So in a grand philosophical sense, I don’t think I did. But on a micro level – directing comedy is super hard. Sometimes the difference between a joke working and a joke not working is a quick reaction shot or a couple of frames in the edit. When I think about filmmakers that I really love, like Ang Lee, he hops genres and tries different things, which is what I really hope to do in my career. Did you wonder if you went too far, especially since it’s essentially a Disney release ? The film is a bit racy and it’s certainly blunt about casual sex. With Spa Night, I showed a lot of nudity because that’s just the world of the film. I knew with Fire Island that we wouldn’t necessarily be able to go super, super far. I basically negotiated: “Okay, if there’s no dick in the movie, can I have as many butts as I want?” So that was the arrangement. But on Fire Island, a lot of sex happens, so we didn’t want to shy away from that. You must have felt some additional pressure because this film is much more high profile than your first two films, with wider distribution and bigger stars. I wanted to focus on the story of friendship and I wanted to have as much fun making the movie as the characters have in the film.
