“D(e)ad” is coming to theaters across the world. This dark family comedy digs into the difficulties of exploring grief when entangled with complicated family relationships. Penned by Isabella Roland, “D(e)ad” takes a comedic look at a very personal story. The film is loosely based on Roland losing her own father but with a supernatural twist. After Tillie (Roland) loses her father, she learns that everyone else in her family is being haunted by his ghost. Desperate to end the haunting, her family urges her to move past her resentment and hurt to mend their broken relationship.

The film stars Rolland along with three generations of her family, including her mother, Claudia Lonow, who also served as the film’s director; her stepfather, Jonathan Schmock; her grandmother, JoAnne Astrow; her grandfather, Mark Lonow; and her husband, Brennan Lee Mulligan. The cast of “D(e)ad” also includes Craig Bierko, Vic Michaelis, Nick Marini, Zac Oyama, and Eddie Pepitone.

In an exclusive interview with Temple of Geek, Claudia Lonow and Craig Bierko discussed their long friendship and how it helped their onscreen chemistry. They also touched on filming in the mirrors. Lonow shared her experience collaborating with her daughter and the importance of intimate independent films. Bierko applauded the script and set.

Claudia Lonow Talks Collaborating With Isabella Roland On D(e)ad

Temple of Geek: I love the dynamic between your characters that there’s that kind of antagonistic but comedic connection that’s there, and you can tell that they still have that care even though there’s so much history. Can you talk about cultivating that connection and making it feel as lived in as it does?

Claudia Lonow:

“Craig and I have known each other for a while, and we’re friends though I don’t see him that much. He lives in New York and I haven’t spoken to him. Right? Pandemic and all that sh-t. I think I was just sort of really pleasantly relieved that we seem to have chemistry, right? Don’t you think?”

Craig Bierko:

“Yeah. That’s never a guarantee. Our relationship had primarily been online.”

Claudia Lonow:

“Craig and I met before Facebook in a internet group, We were just busting each other’s balls via text. The first time I saw him in real life was when I went to New York and I saw him in The Music Man. I mean literally, and then we were hanging out. I have a boyfriend, so it wasn’t like that, but so it just felt like that kind of familiarity, and I thought that we would have that acting. He’s such a great actor. I mean, he came so prepared. It’s so bizarre. He’s playing a version of my late ex-husband for realsies, but bringing his own space much more charming, I think. What about you? What’d you think, Craig?”

Craig Bierko:

“Well, it was interesting. I mean, I remember, it’s funny, you make plans and things tend to happen for the right reason. I remember feeling like the only other time I played somebody, I don’t want to give anything away, but the guy isn’t the most together guy in the world. The version that was written, I had never met the actual person it was based on, but the character itself was quite screwed up. And I had played a character like that before in this show called (Unreal), which was on Lifetime a few years before.

The first season, it all happened so quickly, but by the time I got there, I realized, oh, usually I like to get prepared, get in shape, get a haircut, get myself together. And it turned out that for the show, (Unreal), I was playing this drug addicted sociopath, and they said, no, no, no, no. You can put on weight if you want. And by the second season, I made some changes because I really didn’t like it. But I showed up for this.

This was after the pandemic, and I had just been through some stuff. I’d lost, my dog, I wasn’t in a particularly good place, but it happened to have been the perfect place to start this movie because I realized literally the day I showed up and I saw Claudia, met Izzy, met everybody that I was going to work with the movie, and then got taken around to be shown where we were going to be shooting, I realized I didn’t get a haircut. I had to leave so early. I don’t even remember if I had showered that day. I was a mess. I just had the clothes that they asked me to bring, and we were going to look for some other stuff, and I really kind of tumbled through the movie.

Although I was always prepared when I worked. The work was one thing, but the actual sense of where I was as an actor, I guess I’d been doing this so long, there was something in me that knew let it go. Don’t ask to get a haircut. And whenever possible, even though it’s so funny, there was so much work in the mirror, and I was so lucky that the work that I had to do in the Mirror was I had to look at Claudia and her family and everybody else, the way the mirror was situated so that it was angled so that the camera would see me. I couldn’t see me.

