Rob Huebel sat down to discuss his new role in Haroula Rose’s sophomore film, All Happy Families, ahead of its digital release.
Before diving into the film itself, Huebel took some time to remember his co-star, the late John Ashton. Ashton, who recently passed away, portrays Huebel’s character’s father. He also discusses his character, Will, and what he looks for in screenplays. It’s probably not a surprise that he gravitates toward comedy roles and that’s something he looks for in a script. The actor also opens up about majoring in marketing in college, thinking that going into comedy would be far-fetched. He subsequently moved to New York after college and fell into comedy by accident after his roommate took him to see an improv show. He started taking Upright Citizens Brigade classes and the rest is history.
In All Happy Families, the Landry family reunites at their Chicago home over a weekend. Like most dysfunctional family comedies, resentment and secrets start beginning to surface. Shortly after coming back home, Will Landry finds himself involved in a scandal and has to deal with it on top of everything else. Directed by Haroula Rose from a screenplay she wrote with Coburn Goss, the ensemble cast includes Josh Radnor, Becky Ann Baker, Rob Huebel, Chandra Russell, John Ashton Ivy O’Brien, Antoine McKay, David Pasquesi, Colleen Camp and Rodney Crowell.
After its theatrical release in late September, Freestyle Digital Media is releasing the film on Digital on October 18, 2024.
It’s so nice to meet you today. How are you doing?
Rob Huebel: I’m doing really great. Nice to meet you. You’re in Chicago or do you live in Chicago?
Yes, I do.
Rob Huebel: I love it. We shot this movie in Chicago. I hope that you could feel it.
Oh, yeah, I noticed. I would have gone to the local premiere last night but I was at the October 7th memorial gatherings.
Rob Huebel: Oh, gotcha. Well, yeah.
First and foremost, my condolences on John Ashton’s passing.
Rob Huebel: Yeah, man, thank you so much. I really want to give a shout out to John. He, as you said, just passed away and so I was so sorry to hear about that. He’s just one of those actors that I was so lucky to get to spend some time with him, on set and off set, and to hang out with him in Chicago. I think he was from Chicago, definitely played a lot of Chicago gruff, salty old cop types. I grew up watching John in Beverly Hills Cop and Midnight Run and just such a great character actor. We’ll really miss him a lot.
What was it about the script that attracted you to All Happy Families?
Rob Huebel: I really love the writing of this movie. I think like a lot of people, your family is always messy. It’s always complicated. I look for stuff like this that feels real and sounds real. Haroula Rose, our director, wrote this movie with Cobe Goss and just the writing of it felt and sounded like the way my family talks in real life. The way that you show a certain side of yourself to your family that isn’t always real, that isn’t always authentic, and it’s not really helpful. In this movie, you get to see all of those walls kind of get destroyed and all of these kind of walls come tumbling down very quickly for this family. You kind of get to see behind the curtain of what’s going on with everybody. You get to see what’s going on with my character.
My character plays this very successful Hollywood actor who’s come back to Chicago to help the family get their house ready to rent out. Josh Radnor plays a struggling actor, kind of up and coming, never really launched in life and doesn’t have much going for him. Becky and John are kind of dealing with a lot of stuff in their relationship and their marriage. It just felt to me like the way a family actually deals with each other and it’s really hard to find that. It’s hard to find that in TV. It’s hard to find that in big Hollywood movies. You can kind of only find that in small little indie movies like this and so I really value opportunities like that.
Was there any room for improv?
Rob Huebel: There was a lot of room for improv, but only after we did it the way they wrote it. Haroula and Cobe wrote this great script, and I always want to be respectful of that. I’m sure you know, Danielle, how movies are made, and especially indie movies like this—you don’t have a lot of time, and you don’t have a lot of takes. To be respectful, I always want to do what they wrote. You do that the first couple takes and then if there’s time, I always love to improvise but I don’t want to mess it up or make the day go long or anything like that.
