Isabella Roland makes us giggle. The performer has been a familiar face on Dropout.tv, the comedy collective formerly known as College Humor. Her scene-stealing work on The Sex Lives of College Girls brought her comedy chops to a wider audience, and now she's debuting her first film, D(e)ad. Roland pulled double duty, writing and starring in the new movie. Her character, Tillie, loses her father and experiences a form of ghostly grief where everyone in her family is haunted by the paternal phantom except for her. Don't let the spirit spook you; this isn't a horror movie.
D(e)ad is described by Roland as "an independent autobiographical self-funded feature-length dark comedy." I got to sit with her and talk about her family, her writing process, and what she loves about The Real Housewives franchise.
But first, check out the trailer for D(e)ad.
"I took my first improv class when I was eleven," explains Roland. "Coming from UCB, the only thing that's available to you is collaborating with your friends." This core mindset translated into D(e)ad, a project directed by her mother, Claudia Lonow. "My mom directed an elementary school Lion King show when I was in first grade," Roland remembers. "When she's working on something, she is completely 1000% in it, and it was really cool to see her running around her apartment planning shots."
On top of directing D(e)ad, Lonow is also acting in the project alongside more of Roland's extended family. Rounding out the performing cast are many familiar faces from Dropout.tv like Vic Michaelis, Zac Oyama, and Brennan Lee Mulligan (Roland's husband).
I asked Roland about how she wrote her first script, and she said "there were a lot of different sizes of the story, styles of the story". She describes her writing process consists of writing with background noise, second-screening while screenwriting. "I normally just have some TV on that I've watched a million times. I'll watch my favorite movies over and over again or movies that are similar to what I'm writing to inspire me."
While working on the script for D(e)ad, Roland was "frequently returning to Little Miss Sunshine," written by Michael Arndt. She cites his YouTube series on the writing process as "some of the most valuable educational tools I've ever come across." Her writing movie marathon marquee also includes Flirting with Disaster and Coco, stories she'd access to "really twist the knife."
And what does she press play on when she's not in hardcore creativity mode? "A season of Housewives that I love."
Isabella Roland is a noted superfan, believer, and ally of the Real Housewives franchise. "I'm a writer, but I believe that unscripted moments are so much better than anything a person could write. The perfect mix of middle-aged, or once-wealthy, currently wealthy, or faking their wealth type of women on any sort of pills or alcohol on a trip together- they say the darndest things." She recently delivered a Smartypants presentation titled "Reality TV is Better Than the Written Word."
I asked what particularly draws her as a writer to unscripted content and she told me "I think it puts writing to shame. So I'm always trying to strive for that, and you want your writing to feel realistic."
D(e)ad is currently touring the country with screenings. All dates, cities, and ticket information are available here. At the time of this article, D(e)ad holds a 90% rating on IMDb.
For more on D(e)ad, follow the film's kickstarter page or their official website. For more on Isabella Roland, including her favorite freeway in Los Angeles, check out our exclusive interview here:
