Screen Rant spoke with Dave about his directorial debut, The Rental, and he took the opportunity to praise Alison Brie’s acting talents!
“I’ve obviously always known that Alison is a great actor, but when I was behind the camera and I was able to just kind of contently watch her for five weeks, I realized she might be the greatest actress on the planet… I have a little bit of a bias, but I can’t imagine doing this without Alison.”
Dave also complimented the other cast members, Sheila Vand, Dan Stevens, and Jeremy Allen White.
“I think most people know Sheila from A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, and she’s obviously incredible in that film. But what really made me want to work with her was a smaller movie called We The Animals. She has so much range in that film, and I knew that she would be perfect for this part.
Sheila, when it comes to the more intense, dramatic moments – like the stuff that I would lose sleep over – we would come up on that day of this really big scene, I’d be like, “Are you ready?” And she’d be like, “I think so.” And the first take, she’s just bawling. She’s so in it… I’m so happy to have worked with her. She has so much range. I can’t wait to see what else she does.”
“I think Dan is so good at playing a villain… I think certain actors, when they’re playing a villainous character, you immediately hate them. You’re not rooting for them. But I think Dan has so much fun that when I watch him in this movie, the more he does immoral things, the giddier I get. I’m like, “Go Dan, go!” I think that’s a huge compliment and a tough thing to pull off, and I also give him props for playing these more immoral characters in the service of the whole story.”
“Jeremy is one of the most naturally gifted actors I’ve ever seen. He is literally incapable of having a false moment onscreen. I remember hearing from every other actor at some point in the shoot, just talking about how easy it is to be in a scene with Jeremy, because he’s so locked in. And all you need to do is just give yourself over to whatever he’s doing.
We’d be behind the monitors every single day, I swear to God, and we would look at each other and be like, “Why is Jeremy not the biggest actor on the planet?”
