Longtime friends John Early and Kate Berlant have done it all together. The 38-year-olds have cast themselves as everything from mother and young son to contemptuous former friends, caught in a perpetual game of one-upsmanship. Their 2022 comedy special Would It Kill You to Laugh? kicked the absurdist needling into high gear, introducing them as exaggerated versions of themselves who suffered a falling out over an artificial insemination incident, two human-sized beavers on vacation, and people paying the dinner bill with hot caramel, among other things.
This June, Early and Berlant are (partially) leaving the surrealist satire that made them the prototypical Millennial alt-comedians with the release of Early’s feature writing and directorial debut, Maddie’s Secret. Maddie, played by a largely straight-faced Early, rises from dishwasher to front-facing talent at a Bon Appétit-esque test kitchen called “Gourmaybe.” But despite support from her best friend Deena, played by Berlant, Maddie’s past struggles with bulimia begin to rear their ugly head.
While the film takes its stylist cues from ’80s “disease of the week” melodramas and carries hints of their signature irony, Early and Berlant imbue the movie with more than just bits, crafting a vulnerable and tenderhearted old-school comedy about life outside of the 16-by-9 frame. CULTURED called them up ahead of Maddie’s Secret to discuss mildly stalking Albert Brooks, chugging milk, and humanizing the influencer.
Kate Berlant: What came first, the chicken or the egg: the desire to make a movie, in the abstract, or a concept which you felt you had to animate and give life to?
John Early: The desire to make a movie came first. It specifically was the desire to make a movie with zero intervention and to make a movie very quickly and cheaply. Almost immediately what came out of that, what came out of “fast and cheap,” was this girl. What’s the go-to main character of a kind of blunt story? Someone like [in a classic ingénue voice] this with hopes and dreams. I imagined making a movie with my friends—
Berlant: What friends?
Early: [laughs] Oh fuck you! I was thinking about early John Waters stuff—very handmade, kind of ratty.
Berlant: And a starring vehicle for me, of course.
Early: A starring vehicle for you, exactly. I was sorry that I was asking you to play a lesbian again.
Berlant: What do you mean again?
Early: You keep getting cast as a lesbian these days.
Berlant: I’ve had offers that I’ve turned down. Or auditions where I play a 55-year-old lesbian with a high fade. And I go, Yeah, that’s not written for me. But it was so exciting to see the movie and realize that I am in it, more than just my usual four lines pop in, cross my eyes, and mark it done.
Early: Deena is so essential. It was very thrilling to me. We have proper arcs. Both of us get to go on a real journey. It’s hard to do that in 12 minutes in a sketch for Vimeo or for five minutes in a sketch on YouTube.
Berlant: Nothing against Vimeo, of course.
Early: Or YouTube for that matter.
Berlant: I feel like I’ve asked you this, and it’s a boring question, but how long did it take you to write? I’m trying to understand because to me it’s abstract. I remember it seemed very fast to me.
Early: I had the idea in February 2024, and then we shot it in February 2025, which is pretty crazy. But, pen up to pen down, it would be, like, a month.
Berlant: Whoa. Did you take Adderall?
Early: Never for this.
Berlant: Good girl.
Early: Thank you. I’ve taken it for stand-up, as I think is very clear.
Berlant: I have an expired five milligram Adderall, and I think I might down it next week for fun one day.
Early: For writing purposes.
Berlant: You were very religiously shut in though.
Early: Yes, I didn’t know how else it was going to happen. I so frequently would shut myself in and I wouldn’t even really do anything. But you have to shut yourself in and hope that the muse is…
Berlant: Riding your cock?
Early: Speaking of the muse, I know that Kate loves the Albert Brooks movie The Muse starring Sharon Stone—have you rewatched it recently?
Berlant: I haven’t watched it in years. The Muse is a comfort film for me. I won’t go into detail, and I won’t say why, but I’d love to rewatch it with you. Albert Brooks is actually the only person I’d ever say I truly felt starstruck by. This is within the last two years. I was walking down the street in Brentwood, Los Angeles, with my mother, on a side street, and he passed and my knees truly went weak. I felt something I never felt before for a celebrity. I immediately was like, “I need to talk to him.”
He was going into Il Fornaio, which is a very well-known Brentwood Italian restaurant for the rich and famous. I knew that’s where he was going because of where he was parking. I was like, “I need to go in, and I’m just gonna be like, ‘I’m a comedian.'” So I went into the restaurant, looking, looking, looking. And then I saw Larry David pulling off, and I go, Okay, so there’s a real dinner happening here. There’s a private back room. I went through the restaurant, and I pretended to have the look on my face of looking for the bathroom or something. Then I saw the private room. Of course, I did not enter, and I left. But, I really was overcome. I love him.
Early: He’s very Tony Berlant.
Berlant: He looks so much like my dad, which is also the central reason why I felt I had to follow him and talk to him.
Early: That to me is real LA. Kate grew up in old-world LA. I feel like the only LA I know is kind of—
Berlant: Infatuation-led?
Early: Yeah.
Berlant: Not to denigrate The Infatuation. Those are my brothers and my sisters.