It was the one movie. I really didn’t want to look at myself. I just didn’t like the way that I looked, and it was appropriate for the character. He was not in a good place when he passed, and I think he has to kind of get there. So anyway, that was one of those strange experiences that when you’re involved with something that turns out to be the right thing to be involved with, all these little blessings happen and you just get out of the way of them and do your work. And I felt really lucky on this one.”

Claudia Lonow:

“It was a real sort of, I’m sorry, a fantasy to have those kinds of conversations that you can’t have in real life with difficult people. So there were things that were being said in the movie that I don’t know if I would’ve said in real life, to my late ex-husband.”

Craig Bierko:

“I have those conversations all the time with my ex, alone in my apartment, now that we have Walkman, you can just pretend you’re singing on the street and you can be yelling at somebody.”

Claudia Lonow:

“I was having an argument with somebody I haven’t spoken to in 10 years before this phone call. In my day.”

Craig Bierko:

“I do the same thing. And that’s why I think a lot of people will relate to this. This is that fantasy sort of lived out. It’s also the fantasy.”

Temple of Geek: Claudia, can you talk about collaborating with Izzy not only as actors, but as writer and director, especially with a story that is so close to you both personally?

Claudia Lonow:

“Listen, Izzy and I both come from a show business family though. I mean, she came up as, it’s more like Marx brothers than Ethan Hawk and Uma Thurman we’re not famous, we’re journeymen. And so I had trepidations even when Izzy was going into show business because of how difficult it could be. But she’s just so talented. And so I just found it a delight.

It was also really interesting because I’ve had two shows that were semi autobiographical and How To Live With Your Parents. I had my actors playing my parents and an actress playing Izzy. I mean that I was shooting when Izzy lived at home. So it’s in my mind, the family business is writing about our family and now she’s doing it. And so it was also like, oh, so this is how she sees me. Let me think about, I’ve got my own making fun of my mother. So now she also has that outlet.

But I found it delightful. I thought it was just like it was delicious, absolutely delicious. There were a couple of moments that were difficult, but in my mind I thought to myself, I want this to be a good experience for everyone so we can do it again. So I just went, you know what? This is not a problem. We are not letting a problem happen.”

Craig Bierko:

“When I was there, none of that showed, and I’ve been around for a long time. So if there’s a split in the seam, my eye goes right to it. I’ve kind of always been that way. This was so smooth. And if every production has turbulence, especially if it’s a family working together and you’ve got to coordinate that with all the other people and with a lower budget production, things are constantly changing. They’re constantly adjusting, making things work for time. And I got to say, it was just such a smooth, enjoyable ride from top to bottom.”

Claudia Lonow:

“A lot of that is because me, my mother and my daughter communicate with each other through micro physical things. I mean, Izzy, my mother and I have done improv together and my mom’s, whatever we called it mom prov. And I swear to God, I knew I could read my mother’s mind. I can read her mind, know exactly what she’s going to do. I know what I know when she’s going to throw out a weird curse word or take off her clothes or something. So we had that kind of communication. It’s like Vulcan mind meld girl bullsh-t.”

Craig Bierko:

“That was one of, I think I had already, I mean the minute Claudia said, do you want to do this? I just love Claudia and I love her writing. It has a classic, very satisfying structure. Plus with the fact that she wrote it with her daughter. There’s this sense of it being very now and present, and you really do get a sense of these three different generations. I mean three very funny people writing from three very different perspectives and that it’s all put through the script.

But I think Claudia had sent me a videotape of them performing on stage together. It was just a five minute clip of them telling a story, but watching them work together. I think if I hadn’t already said yes, that was the moment where I was like, not only am I in, but I got a really good feeling about this. And I think there was one point where it looked like the scheduling wasn’t going to work and the money concerns.

I mean, it wasn’t like I was asking for anything but everything, but because they had to be careful about money, they couldn’t wait. Or I had to finish something. I can’t remember what it was, Claudia, but I just called my agent. I said, don’t care what it is. Cut the other thing short. This is going to happen, in a semi threatening way. Let my agent know this is going to make it happen. And yeah, because for a moment it looked like it might not. And I really just, it’s very rare you come across a script that hits you at gut level.”

