Cheap Date is i-D’s new series where we take our crushes out for under $40, get to know them, and have a good old fashioned hang. First up is Molly Gordon, the charming and hilarious actress whose next role sees her stealing the lead.
Molly Gordon shows up to our 10 a.m. breakfast date in a fur stole, the kind of fantastic Old Hollywood starlet move that feels very, “Who me? This old thing? I just threw it on.” We’re nestled into a corner booth at Bus Stop Cafe in the West Village, a New York diner that’s been around since the ’90s and has weathered infinite first dates, hungover brunches, and meet-cutes. A place where a movie star in a stole doesn’t even eek a wayward eyebrow. It’s the day before Oh, Hi!—the romcom gone rom-wrong that Gordon helms alongside the treacherously adorable Logan Lerman—premieres at Tribeca Film Festival, and Gordon is at full steam, taking names and giving orders (French toast with the works and an iced coffee with oat milk).
For the past decade Gordon’s played a range of comedic characters all at the tip of the cultural needle, The Bear to Shiva Baby to Book Smart to her directorial debut Theater Camp. Her quick humor and girl next door charm has established her as a key voice in the rising crop of movie and television stars, alongside contemporaries, frequent collaborators, and fellow It girls like Ayo Edebiri, and Rachel Sennott. It also allows her great comedic latitude—she’s so sparkling you don’t even notice when you’ve followed her right off the cliff.
Oh, Hi!, in theaters July 25, marks the 29-year-old actress and director’s foray into leading lady. Gordon’s Iris is Kate Hudson in How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days by way of Madeline Kahn, a beautiful but unhinged heroine. Her ability to teeter between ruin and optimism is a balm for the strictures of contemporary dating: Don’t show your cards, hell, don’t even have cards to begin with. In person Gordon is even keel, quick to laugh but also completely present. If there’s a joke to be made she’s going for it. Over breakfast (total $36.42), Gordon and I caught up about romcoms, working with friends, and the current situation(ship).
Nicolaia Rips: What are your essential romcoms?
Molly Gordon: Every Nora Ephron movie. Nora Ephron, is for me, a religion. I love When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail. I also love Broadcast News, Moonstruck. And I love 50 First Dates. I just love films about people falling in love. We’ve become such, I don’t know, a sad society where I feel like everyone’s allergic to sincerity. It’s fun to return to movies where we used to champion people falling for each other and feeling things. I think sometimes it can be triggering to watch people connect on screen right now. I get it because we’re all so alone. I felt that way during COVID, when we all watched Normal People, and I was like, “Ah I’m alone!” But the world’s too dark, and like, that’s the kind of shit I want to watch.
I love your picks, they’re all a little crazy. Moonstruck, obviously, is an, “I’m ape shit in love” movie, a genre which Oh, Hi! falls into.
I said in an interview that this movie was based on me if I was 5% crazier, but then that got taken out of context. Obviously, I would never tie someone up and hold them hostage! I want that clarified if you could…run that.
I’ll run that.
But I do think love, and love lost, makes you lose your mind. You can’t work, you can’t eat, you can’t sleep. It’s everything! Whenever I’ve gotten something done, or, like, all my taste came from trying to impress someone. Everything we do is for a crush and for love! So, it makes us crazy.
What’s the funniest thing you’ve pretended to like for a crush?
My parents showed me a lot of old movies… but my first crush really liked French New Wave, and I was like, “Totally, Bonjour,” you know, the next day like wearing a beret and being like, “Breathless is so cool.” Just being an idiot. I think discovering world cinema came from a loveable pretentious guy I had a crush on. I mean having a crush just exposes you to things which help find your own taste, but also, what’s the point of life if you don’t have a crush? Even when you’re in a relationship, you go to work and you wear your hair nice because you have a crush! It just pushes the world forward. When you’re on a train and it stalls, of course, you go, who would I be with on this train?
Or waiting at the airport, and you’re like, and who am I in love with?
Totally, who am I in love with? If this plane goes down, who will I connect with in our final moment?
I like what you were saying about our society being out of touch with our own desires. At the end of the day, the wish fulfillment of a rom-com is about recognizing your own wishes. When I saw Oh, Hi!, I resonated with—spoilers—the element of the supernatural. I’m always on the verge of “woo woo.”
Me too. Because it’s so miraculous that we find people that we connect to on this Earth. When you do, you’ll do anything to keep it. It’s the same way I feel about my friends, I travel across the ocean to see them, because finding people you connect with is so rare. If you think you found the love of your life and they don’t want to be with you or, in this case, this guy’s taken me on this trip telling his mom about me, wining and dining but he doesn’t think we’re in a relationship. It’s maddening. When you have a communication breakdown, it does make you go crazy. We’re all just so scared to be totally honest with each other as we dance around the real conversation, and then you end up having bigger fights.
