Kissing Jennifer Westfeldt
January 22, 2008

With the release of the romantic comedy Ira & Abby (Magnolia, Jan. 29), Jennifer Westfeldt returns to the triple-threat role of screenwriter/producer/star that she inhabited several years back with the film Kissing Jessica Stein. (Actually, this time around, she's co-executive producer). I spoke to the friendly Ms. Westfeldt last week regarding her latest indie effort.

“Every independent film is hard to get off the ground, but we got fairly lucky with this one,” Westfeldt told me. “I had done a pilot in May that wasn’t picked up, so we were shooting by October. It wasn’t so long to get it

Westfeldt wrote the screenplay for Ira & Abby in late 2002, when Kissing Jessica Stein was making some noise on the new release shelf.

“Yes, the script has been kicking around for a few years,” she said. “It’s an incredibly slow process, and then it’s incredibly fast.”

Westfeldt is currently starring in the ABC sitcom Notes from the Underbelly, which is on hiatus due to the continuing Writers Guild of America strike, on which she has some very strong opinions.

“We’re in this strange holding pattern right now and it’s unclear whether the strike will resolve any time soon. I think that the writers are 100% in the right when it comes to new media profits--people shouldn’t make money when material is shown on the Internet without cutting the writers in on any of the profits.” Westfeldt said. “What the writers are asking for is so minimal—2.5% of whatever is sold to new media. It’s a very sad situation and I really hope that cooler heads prevail soon.”

Posted by Laurence Lerman on January 22, 2008 | Comments (0)