Oakland legend shines in ‘Bottoms,’ the funniest comedy of the summer

rewrite this content and keep HTML tags Ayo Edebiri, left, actor/writer Rachel Sennott, center, and Marshawn Lynch on the set of “Bottoms.”Patti PerretIt was the spring of 2022, and 28-year-old filmmaker Emma Seligman was on the phone with the NFL running back she hoped to cast in “Bottoms,” her upcoming dark comedy about a raucous high school fight club. She was looking for someone who would be unexpected; someone who would make viewers think, “What is this guy doing here?” The person on the other line was none other than Oakland legend and Beast Mode himself, Marshawn Lynch. “I remember he was confused,” Seligman said, speaking to SFGATE two days before the film’s nationwide release. In fact, he thought it was possible she was calling the wrong person. “We had to have a few conversations on the phone about it, because he was quite surprised that we were offering this to him. I think I needed to gain his trust a little bit.”AdvertisementArticle continues below this adWriter/director Emma Seligman, left, and Marshawn Lynch on the set of “Bottoms.” Patti PerretLynch (who was unavailable for an interview due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike) portrays Mr. G, a careless history teacher and recent divorcee who agrees to become the sponsor of an after-school self-defense club spearheaded by awkward outcasts and best friends PJ and Josie (Rachel Sennott of “Bodies Bodies Bodies” and Ayo Edebiri from “The Bear”). The club is formed under the guise of female empowerment after they’re nearly thrown out of school for supposedly injuring the star quarterback. Unbeknownst to Mr. G and the rest of the student body, it’s part of PJ and Josie’s scheme to get closer to their cheerleader crushes and lose their virginities before they head off to college. The club is an instant success — sort of — and with every bloody nose, punch and dropkick, the scrappy sisterhood bonds together in ways they never imagined. Lynch came onto Seligman’s radar when Orion Pictures executive Alana Mayo saw his standout performance alongside Will Arnett in the unscripted Netflix comedy series “Murderville.” (He has also portrayed himself in episodes of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “The League” and “80 for Brady,” in addition to appearing in Season 3 of “Westworld.”) Mayo advised Seligman to watch Lynch’s “Murderville” episode, and once she did, the director couldn’t stop laughing.  AdvertisementArticle continues below this ad“He was hilarious, and I was just so floored by how authentically himself he was,” Seligman said. “I think he knows people find him funny, but he’s not trying to be. He’s just doing this thing.”Seligman said Lynch ultimately decided to be in the film because of the “personal connection” he had to the script — his older sister is queer, and he didn’t handle it well when they were in high school. They’ve since reconciled, but he said it was “important for him to do something for her,” Seligman said. Marshawn Lynch on the set of “Bottoms.” Courtesy of ORION Pictures Inc.“He’s wonderful,” Seligman said. “He’s one of the kindest and most respectful actors I’ve ever worked with.”AdvertisementArticle continues below this adLynch’s feature length film debut happens to be one of the funniest movies of the year. “Bottoms” is an off-the-wall satire that brilliantly subverts the tropes of teen movies of the late 1990s and early aughts through a queer lens, picking up the torch passed on by video store cult favorites like “But I’m a Cheerleader” and “D.E.B.S.” It’s grounded in its grittiness, and it shines due to Seligman’s whip-smart vision, a buoyant hyperpop score courtesy of Leo Birenberg and Charli XCX, and the delightful ensemble cast: Summer Joy Campbell’s Sylvie, who proclaims she wants to hone her skills in combat so she can kill her stepdad, takes on an offbeat, Rebel-Wilson-in-“Bridesmaids” flair. Ruby Cruz’s Hazel is another standout, a quiet but loyal member of the club with a knack for homemade explosives not unlike “Fight Club’s” Tyler Durden — one scene in which she blows up a fellow classmate’s car in slo-mo to Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” surely warranted the 70mm IMAX treatment. “Bottoms” is Seligman’s sophomore feature, though she started writing it with Sennott at the same time they were working on their 2020 debut “Shiva Baby” as college students at New York University. (Edebiri and Sennott, longtime collaborators in the Comedy Central series “Ayo and Rachel are Single,” also met as roommates there.)Actor Ayo Edebiri, left, writer/director Emma Seligman, center and actor/writer Rachel Sennott on the set of “Bottoms.” Patti PerretSeligman’s new film — which once boasted the working title of “Gay High School Fight Club” — is already achieving similar acclaim. It currently has 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and received praise across the board from Variety, Roger Ebert.com, and the New York Times, which specifically called out Lynch’s “delicious” supporting performance. NPR’s Aisha Harris described it perfectly: “In the realm of black comedies unabashedly embracing teen nastiness, ‘Heathers’ walked so ‘Jawbreaker’ could run, ‘Mean Girls’ could fly, and so ‘Bottoms’ can now proudly land in outer space.”AdvertisementArticle continues below this adFilming for “Bottoms” took place over the course of 27 days in New Orleans last summer. The crew ended up shooting primarily at an abandoned elementary school because most of the public schools didn’t want filming to disrupt football season, and “all of the private Catholic schools didn’t want to let us shoot there because of the content of the movie,” Seligman said. The cast and crew encountered a number of other unique challenges, including dodging thunderstorms and learning how to choreograph fight scenes with a stunt coordinator for the first time. “It was definitely something I’d never done before and there was a lot of trial and error, but it was cool,” Seligman said. “Our cinematographer Maria [Rusche] and I just watched as many references as we could, and started leaning toward a really funny style of fighting taken from Edgar Wright movies that make the characters look cool, but also show that it’s scrappy and they’re bad at it.” They certainly pulled it off. The movie culminates in one of the wildest brawls to ever take place on a football field (I won’t say too much, but swords, pineapple juice sprinklers, and lots of fake blood are involved). The sequence required nearly a week and a half of night shoots.AdvertisementArticle continues below this ad“We experienced a lot of rain and a lot of lightning delays where we just had to sit in our car and wait,” Seligman said. “There was static! I remember looking at the cast one night, and everyone’s hair was starting to stand up. And I was like, ‘All right, let’s get off this field.’” Ayo Edebiri, left, stars as Josie and Rachel Sennott, right, as PJ in “Bottoms.”Patti PerretIt may take a little while for some viewers to get on board with “Bottoms” and the wacky, heightened reality it presents — wrestlers are brought to class in cages, football players are enshrined as erotic folk heroes and and posters hang above lockers with sweetly mocking statements like “Smile, he could be looking at you right now.” But those who stick around for the ride will be rewarded — millennials like me will surely be pleased to see the return of Razr flip phones and a montage of Edeberi pensively wandering down the hallway to Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated.” A nostalgic blooper reel during the end credits, complete with a Mac Dre reference from Lynch, felt like the cherry bomb on top.“That was something I missed so, so much,” Seligman said, citing her love of the blooper reels that were ubiquitous in the DVDs she grew up renting from Blockbuster. “I had to bring that back.”AdvertisementArticle continues below this adThe self-labeled “intense theater-slash-film nerd” came of age in Toronto during what she describes as “the Y2K boom of female-driven, campy teen” flicks like “Bring it On,” “Drop Dead Gorgeous” and “Sugar & Spice,” as well as buddy comedies like “American Pie” and “Superbad.” Those influences are apparent in “Bottoms,” but the film never leans on them too heavily, instead charting out audacious new territory.“I think with the boundaries we were trying to push, it was all about perspective,” Seligman said. “What would the queer girls version of this look like? What was their version of trying to get laid, and being selfish and s—tty? But we wanted it to be equally stupid and fun. We just really missed laughing out loud in a theater with other people.”    “Bottoms” is now playing in theaters. 

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