Three years ago, comedic actor Bill Hader and his wife Maggie Carey spent the summer in Santa Fe, where Hader was filming the sci-fi comedy Paul. While Hader went to the set each day, Carey worked on her script for The To Do List, a film about the coming-of-age of Brandy (Aubrey Plaza), a high-school senior who's determined to lose her virginity before heading off to college. The movie opens on Friday at Cinemark Valley View and at Cobblestone Square 20.
"What she said to me was that when she gave her first handjob to a guy, that it was more of an emotional experience than when she lost her virginity," says Hader when asked what his wife told him about the script as she was working on it. "That's the thing they don't tell you — that that intimacy is really intense."
Carey wrote the part of Willy, a loser lifeguard attendant who can't even swim, for Hader.
"I think he's a guy who is the polar opposite of Brandy," he explains. "She is very Type A. He's just coasted and is a lay-about. He lives at the pool. He learns a little something from her, which is that he gets off his ass a little bit from working with her. She in turn chills out a little bit."
The film has the kind of crude humor you normally wouldn't associate with a chick flick. But then, the movie isn't really a chick flick, either. It pokes fun at sexuality and shows just how raunchy women can be as Brandy puts things like "rimjob," "titty fuck" and "teabagging" on her list.
"That was the thing that Maggie said when I said something about the love story," says Hader. "She set me straight. She said, 'There is no love story in this movie. It's about a girl wanting to get laid.' I went, 'Oh, right on.' That put it into perspective for me. Sometimes, girls just want to go get laid. It's not always about love. I thought that was pretty good."
