Drugstore June Interview: Director Nicholaus Goossen Talks Esther Povitsky Comedy
ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Drugstore June director Nicholaus Goossen about the upcoming comedy movie. The filmmaker discussed the process of making the movie and the ongoing legacy of Grandma’s Boy. The film is set to debut in theaters on Friday, February 23, 2024.
“June is a wannabe influencer who’s juggling multiple problems: her parents want her to move out, her ex-boyfriend accuses her of stalking him, and two detectives think she may be involved in the robbery of a local pharmacy,” reads the film‘s synopsis.
Tyler Treese: I wanted to ask you about the genesis of this project because I saw you wrote it with Esther Povitsky. How was it coming up with this idea and working on this project together?
Nicholaus Goossen: It was great. Esther and I were friends and had been working together for a couple of years, and we were trying to think of something that she could … I always believed that she could be the lead of something, and at that point, when we started talking about this movie, she was a star of a television show, and we were working together on Comedy Central projects.
We just wanted to take the essence of Esther and her comedic persona and create a vehicle around her using all of our friends in the comedy community. The genesis of it was just creating a film for Esther. I mean, it was from the ground up. It was always meant to be her. The whole thing was tailored for Esther.
You talked about bringing in the whole comedy community — the cast you’ve assembled here is incredible. Was that calling in a lot of favors? Were people just happy to help?
Yeah, we got really lucky. Fortunately, everybody was ready to kind of jump in and support Esther and support the film, and, obviously, with all things comedy, Bill Burr and Jordan [Ellner, producer] and Mike Berlina and Al Madrigal — all those guys over there, we’ve all known each other for years though. Jordan Ellner, who works at All Things Comedy and Al Madrigal, I’ve known for a long time.
Through a lot of my work at Comedy Central … I’ve been friends with Bobby for a long time. It was written for Esther, it was written for Bobby, it was written for Brandon Wardell, from the beginning. Once we kind of had that core group together, along with Bill and the All Things Comedy guys, it was really great how many people came together to support the movie. We did it very inexpensively here in Los Angeles. And we were fortunate that everybody was so willing to rally around us.
I wanted to ask about the structure. I like that you give time to really meet the characters and get to know everybody before we have the robbery. Then it becomes this little mystery, which is fun and has a very clueless individual trying to comically trying to figure out this mystery. How is it finding the pacing and setting up the story like that?
I don’t love it when comedies specifically feel like they need to rush right at the beginning. You see a lot of comedies can get choppy to get to the meat of the plot. My other movie was accused of meandering a little bit in the first act and not really having a plot until the third act of Grandma’s Boy. I love that kind of … and, certainly, The Big Lebowski was an inspiration for us. Clerks, which kind of has clueless individuals at the center of the storyline.
We certainly wanted to get to know the characters and just let you ease into the movie a little bit before we hit you with our big point call-to-action of the plot. It was very deliberate. What you’re speaking about was a deliberate choice to do that and, hopefully, people enjoy that. It seems like you did.
One of the fun appearances in this movie is the pro wrestle, the former Dolph Ziggler, Nicholas Nemeth. I know he does stand up too. Did you know him through that, or how did that come about?
Again, yeah, that was another not-so-random. I had worked with Nick on a Comedy Central special with Trevor Moore — the late Trevor Moore, who would’ve been in this film had he not passed away a couple years ago. I met him on that project and we had a great time, and he showed up and just did a quick bit. When it came time to cast that role of the delivery guy, I wanted somebody who had some physical stature and would be somebody that the June character would be quick to hit on.
Nick came to mind right away, and, fortunately, his schedule … I think actually he was wrestling the night before in some stadium or some arena, and he flew in the next morning to get to set, which was really fortunate for us. I had worked with Nick before on a Comedy Central special with Trevor Moore called The Story of Our Times. So yeah, even Nick Nemeth was a former coworker of mine.
I’d like to talk a bit about Grandma’s Boy. It wasn’t super well-received by critics when it first came out, but it really found a fanbase on home video. When I was in high school, we were all passing around the DVD and it just became this huge movie within my friend group. How’s it been seeing that legacy? I still see it quoted, so it seems that it speaks to the people.
Sure. I mean, we’ve been lucky that it’s had such staying power. When you mentioned that you were passing around the DVD with your friends in high school, that’s funny, because Nick Swardson always tells the story that, at one point, he and Adam Sandler were in a room with the CEO of Blockbuster, who had told them both that Grandma’s Boy was maybe their most stolen film of the 2000s and are never returned. Like, nobody ever returned it. I remember going to the movie theater opening weekend and just being going, “Where is everybody?” [Laughs]. And then the people that were there would usually walk out after 15 minutes, because usually they were elderly people who thought they were seeing an entirely different type type of movie.
What can I say? I even got to go see Grandma’s Boy in a movie theater here in Los Angeles last year — I think it was playing at Brain Dead Studios on Fairfax. That was pretty cool, even just to see the movie running in a movie theater on film nearly 20 years later. Grandma’s Boy was a great experience and we tried to bring some of that spirit to this project as well, because Grandma’s Boy was shot on a very accelerated schedule here in Los Angeles. We shot Drugstore June on even shorter schedule in Los Angeles which was tricky.
I really enjoyed Haley Joel Osment as the ex-boyfriend. He’s really done some great guest spots on series lately. How was it working with him?
Wow, so effortless and so easy. He was tremendous to work with. Showed up, was great. I didn’t know him very well before we worked on this project together, but I’d heard a lot of great things about him. Obviously I was a fan of his acting since Sixth Sense. He was great. He was perfect. He was exactly what we needed for that role and it was tremendous working with him. It was great.
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