Playing during the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival was the romantic comedy The Weekend, written and directed by Stella Meghie and starring former SNL castmember Sasheer Zamata, Disjointed‘s Tone Bell, She’s Gotta Have It star DeWanda Wise, Insecure’s Y’lan Noel and Kym Whitley.
Produced by Meghie, Homegrown Pictures’ Stephanie Allain (Dear White People), Mel Jones, Marada Pictures’ Sarah Lazow and James Gibb, the film centers on comedian Zadie (Sasheer Zamata) who is still in love with her ex-boyfriend Bradford (Tone Bell) after they have broken up. Bradford has moved on to have a new girlfriend named Margo ( DeWanda Wise) who is completely different from Zadie. Disaster strikes when Zadie agrees to travel with the couple to her mother’s bed and breakfast over the weekend. She stops feeling like a third wheel when handsome Aubrey (Y’lan Noel) checks in as a solo guest.
Blackfilm talked to Stella Meghie and Sasheer Zamata about working together on this romantic comedy.
Can you talk about the film and how the project came together?
Stella Meghie: I actually wrote it several years ago. After shooting Everything, Everything. I wanted to do something again that I had written. Stephanie Allain jumped on board to produce and it came together very quickly after I started putting it together. We reached out to Sasheer. Me and her skyped and hit it off. The cast came together really organically. We ended up shooting it over a few weeks.
You had the lead role in the film. What types of conversations did both of you have to develop the character for the project? Did you say that you wanted your character to be in certain situations? Did you say that you wanted to do a rom com?
Sasheer Zamata: We did talk about the character and how she interacts with other people. You could get the essence of this person through the script so well. Because of what she is saying, and how people are reacting to what she is saying. Yeah, Stella made a very open chill environment on the set. So I felt free to try stuff. And she would either be like “love it” or “no thanks”. And I loved that. She gave me a lot of information, but over time throughout the process we figured out who this character was.
How did your background in comedy help you perform this character? What insight did it give you into the character and how to portray her in the film?
Sasheer Zamata: I think having the same kind of instincts to turn everything into a joke or be sarcastic and analyze things. I probably shouldn’t I should be living in the moment. That’s a thing that my comedian instincts take over. I can see that in Zadie too. Where she should be probably just be enjoying the moment. Instead she is making some sort of a snide remark. And doing it without a filter. There are moments where I am jealous of Zadie where I’m like… “oh man I wish that I didn’t care as much as she doesn’t care”. I have the anxiety part of my brain that is like…“oh no did I piss somebody off”? She does not care. But yeah…I think being a comedian definitely helped form the character who is a comedian. Also knowing how I interact with people who are not comedians, informed that too.
The film is called “The Weekend”. It is about a “weekend” in the life of your character. Explain your character and the situation that she winds up in this unintentional “thrupple”. It starts off as an awkward situation until Y’lan Noel comes into the picture. Can you explain to us what is going on in the film?
Sasheer Zamata: Yes. Zadie is not over her ex Bradford and he has moved on. He is with Margo played by DeWanda Wise. I invite Bradford to come to my mom’s bed and breakfast for the weekend. Hoping something will happen. Who knows? A rekindling? I dunno. I’m still pining over this man. He brings his new girlfriend. So it’s like a weird awkward love triangle thing happening. There is tension. And then Y’lan’s character comes in. He’s flirting with me. Which makes Bradford jealous. And then it is like a love square. And it’s tense. It’s awkward. But it’s also fun and sexy. And funny.
You created the project. There has been a call for “black love” on screen. And characters that are showing young people of color as professionals and in a positive way on screen. How important was it for you to make a film like this? How did you get everybody in the cast to come together? This is a very hot cast. DeWanda there is a lot of interest in her. Tone was just in Little. Can you talk more about that?
Stella Meghie: It’s just important for me to see characters on camera that look and feel like me, my friends and my family. That’s what I care about in writing. To put more images of us on the screen. The cast was very serendipitous. I went out to Sasheer first. She was free and into it. That was such a quick match. DeWanda. I knew through a friend Misha Green. Just kind of hanging out at her house. And if you get to know DeWanda she is just the realist person ever. So I DM’d her..I was like I’m not even going to call Misha cause I don’t have time to waste. I just DM’d her and was like “what are you doing in November? She was like. I don’t know what are we doin’?
Y’lan was the same thing, through a good friend of mine Elaine. She was like… “You should hit up Y’lan for this character”. He was just getting off The Purge. She put us on a text chain and we met up. He was just looking for something to show another side of him on camera. And we clicked. And Tone. I’d actually had been following him for a long time. He’d had a kind of cool rise in L.A. He was somewhat under the radar comedian that I was looking at for a while. I met with him and I just felt like he was Bradford inside. And he was. We just clicked. It was just like one of the most fun times that I’ve ever had on set. Everybody just got along so well. It felt like you were making a movie with your friends.
You’re also making history as a Black woman in Hollywood who is getting a lot of studio films greenlit. Between Everything, Everything. You have this project. You just did another project with Issa Rae that you have been filming around New York City. How important is it for you to be as prolific as you are? What is part of the process for you to tell these kinds of stories?
Stella Meghie: I just want to keep working. I get kind of crazy when I feel like I don’t know what is next. I guess. I spent a lot of years before I made Jean of The Joneses writing. I wrote The Photograph and The Weekend before I shot Jean of The Joneses. So it’s kind of a stockpile of things that have been in my mind that I have been polishing. That has helped me go back to back a little. Everything, Everything was kind of right time, right place coming off Jean of The Joneses. And that movie already being greenlit essentially. I just keep trying to work and do the stories that matter most to me that luckily I have been able to write.
What is The Photograph about? How did you get Issa Rae on board?
Stella Meghie: It’s a romantic drama. It’s a little bit different than the other things I have written. It’s more dramatic. I met Issa doing an episode of Insecure. I hit it off with her. She’s just a cool, hardworking person.
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