The situationship thing. I hate that word. It’s so corny. Can’t we have lovers?
I’ve taken lovers. I’ve had lovers, but then you really can tell when you’re in a situationship. It’s like, I can’t make this a lover, this is bad, this is a situation, and it’s troubling. I’ve never had a situationship not make me feel bad. You always feel bad.
That’s the hallmark of a situationship—you feel bad. Do you have any potions that you use in your daily life?
I’ve gone through chapters where I journal and manifest, pull a tarot card everyday. I have tinctures.. For me, music and dancing is my potion. I’m trying to bring in love and light, and get rid of the bad stuff. Recently though, Marisa Abela turned me on to this English TikTok witch. She says crazy things, like you take an apple and your own hair and light it on fire… all that stuff. I haven’t tried any of it but I might this summer.
And what happens when you take an apple and light your hair on fire?
You know, money, love, anything, health.
The feminine urge to potion.
When I’m sad, my mom does energy work on me, like Reiki. She doesn’t have any training in it. She’s like, lie down, let me go [Molly wiggles her fingers auspiciously].
My mom does that too. She’ll be like, feel it, and then squeeze my hand.
I think we’re lucky to exist in that space. I feel like some of my guy friends feel like they can’t just be honest about their witch work.
You have such a radiant girl next door charm and Oh, Hi! has a real subversion of that. Same with Logan, he’s typically so “teenage boyfriend.”
What’s fun was for both of us to play something different. He’s so sweetie. I feel like if we had cast someone who looks like an asshole it would have not been as real. The true soft boy is that sweetie face that draws you in, and then they pull the knife out.
You’re also so good at existing in that sweetie space.
When I first started acting, I was getting these bitchier roles, and like, I’m child of a Reiki mom. Kindness is everything. I’ve also never been the lead of a movie ever, so it’s been amazing to get to, actually show the layers of like, a true person.
Let’s talk about directing. You co-directed Theater Camp and are going to direct and star in Peaked for A24.
[Our french toast arrives and we coo over it].
We need to art direct this.
I’m really close with the woman who designs all the food on The Bear.
You’ll art direct!
Oh no, I picked up nothing… I just wish she was here. We’re casting [Peaked] right now. I grew up at a time when social media was just beginning, and being kind of an asshole, and putting other people down was considered cool, and not having passion was cool. It’s a really hard time to be an adult now, no one can buy a house, the reality of it is that the only people that are successful are the people that were brave enough to put themselves out there, and not stand around and judge. So I wanted to make a movie about the girls who didn’t do that. It’s set at a high school reunion, which is like an adult bar mitzvah. It’s a big fun ensemble comedy. I can’t believe that I get to direct again!
I saw online that you were in your community theater production of Fiddler on the Roof as a kid. I want to know what part you were.
So, I was Hava and Fruma-Sarah.
Ah, the illustrious dual role.
The range that I had. They also added a song from Yentl called “Papa Can You Hear Me” so I could have a song. It was a kind of a radical production in that way. I was part of this community theater which is where I met Ben [Platt]. Made me the actor I am today. Ayo [Edebiri] was also Fruma-Sarah in her production. I’d love to see how many women in comedy were Fruma-Sarah. I’d love for you to do a piece on that.
When you first started out, you worked as a server at Balthazar. Have you read Keith McNally’s book yet?
I actually just bought it. I haven’t read it yet, but his Instagram is absolutely a trip to read and such a joy. From a writing perspective, it’s like: I’m not trying to frame this, I’m not trying to get a joke, I’m writing what happened. We all gotta just be saying exactly what happened.
You’ve collaborated a lot with your friends. Can you tell me a little about that?
People always say, don’t work with your friends. I do. I’m like the poster child for working with your friends. We’re all in the circus together. I’m, unfortunately, just not friends with any doctors. With this project Sophie [Brooks] is one of my best friends. Being able to have this opportunity as an actor—but also getting to help my friend make her second movie—I’m so proud and excited. If I can help in any way I don’t know why I wouldn’t, both with my friends and other women. Nicole Kidman pledged that she would work with a certain amount of female directors, and then exceeded that. I don’t really see any younger women doing that or any other women that are really as big as Nicole. I don’t know why that’s not in the narrative anymore. I hope that other people will start doing more because that’s the only way to have more female directors.
In many ways Oh, Hi! is as much about friendship as it is romance.
What I’ve learned through my trials and tribulations of dating is: the men, the women, anyone, the lovers, the situations, they come and go, but your friends are forever. That’s where you’ve got to be putting your love into.
