Based on an award-winning article in Esquire, Our Friend is a romantic drama from Scott Free Productions and Black Bear Pictures, filmed in Fairhope, Alabama in the Spring of 2019. My fourth consecutive film working under Janelle Canastra, we spent about three months in Alabama. I made some great friends on this film, had excellent conversations at the Tongue & Groove Drinkery in downtown Fairhope, and even got to see the Patriots lose another Super Bowl.
In the film, Jason Segel plays "Dane", the life-long best friend of Casey Affleck's "Matt" and his wife, "Nicole", played by Dakota Johnson. Dane is the glue when life starts to fall apart for Matt & Nicole after a cancer diagnosis; Dane becomes the family's confidant, care-taker, babysitter, comic relief and all-around spirit animal. During production, Segel was mostly quiet and kind, like life on the Mobile Bay, with the exceptions of a crazy Mardi Gras parade schedule, one behavior I won't mention here, and also the fact that Alabama choses to celebrate "Robert E Lee Day" on the same day as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 🤮. This production will remain forever in my mind, large like Segel's hulking, doughy frame and the coffees we would buy from The Coffee Loft, but also quiet, like Segel's company in public, and Alabama public officials on the topic of mass shootings. Not everything went perfectly, as it seldom does, but it sure felt good at the end.
The film premiered to mostly positive reviews at TIFF in late 2019. Producers for Scott Free moved next to "Earthquake Bird" while Black Bear Pictures and others from the production team would reconvene next on "I Care A Lot".
In the film, Jason Segel plays "Dane", the life-long best friend of Casey Affleck's "Matt" and his wife, "Nicole", played by Dakota Johnson. Dane is the glue when life starts to fall apart for Matt & Nicole after a cancer diagnosis; Dane becomes the family's confidant, care-taker, babysitter, comic relief and all-around spirit animal. During production, Segel was mostly quiet and kind, like life on the Mobile Bay, with the exceptions of a crazy Mardi Gras parade schedule, one behavior I won't mention here, and also the fact that Alabama choses to celebrate "Robert E Lee Day" on the same day as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 🤮. This production will remain forever in my mind, large like Segel's hulking, doughy frame and the coffees we would buy from The Coffee Loft, but also quiet, like Segel's company in public, and Alabama public officials on the topic of mass shootings. Not everything went perfectly, as it seldom does, but it sure felt good at the end.
The film premiered to mostly positive reviews at TIFF in late 2019. Producers for Scott Free moved next to "Earthquake Bird" while Black Bear Pictures and others from the production team would reconvene next on "I Care A Lot".
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