Alison Brie loves romantic comedies so much that she used to fall asleep to The American President — the 1995 movie in which Michael Douglas plays a widowed commander-in-chief who woos lobbyist Annette Bening — every night. And she still does, occasionally: “I did it again two nights ago,” she told Refinery29. “I know it so well that I can close my eyes and still know everything that’s going on. I fast-forward to the first time she’s in the Oval Office, and that’s my lullaby.” Brie, known best for her roles on Community and Mad Men, rattled off her favorite rom-coms of all time — When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, Hitch, Two Weeks Notice — while we were discussing her new film, Sleeping With Other People. It's among a recent spate of movies that aim to reinvent a beloved genre that grew sadly stale. In fact, Sleeping With Other People, which opens September 11, could be seen as a modern take on the central theme of When Harry Met Sally: Can heterosexual men and women be friends without the sex part getting in the way? Rom-coms, of course, still say "no." (Otherwise, they’d lose the "rom" part.) In the film, Brie plays Lainey, who’s self-destructively fixated on her married, emotionally distant lover (Adam Scott). At a support group for sex addicts, she runs into the affable guy to whom she lost her virginity in college — Jake (Jason Sudeikis), who has become a serial womanizer. He and Lainey decide they like each other so much that they don’t want to ruin it with sex. Naturally, tons of sexual and romantic tension ensue, which allows the film to examine the complicated connections between love, intimacy, and sex in a time with blurry boundaries and few rules. For Brie, the movie was a perfect match. She’s known for straddling comedy and drama in two concurrent, high-profile TV roles: sexy overachiever Annie on Community and Pete’s betrayed wife, Trudy, on Mad Men. Sleeping With Other People allowed her to use the full range of her skills while also working with Sudeikis and writer-director Leslye Headland (best known for her dark, female-centric comedy Bachelorette). “As I read this script, I got more and more excited,” Brie said. “Lainey is such a dynamic and interesting character — strong and also funny. It looks like a straightforward romantic comedy, but it’s more like an indie movie that has it all. So when I met with Leslye to talk about the part, I wooed her hard.” Here’s what else we talked about with the soon-to-be-even-bigger star.



What do you think this movie says about relationships? "So many things! To me, one of the major themes of the movie is self-worth, especially as it pertains to Lainey. She really puts so much of herself into her relationships. Then, her entire self-worth is in the hands of another person. It takes spending time with someone on a friend level for her to realize she deserves more, and she deserves to be treated fairly. It’s something I could relate to from time spent dating... I definitely have had these kinds of talks with friends where they’re sobbing about a guy, like, 'Why won’t he call me back?' And it’s like, 'You don’t even like hanging out with him that much!'" Have you ever had a confusing relationship like Jake and Lainey’s, where you don’t quite know how to define it? "I don’t know that I have. I was trying to think, Who’s the Jake in my life? I think I’ve had more Sobaceks [Adam Scott’s cheating character], which is a sad thing. I’ve also had a lot of good male friends. I guess my own personal life has defied the theme of this movie, which is that men and women cannot be friends. I say: Nay! They can!" You were on two TV shows with intense fan bases that both just ended. Which of those fan bases has been the most vocal, in your experience? "My instinctual answer is Community. Community fans are very polite. I feel like they want to come up and say, 'I love you on Community,' and then just leave. They’re too polite, almost. But since Mad Men just ended, I’ve had more people like, 'Oh my god!' They just want me to be emotional with them." You did become something of a geek sex symbol on Community. "The funniest thing about that is [creator/executive producer] Dan Harmon hated the idea so much, he would put it in episodes just to spite the network, who [ended up actually] liking it. And so, Dan catapulted the idea to new heights on the internet. He did know what he was doing; he was like, 'As long as we can get Ali doing a gif-able moment…'" After wrapping up Season 6 on Yahoo!, do you think Community is really over now? "I think it is really, finally over. Everyone’s strangely okay with it. The fan hashtag was #SixSeasonsAndAMovie. We all felt very lucky that Yahoo! picked up the show. I have a feeling everyone would be on board to do a movie and see out the rest of the hashtag. Either way, I felt like Season 6 was the final season that we all needed. Even if we were kind of only making it for the fans, that’s enough. They’re the only people who truly understand us. It felt like our most insular season, in a good way."