joes chefs are grandmothers, also known as Nonnas: Gia (Susan Sarandon), Roberta (Lorraine Bracco), Teresa (Talia Shire) and Antonella (Brenda Vaccaro).
In front of us, director Stephen Chbosky and screenwriter Liz Maccie explains why Nonnas is a love letter to food and family. The married duo discusses legendary dinner scenes and the immense talent of the line -up.
This interview was processed for length and clarity.
Ai Technologia: One of the lines of the film I love is the idea that food is love. It is important to sit down for dinner and share a meal. There were so many dinner in films. If you could go into the past and sit on the day on which a famous dinner scene was made, which film would you choose?
Liz Maccie: Oh my God. What a great question.
Stephen Chbosky: Wow, that’s something else. Well, you just blew us off, age. I will tell you six hours later, I said, “Where was this guy?”
I had a later time!
Chbosky: They had this 40th anniversary, the big panel that everyone is talking about. The lunch scene in The breakfast club. Why not? I would have loved to be the sixth child there if I only undermine and look around the chin); That would have been pretty special.
Maccie: I know that’s crazy, but I keep thinking Sideways is one of our favorite films. This dinner scene when you go to the Hitching post, one of our favorite restaurants … that’s it for me.
Chbosky: That would have been great too.
These are great picks and they contain wine.
Maccie: (Laughs) Oh yes, it has to include wine.
The saying “avoid and let them cook” is applied to this film, especially if you have Vince, Talia, Lorraine, Brenda and Susan in a kitchen. This is a lot of size. How do you approach as a writer and director scenes and find the balance to meet the lines and let your beats get out of the way with getting out and to cook them (the actors)?
Maccie: (Laughs) You have such good questions. For me, I really only wrote from a very authentic place where my childhood was and how these women were in my life. These four women are so many women in my life. So they were. For me it only wrote of a very truthful place.
Chbosky: For me, of course, I love my wife’s script because I wanted to do it. I knew that it was so fundamental brilliant and so many great lines. But if you have such a talent, I think that there is a balance, just say, look that you all signed up because you love the script, not because you didn’t do it. They would do the lines and then we would have them. Then it is as if you let them go and do other things and let such talents go to other places.
You mentioned the five, but Linda Cardellini, Joe Manganiello and Drea de Matteo, the same. They just had such ease. They lived the parts. They brought their own experiences, their own autobiography, so let them roll and simply watch the magic, watch the sparks fly. It was a pretty remarkable sentence, I have to tell you.
With their projects, Stephen, there are ideas, hope to find, start over and find your own purpose. What about your experience is the secret or lack of a better term the special sauce in the production of these character -driven stories?
Chbosky: There is a great thing. It is what they do with children. They hide the vegetables. What I mean by that is a long time ago, I have wonderful advice from a great actor, John Malkovich, who produced a film for me, the advantages of a wallflower. I will never forget it. He said: “Because I love your script because you have a real heart, you don’t need to feel. Put this film like a man from Pittsburgh. Always get the hard setting.”
He said these exact words. I never forgot her. They inform so much. When developing a project or when recognizing a great script, it can be seen that there is always an easier way to say the matter. There is always a more hopeful way to say something, but without ignoring or grief or the many fights that have all people. That’s it.
It’s like Monty Pythons always look on the bright side of life. If you can have a laugh, take it because the truth is that grief is real. The fight is real and people constantly lose business. By showing the reality of it, the colors of it, I think that is honestly the secret ingredient. Hide the vegetables. I would tell every filmmaker.
Nonnas is Now stream on Netflix.