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It’s a pretty stressful time to fall in love. The ice caps are melting. Autocracy is on the rise. The world is on fire.
Piper Perabo gets it. “This hum of anxiety is constant right now,” she admits. “The way we’re going to solve these problems is by talking about them. And as artists, we can have these conversations in different ways.”
Perabo’s newest film, “Peak Everything,” is a “meet cute” for a culture in desperate need of valium. It’s the story of Adam (Patrick Hivon), a depressed kennel owner who is freaked out by the climate crisis. He becomes infatuated with Tina, a call center operator, after she gives him a ring to see how he’s enjoying the therapeutic solar lamp he ordered. Their relationship blossoms after he takes a trip to meet her in person, only to discover that Tina isn’t some carefree dream girl.
Perabo credits writer and director Anne Émond with creating a character who is more nuanced than the ones she played in earlier movies.
“When I was younger, I played these kind of archetypal, sort of dream girls who walks into the picture and there’s nothing wrong with them,” she says. “That’s not very real. With the rise of female filmmakers like Anne, this sort of dream girl opens up into a real person with a complicated life that’s not easy to untangle.”
Ahead of “Peak Everything’s” premiere in Cannes’ Directors Fortnight, Perabo talked about making the off-beat indie, as well as the 25th anniversary of the film that made her a star, “Coyote Ugly.”
What appealed to you about “Peak Everything”?
It was so charming. I had just gotten home from filming an Amazon series called “Butterfly” in Korea for six months — I play a villain, and it’s very action-oriented. And I was reading scripts. I had never heard of Anne Émond, but I fell for the script. In this moment we’re all living through, with this concentration of power and authoritarianism and technology and the climate crisis, here was this story that was re-humanizing the movie experience. It’s a small love story where two people meet over the phone. I like a superhero movie, but these days I need movies where it’s two people having a conversation.
Your character starts off as this bubbly, charming, standard female love interest. Then you realize at a certain point that Tina has this rich, complicated, messy life. For one thing, she’s married with kids.
Midway through this movie Adam drops me off at my house and I say, “I think we should say goodbye here.” That’s when Tina’s husband bends down and knocks on the car door, and all of a sudden, you kind of shift over into her world. As you enter the house, it’s a mess. Dinner is not on. The flowers on the table are dead. Nobody’s fed the fish, nobody’s fed the dog. My husband’s just worried about getting beer. The love story crumples and we leave this magical world really quickly. When you when you really fall in love with someone, you fall in love with a real person,. It’s only in the movies that you fall in love with a dream girl.
You use your celebrity to highlight environmental issues. This is a comedy, but it deals with the anxiety many people feel about the health of the planet. What was it like to talk about serious subjects in a funny and sweet way?
I didn’t do the film because of its stance on environmentalism, but there was a joyfulness in the story. I find that with activism, a kind of doom and gloom can alienate people, especially with the climate movement. It’s so overwhelming and it’s feels so difficult to solve. If you get really dark about it, less people want to join and take action, whereas if there’s some joy with any movement, it’s more welcoming. It’s hard though, because with entertainment, people are looking for an escape. Thinking about the climate crisis is not very escapist.
During the first Trump term, you said, “Silence is consent.” What do you think about the entertainment industry’s response to Trump’s second term?
I can’t speak for the entertainment industry, but for myself, during the first term, I was in shock. Now we’re more practiced and have had a decade since Trump was first elected to organize and build relationships between causes. I didn’t enter activism until the first Trump administration. Now, I’ve got buddies all over the place that I can call. When I started, many friends had never phone-banked before. Now that’s common.
But it seems like there’s a lot of fear in Hollywood. Have you faced career repercussions for speaking out?
I’m not concerned about career blowback, because my job as a citizen is as important, if not more important, than my job as an artist. One elevates the other. It’s been interesting to watch how certain entertainment companies have made an about-face or stayed silent. But when the artists start speaking out en masse, it does lead to corporate change. I’m really proud of anyone who chooses to use their power of free speech.
It’s the 25th anniversary of “Coyote Ugly” this August. Why has the film endured?
It’s a musical, and Americans love musicals. But it also an artist’s Cinderella story, and that’s so appealing. It’s about going after your dreams and having them come true — and you get a date out of it. Now, that’s pretty great.
English (US) ·