Jennifer Prediger made her directorial debut with Apartment Troubles, an indie comedy about unlikely roommates that features an impressive roster of comedy talent.

Jennifer Prediger On ‘Apartment Troubles’

Prediger developed Apartment Troubles with fellow actress Jess Weixler, with whom she connected through mutual friends. “Jess was working on the Good Wife and she was living in LA and needed a place to live. Someone connected us in that moment and it was just kind of a perfect fit,” Prediger told uInterview in an exclusive interview. “She lived in my crazy illegal sublet apartment and then I double-illegally sublet it to her, and so she was there and I was in Connecticut and we just kind of bonded from afar over the apartment.”

“She and I lived together for about a month in this apartment. And within the first week, we just kind of got inspired and we just started writing,” Prediger explained. “The apartment was like this real inspiration for us. So we had a month of overlap there, and then we started writing back and forth from New York and LA and we were watching a lot of movies at the time, like The Odd Couple and Withnail and I and you know just got inspired.”

After Prediger and Weixler decided that they really had something with Apartment Troubles, they went about recruiting actors to fill out the cast. Prediger managed to get her Life of Crime costar Will Forte onboard, while Weixler was able to get her Somebody Up There Likes Me costar Megan Mullally to join the project. And, Weixler’s agent had a hand in getting Jeffrey Tambor to take a part.

Getting the top-notch cast together was a breeze for Prediger compared to dealing with the loss of her cat while trying to get funding for Apartment Troubles – and then ultimately working it into the script.

“My cat had a heart attack and so we were still actually writing the script and so this cat heart attack became a big theme of the movie. My cat’s name was Pigeon and the cat in the movie is named Segal,” Prediger revealed. “So, in a way anything related to the cat was incredibly hard for me to write because I was like really grieving the loss of like the cat with the biggest heart in the world.”

Shooting the burial scene for the cat, according to Prediger, was not only difficult on an emotional level, but on a technical filmmaking level as well.

“What we do to bury the cat was kind of actually one of the most difficult things to shoot and act,” Prediger revealed. “It involved fire on a rooftop in New York City. So shooting with live flames and also on a low budget makes acting and directing all of it very challenging. You’re on a windy roof, there’s a ton of lighter fluid and you’re grieving the loss of a cat, so those were some of the greatest writing and acting challenges.”

Apartment Troubles will be released in theaters and on iTunes March 27.

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Q: How did you and Jess Weixler come up with the idea for the film? -

This is a funny story, but I was living in this very bohemian East Village apartment on Tenth Street and First Avenue, and I was going to help a friend make a movie in Connecticut and I had to be gone for two months. I needed to find someone to sublet the apartment, and so Jess was working on the ‘Good Wife’ and she was living in LA and needed a place to live. We’d had a lot of mutual friends in common, but we never actually met. Someone connected us in that moment and it was just kind of a perfect fit so she lived in my crazy illegal sublet apt and then I double-illegally sublet it to her, and so she was there and I was in Connecticut and we just kind of bonded from afar over the apartment and she actually got an eviction notice on the door one day, which was thankfully worked through, but it was so stressful to be like “Oh my God don’t worry. You’re not going to get evicted, we’ll figure it out.” Anyhow, it was a very funny time. The stove she thought was going to explode one day. I mean, we had a lot of like, literally, apartment troubles. And then I came back from the movie I was working on, which was called ‘Life of Crime’, and she and I lived together for about a month in this apartment. And within the first week, we just kind of got inspired and we just started writing. The apartment was like this real inspiration for us. So we had a month of overlap there, and then we started writing back and forth from New York and LA and we were watching a lot of movies at the time, like ‘The Odd Couple’ and ‘Withnail and I’ and you know just got inspired by these movies, with dynamic duos and kind of buddies with opposite traits.

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Q: How did you get Will Forte, Megan Mullally, and Jeffrey Tambor together for the movie? -

It was all kind of a miracle. I think people don’t realize this when they see a movie like this with such big people in it they think like, “Oh, that’s some kind of studio knock-off or something.” A movie like this gets made by the grace of the movie gods. It’s really a miracle that it ever even happened. But then, we were very fortunate because I had worked with Will Forte on ‘Life of Crime’ and he’s a genius as everyone knows who’s seen him on Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock, or his new TV show ‘Last Man On Earth,’ which is so funny. But he and I had worked together. I played his assistant in this movie in a scene that actually got cut from the movie, but we got to hang out a lot, and so when it came time for us to make the movie he was just a total sweetheart and was like, “I’ll do anything for you girls.” So he came and worked with us for a day, a really long, great, terrific day for the two scenes he’s in. And then Jess had the good fortune of working with Megan Mullally on a movie directed by Bob Byington called ‘Somebody Up There Likes Me.’ So Megan basically said to her if you’re ever doing anything I’d be happy to join you.

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Q: Which were the most difficult scenes in the film for you? -

Well, you know, it took us a while to sort out what was going to happen with the cat, and so not to spoil anything for the viewers who haven’t seen the movie yet, which is all of them – but there’s a cat that dies inspired by my cat who actually died like one of the days we were meeting with our executive producer to talk about funding for the movie. My cat had a heart attack and so we were still actually writing the script and so this cat heart attack became a big theme of the movie. My cat’s name was Pigeon and the cat in the movie is named Segal. So, in a way anything related to the cat was incredibly hard for me to write because I was like really grieving the loss of like the cat with the biggest heart in the world. His heart was so big it actually killed him. I know, he was the cutest.

So that was all really hard to write. But also, I mean our characters in the movie, you know, though some of it’s based on real life, it’s very far-fetched and removed from us in a certain way too, but our characters are just kind of down and out and broke and they try to find a way to bury the cat – affordably. And so, what we do to bury the cat was kind of actually one of the most difficult things to shoot and act and we were sort of – well I don’t want to give it away – but it’s definitely an unconventional method of dealing with remains, which I will say it became cremains at the end of that scene. It involved fire on a rooftop in New York City. So shooting with live flames and also on a low budget makes acting and directing all of it very challenging. Because you’re on a windy roof, there’s a ton of lighter fluid and you’re grieving the loss of a cat, so those were some of the greatest writing and acting challenges.

We also did a scene in the ocean, which the Pacific Ocean, turns out, is quite chilly. So, I got a little hypothermic so that was definitely… but I felt like I was a real actor, you know, just getting in there and coming out and freezing and the hair and makeup person had to like literally lie down on top of me to keep me warm. So that was kind of an actorly challenge.