Ken Jeong and Milana Vayntrub Mine Humor of Remote Work in 'Out of Office'

2022-09-02 23:23:14 By : Mr. Antares Chou

By now, we've probably all experienced the work-from-home Zoom call, when co-workers forget to mute or unmute their microphones and the lines between home-life and work-life are blurred.

Comedy Central has put a comedic spin on the nearly universal concept in a new film called Out of Office, in which a young woman played by Milana Vayntrub—known for playing Lily Adams in AT&T's commercials—has to help her boss (Ken Jeong) navigate his failing marriage to SNL alum Leslie Jones in order to keep her job.

Vayntrub told Newsweek that it was "impossible" to work with Jeong and Jones together.

"They make everyone around them ruin scenes because we're never not breaking, and it's a miracle this movie got finished in time," said Vayntrub, adding that with the entire star-studded comedic cast, "There's probably another three full-length movies full of bloopers."

From the minds of The Office, executive producers Ben Silverman and Paul Lieberstein, Out of Office also stars Jason Alexander, Jay Pharoah, Cheri Oteri, Oscar Nuñez, Paul F. Tompkins, Tony Rodriguez, Emily Pendergast and more.

She said that working with Lieberstein, who also directed the film, was like "working with a master."

"We did shoot this movie really fast," said Vayntrub. "So you know, 'In Director We trust.' I knew that he really cared about this project and that when things felt chaotic through all of the different shots and, you know, all of the special ways that we had to shoot this separately and together, it always just felt like we were working with a master, a guy who has done this before a million times and knows comedy."

The cast is made up of some of the most creative characters in the comedy industry, so no doubt there will be some great scenes in the film that were completely improvised.

"Paul was very encouraging of us to improvise on top of it [the script], but you know, improv only works when there's a really great structure and goal of every scene. And Paul instilled that in all of us and then let us be weirdos as dressing to his salad," she laughed. "Paul Lieberstein is a salad tosser."

The film, Vayntrub said, "is probably the story that a lot of us have been living for the past few years. And a lot of us are probably continuing to work from home in that way. But it's how do we make friends and find love and still find chaos while we're working remotely? And then also in this movie, you know, people do get together and you do get to feel the beauty of actual community."

Out of Office is set to premiere on Comedy Central on September 5.

Newsweek has an exclusive teaser from the film, see above.

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