Claudia Lonow On The Importance Of Independnt Films

Temple of Geek: Yeah, no, I completely agree. One of the things that really stood out to me about this movie is we’re in such an era of it has to be a superhero movie or it has to be an IP and all these pieces. And this felt very, not only was it funny and heartwarming and exploring grief in a way that we don’t get to see on screen as much, but it’s very intimate family story in an indie project. Why do you think it’s so important for us to not only support these kinds of projects but still be telling these kinds of stories?

Claudia Lonow:

“I’m a superhero geek and even I go like, it’s enough already. It’s not in this room, but I had Superman sh-t all over my apartment. We had to take it down to shoot, and I used to go to the movies every weekend, even by myself and see all these great indie movies, and I miss it. I really do miss it. And you can’t have a hamburger every meal without some variety.

Also, a lot of the thing where as creators were told, oh, it’s not IP. And I go, I can write IP. What makes this IP better than my IP? Just because you have some book in your hand. I never read that book. Never heard of that person. What about my story about somebody dying? So I just feel like we need it. People need to tell stories and they need to see stories in order to help them process their own story.”

Temple of Geek: Yeah, I completely agree. And then Craig, I thought you did such a great job of portraying a difficult character, but making him charming. Because every time Daniel would say something where I was like, oh, geez, dude, come on. I was still charmed by him. How did you approach not only Daniel as a character, but his relationship with his daughters and his ex-wife and everyone else in that family?

Craig Bierko:

“I think a lot of the stuff is intuitive. A lot of this was in the script. It’s not something that I don’t think any actor would. They might be able to bring a coloring or a shading or some technique to it, but if the character isn’t written so that the actor has an opportunity to show you that side of himself, even the glimpse, then it can’t happen. And so I think I would have to give a lion’s share of the credit absolutely to the script itself.

The idea for myself as an actor, just to take care of that end of things. I know that as much as I enjoy being on a set and the comradery, and especially this was a post pandemic, at least for me, it was one of the big things, the first group of people that I actually got to hang around with post pandemic, and they were lovely people. It was friendly. But I just made sure that the time that I spent away, not to torture myself, but that it wasn’t a social time. It also wasn’t a lot of time to socialize. Nobody had that time, but that I was at a kind of distance and I was kind of a satellite of the group.

I understood my function. I would sit and I would talk to people. I was interested in getting to know people, but this wasn’t project to really bond. I think there was something it added to the performance. If I had some of that distance and then I could bring myself into it and connect, and you’d still get a sense of the fact that this is one of the pieces that didn’t quite fit. And yet part of the family, it’s all in the writing. It’s beyond words. There’s something mystical.

I think when Claudia and other writers that I’ve known who are true writers, true, that’s their career writers, and they’re capable of great writing, great things that are special like this, but they’re also meat potato, like conveyor belt writers. They’ve worked in the system that they have an intuitive sense and you kind of have to just sort of back off and trust that it’s going to happen. And it did a lot of what I’m hearing about the movie, and I sensed while we were making it, I just thought, we’re going to be fine.

For whatever this vision is, whatever imperfections, it might happen technically because of money or whatever, whatever. That’s completely different. The soul of this is intact and fine. I felt that from the beginning and that my part of it was to just sort of not indulge, that’s what the cast party’s for, but the work itself was to just keep off this idea that this guy wants so much to connect with his daughter. But the less I actually do that on the set, the sweeter it’s going to be when we actually, if we actually can.”

Claudia Lonow:

“Yeah, there were scenes that we shot where crew were crying. So it’s like I thought, wow, that’s good. But I think also I did want, I wanted a little bit of a flavor of a messed up romantic comedy in a sense between my character and Craig, like His Girl Friday, but they never get back together.

So it’s a sort of contentious back and forth, and the two characters have known each other for a long time. And I just think also it’s really easy to get rid of a manipulative person when they’re not charming. When they’re also unlikable, it’s like, I don’t want to talk to you anymore. But if you’ve got somebody whose survival skill is manipulation, if they’re also charming, likable, handsome, funny. I mean, you forgive them, you know.”

Craig Bierko:

“It’s excruciating and leads to excruciating things for you down the line and comedy from a distance.”

Claudia Lonow:

“So, Craig did pull that off. He’s charming and he’s also a little scary.”

Check out the list of screenings to see if “D(e)ad” is showing near you.