When Leslie Mann first started auditioning for dramatic roles, people laughed at her, she remembers, a surprise given that she did not consider herself a comedic actor and, by her own account, still does not, even as she is quick to add that she never takes herself seriously. She nonetheless, in her words, haphazardly rolled into comedy, landing parts alongside 1990s giants of the genre: Jim Carrey and Ben Stiller in The Cable Guy in 1996 and Adam Sandler in Big Daddy in 1999. From there, her comic talent became undeniable.
Mann, 54, has dominated the genre for decades since, in box-office hits such as Knocked Up. On August 21 she returns with Spa Weekend, which follows four women escaping their strained everyday lives, marked by tumultuous divorce, lonely nights and draining jobs, at a luxury resort stocked with hot-yoga teachers and plenty of cocktails. Directed by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, the film stars Isla Fisher, Anna Faris and Michelle Buteau alongside Mann.
“Women really want to get away and take a break,” Mann says of the premise. “We need a break. And women don’t give themselves enough of a break.”
She traces her instincts back to a formative early encounter. At 21, she was called in to meet director James Brooks and cast in Beautiful Girls, which she describes as the greatest moment of her life. Brooks sent a bottle of champagne to everyone who got the job, one she says she still keeps, though he later left the project and the role was recast, a turn she took in stride because the film was no longer his.
Asked about the advice she has carried and passed on, Mann returns to The Cable Guy and to watching Jim Carrey work. It is frightening, she says, to put yourself out there when you are young and have no confidence and are trying to hold your own opposite someone like Carrey. During a break on set, she recalls, he turned to her and said, “You have to commit.” The line stayed with her. “You can’t half-ass it,” she says.
Her sense of success, she notes, has shifted with time. Where at 16 all she cared about was boys, success now is anything and everything related to her daughters and her family, she says, describing it simply as her kids being cool and wanting to hang out with her. She has since worked with her daughter Maude on the film Poetic License, extending a family collaboration that has become central to how she measures the work.