Early: We say it with love—
Berlant: Because Infatuation has fabulous left-of-center, unknown picks. [laughs]
Early: Because we live in a world that is determined by content. I unfortunately was born…
Berlant: Period. Just end the sentence.
Early: [Laughs.] I was born too late. In other words, I’ve never stumbled into a restaurant. I’ve never happened upon a restaurant. I’ve only ever consulted a list.
Berlant: I stumbled into a restaurant in Japan last time I was there and had an incredible meal. I had wild Sichuan ramen. It still is one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Do you know what I mean? The exotic stumble-upon in the algorithmic world where even our dreams are algorithmic at this point. The idea that you could go off track in any regard and find something.
In that spirit of going off track and the process of filmmaking, I’m so curious what surprised you as you watched the final product. You’ve always talked about the transformative alchemy that happens when you set out to make something, but it becomes its own life force and goes off without you. When you look at the movie and you reflect on what you thought you were making and then what you ended up making, is there anything that particularly shocked you or stood out? Perfect question alert?
Early: It is a perfect question. I could talk about this for hours. As I was describing earlier, I set out to make something a little more bratty. In other words, I thought what I was doing was going to ultimately be a little more satirical. There are, of course, satirical elements. There’s some cultural commentary. But, those satirical elements are me filling out the world necessary to support an emotional narrative. The little references to food culture and to contemporary life—I mean, I’m having fun with them, of course—but the real surprise was that it’s actually more tenderhearted.
Berlant: Oh no, a hummingbird is flying. Don’t go into the window. Sorry, I had a spiritual thing with a hummingbird just now.
Early: Well, I would argue it’s all connected, and that’s Maddie.
Berlant: Hummingbirds are energy portals. There’s a lot of talk about the magnetism around them. But I was listening. That makes complete sense, and I think that’s what everyone’s feeling will be. Because, on its head, you would be like, This bitchy guy is just doing this. Also because the movie is scream-out-loud-funny every second, you would not expect it to feel so emotionally dense and real and cracked open.
Early: I think that’s because of age. I was trying to cheat time a little bit when I was writing this movie because I wanted to go back in time. I wanted to go back to when you and I were in our early-20s, when we were like 23, 24, and there was this real hunger to make something, to be outrageous, to make something off the grid and guerrilla. That’s what I thought I was doing.
The work I was making in my early-20s was full of rage, and Maddie’s Secret has tons of rage in it, but what was beautiful was the negotiation between my younger self and my older self. My older self making this movie actually is more maternal. It’s more loving to the characters, including the character that I play.
When I started thinking about this movie, I was trying to make it a gay guy. He’s a food influencer, but he’s bulimic. I wanted to have this kind of ingénue quality, but every time I tried to speak like that, in this earnest, naïve, openhearted way as a gay guy, it felt sarcastic or ironic or caustic. It felt mean. Then funnily enough, when I just finally yielded to my desire to make it a woman, all this emotion and color and expressiveness and tenderness flooded in. It suddenly felt very bighearted.
Berlant: It’d be too simplistic to be like, “You disappear into her,” but you do. That’s the magic trick of the movie: You’re watching it and you are just with her. White chocolate, dark chocolate, or milk chocolate?
Early: Milk chocolate. What about you?
Berlant: Deep down milk, but publicly dark.
Early: I remember in middle school realizing I would look more sophisticated if I said dark, then only later that milk is so good.
Berlant: When you get milk and you’re alone, you can really moan with it.
Early: So let’s talk about milk, because milk is actually featured in this movie, when I’m chugging the milk.
Berlant: There’s a history of milk in film.
Early: There’s a history of chugging with me that Kate has always noticed.
Berlant: I love being so close to John that I’ve watched him drink various beverages throughout the years. There’s a way that John tilts his head back when he has a bottle of water, but it happens with a glass too, [where] he completely morphs into a child. It’s this pure innocence in his eyes. I can imagine him as a baby.
Early: In Maddie’s first binge scene, there’s an extended shot of her chugging milk. I put Ronnybrook Farm milk in the script. I was trying to do these signifiers of an East Side LA person who shops at these artisanal grocery stores that likes to have full-fat milk. To me, the inclusion of that detail started as a satire. When we were shooting it, I realized how deep and Freudian it was. There’s this like mother figure in the movie who has neglected Maddie and abused Maddie. She’s on her own, she’s nursing herself, chugging the milk. The binging goes deeper than a pressure to look good for the camera.
Berlant: It’s never that simple. I’m thinking about the modern day binge of the phone. It’s the same impulse toward annihilation and this hope that you can be transported somewhere other than where you are. It’s so sad. What are you even escaping from? Face the pain head on. The phone—it’s the same thing. I scroll binge and then I feel so empty and depressed and self-loathing.
Early: I know. I was on my phone for so long yesterday, it was so scary.
Berlant: At least it’s calorie-free though, right? [Laughs.]
Early: I should also say that you, Kate—and this is something I’m really, really proud of in this movie, because this is in no way something I wrote or even directed you to do, it’s something you naturally bring to every role—have your moments of childlike innocence.
