Patton Oswalt & James Morosini Talk ‘I Love My Dad,’ Doing Cringe Comedy Correctly & More [The Playlist Podcast]

Cringe comedy is a tough genre to crack. If you go too far, you can make an audience lose interest and not laugh at the absurdity. But if you do it just right, such as in the new film, “I Love My Dad,” you can bring audiences along on a ride that will make them laugh, possibly cry, and definitely feel a bit uncomfortable, but in the best possible way. And in this episode of The Playlist Podcast, I have a recent interview I conducted with actor Patton Oswalt and actor-writer-director James Morosini, from the film, “I Love My Dad,” and we talk about that tightrope walk that is cringe comedy.

Debuting at this year’s SXSW Film Festival, where it took home Jury and Audience Awards in the Narrative Feature Competition, “I Love My Dad” stars Patton Oswalt and Morosini as an estranged father and son duo. The father, Chuck, is desperate to reconnect with his son, Franklin, and creates a fictional female profile on Facebook and adds his son as a friend. Through chats, the son develops feelings for the fake profile and awkwardness ensues. And trust me, it gets really, really awkward, as you might imagine.

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And it’s that uncomfortable, very unique story that attracted Oswalt to the role.

“If I read a script and I’m like, ‘I just want to see how this movie is going to get made, how are they going to pull this off?’ If it’s a movie that I want to see, that’s usually a pretty good indication that I should be doing it,” explained Oswalt. “And this was definitely in that category, almost instantly.”

Morosini not only co-stars in the film but is also the writer-director of the project, having mined his own personal experiences with his father for the inspiration for the film. And in our interview, he talks about blending fact with fiction and reliving this slightly cringe experience on the big screen. 

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“My goal was to make it feel always emotionally grounded and it wasn’t cringe for cringe’s sake and I was never trying to gross out my audience,” said Morosini. “I needed it to be subjectively rooted the whole time.”

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He added, “It’s too relatable and we see ourselves in it, and that freaks us out.”

“I Love My Dad” is in theaters now and will arrive on VOD on August 12. You can hear our full discussion below:

The Playlist Podcast is part of The Playlist Podcast Network, which includes Bingeworthy, Be Reel, Deep Focus, The Fourth Wall, and The Discourse. We can be heard on iTunes, AnchorFM, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, and most places where podcasts are found. You can stream the podcast via the Spotify embed within the article or click on the lead image at the top page. Follow us on iTunes, and you’ll get this podcast as well as our other shows regularly. Be sure to subscribe and drop us a comment or a rating, as we greatly appreciate it. Thank you for listening.