Molly Gordon doesn’t play hard to get. At least, not in Oh, Hi!, the deliriously off-kilter breakup comedy she co-created with director Sophie Brooks during the pandemic, and in which she stars opposite perennial heartthrob Logan Lerman. “The jumping-off point,” Gordon tells W of the buzzy Sundance hit, “was Sophie and I having failed relationships in our 20s. Both of the guys we dated didn’t want to have this closure conversation, and we were like, ‘Ugh, I wish we could force them to have it.’” So, naturally, they wrote a movie where the main character, Iris—played by Gordon—does exactly that, taking her situationship Isaac (Lerman) hostage during a dreamy weekend upstate in fictional Oh High Falls when he refuses to commit.
If the premise sounds uncomfortably familiar, that’s the point. Oh, Hi! is a scathing, often painfully funny dissection of modern-day dating purgatory, but the runner-chaser dynamic depicted is as old as courtship itself. “The film became this place where we could put all the stories of breakups that we and our friends had lived through,” Gordon says.
For Lerman, Oh, Hi! marks an unexpected but welcome addition to the rom-com canon that he thinks will stand the test of time. “Hopefully years from now, people will see the film and it’ll be a reflection of what life and dating were like in 2025,” he tells W.
Molly Gordon: Sophie and I didn’t want to make a movie that was a takedown of men. We wanted to call out our own behavior. I haven’t always said what I really wanted, or I’ve heard what I’ve wanted to hear. We wanted to explore why do some guys run away? It was also Logan pushing us to make sure that his character felt really lived in and to keep asking questions: Why doesn’t he want to be wih her?
Which character did you relate to more?
Logan Lerman: I’m much more of an Iris than I am an Isaac. It was very cathartic for me to understand this type of person and why they run from love.
M.G.: Same. Isaacs are out there. They’re hiding in plain sight. But Logan and I are heart-on-sleeve kind of people.
L.L.: We spent a lot of time together and constantly rehearsed. Within the first day of hanging out, I was telling you, [Molly,] everything about me that I wouldn’t normally tell people.
M.G.: We hit it off immediately, which is honestly just luck. The intimate scenes could have been really scary, but they felt safe, comfortable, and silly. We had a chance to show two very ordinary people trying out fun sex. We wanted to show what it’s really like. It’s hot sometimes, and it’s also embarrassing. We were both game to do that.
M.G.: Wearing compression underwear…
L.L.: …with a crew and trying to portray sex in an honest way, not like a sexy movie way. We tried to find some truth. We had each other’s backs.
L.L.: It was great [laughs]. It was easy. I felt very comfortable being tied up for most of the day. But it was definitely a challenge to keep things fresh. We had to explore so many scenes in that room while handcuffed. We exhausted every possible position in that bed for various things, be it peeing into a pan or sitting up and talking. We did as much as we could.
M.G.: There used to be a time when it was prestigious for big actors to do rom-coms. Now, I feel like people want to be taken so seriously. They’re like, if I’m not doing drugs in a shed, I’m not a serious actor. Being able to connect with someone on screen and take the piss out of yourself is the bravest thing ever. Materialists doing really well is great for the genre, but that’s a $20 million movie. We made this movie for nothing, in no time.
L.L.: Didn’t have distribution.
M.G.: Exactly. Now people need to come to the theater and show studios that people want to see them. Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney’s movie doing well was great, but there should be so many more. The world’s just a disaster right now.
Molly, you’ve said that Oh, Hi! is part of The Bear’s extended universe. Do you stand by that?
M.G.: I don’t stand by anything I’ve said, ever. [Laughs] But I think this is Claire if she were a little crazy, maybe. It’s interesting that right now, I’m playing two women who are very ready for a relationship, and I’m dating two very avoidant men. One is trapped in a freezer, and one I’ve chained to a bed. This season of [The Bear], Jeremy and I have this conversation where he says, “It’s hard for me.” And I go, “Yeah, it’s hard for me too. It’s hard for everyone.” Some of these avoidant men don’t realize that it’s scary for everyone. Then Carmy says to Claire, “I just can’t do it. I’m sorry.” It’s similar to our movie, too.
What do you hope people take away from this story?
M.G.: The takeaway from both of these things is that you should never beg anyone to be with you. If they say they can’t, that’s the end of the story. We’ll see where Carmy and Claire go from here. But Isaac and Iris are definitely not meant to be together.
L.L.: Obviously, be up front with what you want when you’re dating. Don’t make it a surprise, three months in, on a trip to Oh High Falls. And if you have something great, don’t run from it. If you have love like that, give yourself to it.