We were really lucky in this to get to improvise, especially Josh and I. There’s some scenes where we’re fighting and arguing about stuff and or I’m trying to convince him to do something terrible or he’s trying to criticize the crappy network TV show that I’m on. A lot of the arguing and the giving each other shit, a lot of that is real and a lot of that is us trying to make each other laugh on set. There’s a lot of stuff in the movie where we’re taking digs at each other that are real or we’re trying to make each other laugh telling each other stories or telling each other jokes. A lot of that was improvised.
In general, what do you look for in a character when you’re reading a screenplay?
Rob Huebel: I try to find stuff now where it’s funny, but also real. I come from the improv world and I come from the comedy world so I love doing comedy more than anything.
I feel like there is a real hunger for comedy right now in the world. I’m terrified right now of what’s going on in our country and I’m terrified about the election and hope that we all elect Kamala and can come together as a country. It’s just a scary time right now. I love doing comedy because it’s all I can do right now is try to—everyone has to figure out what they can offer. That’s all I can offer right now is a little bit of comedy.
Hopefully, I’m doing my part. I always look for something that’s funny, but also feels real and feels grounded, the way that actual families talk to each other. I love looking for stuff like that.
Yeah. I know what you mean about comedy. I moved here for improv and weirdly become a film critic along the way.
Rob Huebel: I’m telling you—you’re in Chicago so there’s a lot of great improv in Chicago. I feel like, if we really break it down, improv comedy came out of Chicago. All the people that I learned to do improv from came from Chicago. I studied with Upright Citizens Brigade so Amy Poehler, Matt Walsh, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, they all came from Chicago. I still love watching TJ and Dave—Dave Pasquesi, who’s also in this movie. Dave Pasquesi is in this movie—great improviser, Chicago guy. But yeah, so much great improv came out of Chicago. That’s funny that you are in the improv world, but also writing about movies—that’s fascinating.
Yeah. How does someone who studied marketing in college end up in acting and improv?
Rob Huebel: I was never really honest with myself. Coming out of college, I thought that I wanted to—I loved comedy, but it seemed too far-fetched for me to ever think about going into acting, going into performing and doing comedy. I didn’t know how to do that so I studied marketing because I thought the closest I could ever get was to work in commercials, was to write funny commercials, or maybe work for an ad agency. That was my plan coming out of college. I was like, I’m gonna work for an ad agency and write funny commercials.
When I got to New York, I sort of fell into improv by accident. My roommate at the time took me to see some improv comedy, which I had never seen before. I saw all of these Chicago people. I saw Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch, Jon Glaser, Adam McKay, all of these Chicago comedians—Brian Stack, Brian McCann, all these people that had migrated from Chicago to New York. I saw them live on stage and I remember feeling like I had been struck by lightning.
I was like, oh, this is what I want to do. This is exactly what I want to do. I want to do what they’re doing. I want to be on stage with other funny people creating comedy. That’s how I fell into it. I just randomly went to see an improv show in New York and turned out that was the beginning of the UCB Theater. I knew I wanted to be a part of it.
What’s the biggest lesson that has stayed with you since you started taking improv classes all those years ago?
Rob Huebel: Oh my G-d. The biggest lesson that I’ve learned is, well, I do it for myself. I do it to make myself laugh or to make my scene partner laugh. I don’t worry about the audience. I try not to think about the audience. I try not to ever think about what is going to make them laugh. You can’t think about that when you’re doing comedy. Like, oh my G-d, do they like me? Do they hate me? How is this going? Am I bombing? Am I doing well? You can’t think about any of that.
You just have to focus on your scene partner and be in that moment between the two of you. That’s kind of where the magic is. There’s just a weird magical thing that can happen between two people on stage. If you just focus on that, if you just focus on your scene partner, the rest of it will take care of itself. Eventually, it’s going to be funny. Eventually, it’s going to be good, but just focus on your scene partner.
Thank you so much. If we had more than 10 minutes, I could talk a lot more about comedy and improv.
Rob Huebel: Oh, Danielle, I really appreciate it. So nice to meet you. And yeah, I’d love to talk to you about improv anytime.