Berlant: I was surprised by seeing that because I don’t feel myself doing that.
Early: What I wrote for you and directed you to do is to be very athletic, almost like a boxer, always hyping Maddie up. But then you balance that out so beautifully with these moments of real longing and pain with childlike longing in the eyes. Some of the most emotionally effective moments that are the most surprising—just a microsecond shift in your eyebrows that turn your eyes into big round circles. It’s so sweet, it really kills me.
Deena is so heartbreaking to me. I do feel like that is such a funny thing about intimacy. When you’re first really getting to know someone, it feels almost like an ancient spiritual thing where you suddenly see a flash of their childhood self. It doesn’t happen with strangers or an acquaintance. When I met Kate, I was like, Kate’s the most sophisticated, avant-garde person I’ve ever met. Then I could suddenly see your eyebrows go, whoosh. And I was like, Oh my God, I can see her begging for milk. [Laughs]
Berlant: You know what, I begged for soup as a child. My mom, who’s in Maddie’s Secret, is an amazing cook. She says that when I was really little, I’d be like, “Can I please have soup?” Like, “Please, can I?” And now, as an adult, I love soup. I’m making my own soup now. That’s the life cycle.
Early: Be the soup you wish to see in your bowl. How did it feel to have your mom on set?
Berlant: So fun. My mom was so excited. She was nervous in a normal way, but not in some pathological way. She wasn’t freaking out or anything. I had no idea what she was gonna do. I didn’t run her lines with her. She was just off book. One of the best, dearest memories of my whole life was you and I at the monitor watching her, crying. She did something with it that I didn’t expect, which is the magic of it.
Early: It’s very Julie Hagerty, which is totally her. She has this very timelessly feminine musicality to her voice. That role in the hands of a more customary approach, which we didn’t have, would have cast a miserable person who works at a front desk. Helen, because she’s such a romantic person, turned this bit-role of someone who’s kind of dim, who works at the front desk, into a dreamer. There’s a wistfulness to the performance that’s completely not on the page that makes you think that Shawna has this whole inner life and fantasy life. She’s maybe got a date after her shift. She’s so amazing.
Berlant: Her favorite moment, which really makes me laugh in the movie, is when she’s at the desk and your mother comes like this shadow.
Early: I don’t know if this was conscious, but I quickly pretty quickly felt that on some level, I was trying to take these very depressing phone-based ephemera from contemporary life which feels so hollow—influencers and content and media, these things that we’re so inundated with all the time—and trying to inject them with some old-school cinematic romance. A lot of people see the log line of this movie and assume it’s some sort of caustic exploration of fame. The whole spirit of the movie comes from a desire for contemporary life to feel more romantic and less bleak than it really does.
I love those girls. I idolize those girls. I make their recipes. I love their hair. I’m so voyeuristically obsessed with when I get little glimpses into their home lives through their Instagram accounts. The beautiful thing about the movie, in the way that it is not an Instagram story, [is that] there’s literally more space in the frame. There’s more space on either side of the person to see more details of their life, to get a more rich picture instead of a vertical video in which they take up the whole frame. I wanted to endow these very ugly things about our world with magical cinematic properties.
Berlant: It’s more beautiful than any movie I’ve ever seen. I’m obviously speaking hyperbolically, but I do think it’s so beautiful. What were those conversations between you and [cinematographer] Max Lakner?
Early: The most elemental thing was that I want Maddie to be an angel who glows the whole time. She has to be incandescent.
Berlant: That’s why you did Sakara. John was eating only Sakara the whole time.
Early: I ate Sakara, which is a vegan meal delivery service, that, of course, Sarah Paulson did an ad for. I did Sakara before because I thought it would give me a feminine glow, and it did.
Berlant: Spirulina glow.
Early: But, in terms of how we achieve that with photography, we literally used vintage lenses from the ’40s.
Berlant: Where do you get those, a goddamn garage sale?
Early: [Laughs] No, you can rent them. It’s so magical.
Berlant: I’m so intimidated by the director process and everything. So are you a lens guy now?
Early: Not at all. I don’t know the names of any of these. These are just really crude things I would tell Max that I wanted. The Gourmaybe location, that was very Adrian Lyne, who directed Unfaithful and Flashdance and Fatal Attraction and Lolita. In all of his movies, there’s always these big warehouse spaces where there’s all this gold sunset light pushed through. There’s so much haze, and there’s so much clutter and dust. It was very important to me that we not be polite in any way about these tools that are at our disposal that people don’t use today. I would always tell the lighting and electric, it can be artificial.
Berlant: Push blues, the greens, the purple. It’s so bold, it’s so liberated. Everyone else should feel shame when they watch this. [Laughs]
Early: We also had leaf blowers inside, blowing the curtains of windows that are visibly closed, which makes it feel like a dream. Part of why Gourmaybe is so bright is because we literally put so much haze in that room. We pumped it with so much haze that when we were in color correction, we’re like, “Oh my God, you literally can’t see people.” It was too muggy and so then we had to brighten everything and post. It makes it all so bright.
Berlant: I love it, though. It’s strange.
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