Issa Rae on the Importance of Filming “One Of Them Days” on the Streets of Los Angeles
In its opening weekend, One of Them Days earned back nearly all of its $14 million dollar budget, cementing its status as a comedy hit, the number two spot at the box office, and led many on social media in a rallying cry for more Black, female-led comedies. One of Them Days is centered on friends and roommates Dreux (Keke Palmer) and Alyssa (SZA), who find out that Alyssa’s boyfriend has blown their rent money, forcing the duo into a race against the clock to avoid eviction while keeping themselves from going inside and losing each other in the process.
Enter Issa Rae.
“When you see one, you’re like, ‘Why aren’t there more of these?’” Rae says. “Why hasn’t the last buddy comedy been since B.A.P.S.? … It’s just been 30 years since we’ve had this, and if it works—why is it always considered a risk to do so?”
Rae has spent her career uplifting marginalized voices in the film and television world. And One of Them Days is no exception.
The film itself was born out of a lab program aimed at “identifying five new writers” and spearheaded by Rae’s own production company, ColorCreative, in collaboration with SONY. Syreeta Singleton (who also collaborated with Rae for HBO’s Rap Sh!t) submitted a treatment (a film outline) and was ultimately picked to develop it further into a script.
“We had Black writers, we had Latino writers, we had Asian writers — we had so many different, varied backgrounds,” Rae explains. “So it’s also just exposing myself and the industry to stories we wouldn’t see otherwise.”
It’s a challenge making movies, “period,” but “it’s a triple challenge to get movies with underrepresented leads made.” After Singleton’s treatment was chosen, it took seven years for the concept to be greenlit and made into a movie.
“All the odds are against you constantly,” Rae says.
Filmmakers know that shooting in Los Angeles is an expensive endeavor, but Rae says they ran into a few other problems while filming in the City of Angels — gangs.
“There was one day where we got literally shut down while we were shooting on Crenshaw [boulevard] on our last shot,” Rae says, laughing. “Lawrence is still sad about this; he had set up the perfect golden hour… And then a couple of affiliated members came up and were like, ‘Shut this shit down,’ and we were like, ‘But we got permission’… We had to put it on a reshoot date, and then they came back the next day because we were like, ‘What the fuck? We have a connection.’ He was like, ‘Oh, that was a mistake.’ And then the gang members apologized to us like, ‘Oh, that’s our bad, y’all can come back anytime.’”
Rae says stories like these are reminders of the “privilege of being able to shoot in the communities that we represent.”
As an L.A. native, Rae’s projects often romanticize city life and feature recognizable L.A. staples. The Baldwin neighborhood setting for One of Them Days — the “Jungles” (or “Jungle,” depending on who you ask) — is a historic Los Angeles neighborhood but often seen in a “negative light.”
“It was always forbidden for me to go there when I was younger,” Rae says.
For Singleton, it was important that the film depicted a different side of that neighborhood.
“She had friends there, and she kind of wanted to showcase the humanity and the people that lived in that area,” she says. “You can’t tell this story, at least in my eyes and being an L.A. native, without actually shooting in these neighborhoods. We got real-life background actors who were from the neighborhood, and we were able to patronize the businesses around. And it just felt special to be in the essence.”
Keke Palmer’s character, Dreux, also works at NORM’s Restaurant, a well-known diner on La Cienega Boulevard.
But filming a movie set in your hometown while trying to be respectful of an active natural disaster proved difficult.
“To try to market a film when people have lost their homes, in the very city that you’re showcasing…that was something that we discussed through and through, and then we canceled our premiere as a result to be sensitive,” Rae says. “And even in marketing the movie…you need levity. So, to provide the movie free of cost as an opportunity for levity was also something that we discussed. And other people in the L.A. community also stepped up, and they did the same. So if it could be a less than two-hour bomb for you to forget about the horrors that have transpired because of these fires, I’m happy we could be that for some people.”
While a comedy, One of Them Days has a profound ending message of community. Rae says although it went through various alternate endings, the overall community message was always part of the script.
“The heart of that was still in Syreeta’s original script.”
As a revolutionary in film and television, Rae has tried her hand at acting, writing, and production. After conquering the television world with the success of her five-season HBO series, Insecure, she has her sights set on filmmaking. She has an upcoming project in May that she can’t “talk about” yet and an appearance in an episode of Black Mirror.
“I’m definitely trying to do more films,” she says. “I’m still writing for TV, but I’m really, really excited about the success of this film and, hopefully, what other opportunities it’ll bring, especially in the comedy space.”
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Featured image: Director Lawrence Lamont, Producer Issa Rae and Keke Palmer on the set of Tri-Star Picture’s ONE OF THEM DAYS (Photo by Anne Marie Fox)
