![‘Miss You, Love You’: Jim Rash, Allison Janney & Andrew Rannells On Grief, New Mexico & Barry White [Interview]](https://cdn.theplaylist.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/22135736/andrew-rannells-allison-janney.jpg "‘Miss You, Love You’: Jim Rash, Allison Janney & Andrew Rannells On Grief, New Mexico & Barry White [Interview]")
Grief has a way of rearranging the room before anyone says the wrong thing. In “Miss You, Love You,” director Jim Rash starts with an intimate, uneasy premise: a woman preparing for her husband’s funeral is joined by her son’s former partner, a stranger sent to help with the logistics of loss who becomes part of something messier, funnier, and more revealing.
Starring Allison Janney as Diane and Andrew Rannells as Jamie, the film unfolds as a sharp, bruising two-hander about grief, resentment, family, and the unexpected intimacy that can emerge between people who meet at precisely the wrong moment. For Rash, the story grew out of personal experience, including his father’s funeral, his mother’s time in New Mexico, and the comic-dramatic tension of watching an outsider enter a family already processing its own pain.
The Playlist’s Brian Farvour sat down with Rash, Janney, and Rannells to discuss the origins of the film, shooting long scenes in 17 days, treating the material like a play, and watching Janney sing Barry White in a church.
Jim, how did this film come to be?
Rash: The basic logline premise was in my mind when I went home for my dad’s funeral eight years ago. He had Parkinson’s, and my sister, at the time, was unavailable, so I had to bring her assistant. He was there to help. I didn’t know him. He didn’t know anybody there. So, the first thing I thought of was, what an interesting place, both comedically and dramatically, to be a stranger in a family of people who are all trying to work their way through grief, in whatever way we process it, and the roller coaster of it.
That was the basic idea, as far as providing me with the template. And then I obviously pulled from Parkinson’s. I pulled from my mom’s time living in New Mexico, now that she’s Diane. And then, obviously, me as a gay man and dealing with what it feels like coming out later and all these things. I knew that Jamie was going to be a piece of me.
Can you all tell me about the filming location in New Mexico?
Rash: I like to write where I know, and I have lived in this very particular area called Placitas, which is between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. That’s where that house was, and it’s an artist community. There are tons of art in that world, so I knew that was perfect for Henry.
I also loved the idea of where a New Yorker would be most uncomfortable: the exact opposite of buildings and trees, and enclosure. Open air, sky, bright sun exposure. I thought, “Well, that’s perfect.” I wrote it for New Mexico, and we just lucked out and found the perfect house. You can’t beat what’s out the windows.
Janney: Diane moved there for Henry because he wanted to paint the landscape. She is so uncomfortable there. She is a New Yorker, a New Yorker through and through. She doesn’t like being there. Jim talks about the fact that it’s completely exposed to the elements, and it’s a great metaphor for what she’s going through. The light is on her; she’s exposed. She has to reveal things in order to get through it. I think it was a perfect place to set this. And I think his mother spent a lot of time in this particular town.
Rannells: I don’t know if you’ve ever spent time there, but I’d never been to that part of the country. It does feel like you’re on Mars a little bit. The landscape is unlike anything else in the country. So, it’s very easy to feel awed by it and a little nervous, because nothing looks familiar.
Rash: It snowed one day, and it’s not supposed to snow! The crew was like, “Don’t worry, it snows, and it’s melted before noon,” which we couldn’t wait for. You’re panicking, and we had already shot the characters on the same day, and now there’s snow, so the crew was out there melting the snow with blowtorches.
I always remember the stories where you’re crashing, and you’re panicked, and while you’re panicking, you close your eyes, and you open your eyes, and the crew has already started problem-solving, because that’s what they do. They move past the moment of panic and get right to, “Well, let’s just do this.”
Janney: It’s cold in the desert, which is so funny. Oh, my God. It was freezing.
How did you handle the pacing, rhythm, and musicality of the scenes?
Rash: We shot it in large chunks. We did, like, 13 pages, and we would do these long 15-minute takes where Allison and Andrew got to perform together. So, a lot of that is spontaneity, and then you get to bottle that. But on the same token, we had 17 days to shoot it. It’s an indie movie. That allowed us to get a lot in, in a short period of time, knowing that the clock was very loud.
Rannells: I think that’s why we felt it was so important to learn it all before we started, because it is so dense. I also think we both tend to err on the side of pace. We tend to move quickly through things, which was a really fun way to work. But then Jim gave us space to find moments to be a little quieter and take our time.
Even though it was a very quick shoot, we still had some freedom to play with pacing and other elements. But the only way we could do that was if we had learned the whole thing.
Janney: Finding moments where we could take time was important. We didn’t need to say to Jim, “Cut those words out.”
Jim, as somebody who has written these amazing scripts and stepped into roles as an actor, do you ever find your writer’s brain getting in the way when you’re performing, or is it something you’ve learned to shut off?
Rash: Well, I certainly always want to respect when I’m on the acting side and trust in the process. All my time on “Community,” I was probably just envious of Dan Harmon’s brain. Still, I was also probably saying in my mind, “Oh, that’s better story structure,” and I get it, even though it might be totally different than what I would have done.
So, I’m always eager to learn. I would perform Jamie and Diane in my living room, too. I’m hearing it in my head. I do like my exposure to various rhythms as an actor and being on set, and then when I tackle it as a writer. I do think those skill sets will eventually marry.
Jim, do you have any scenes you’d like to redo, George Lucas-style?
Rash: I don’t. I think sometimes you always go, “I wish I had more time,” but then you go back, and there’s no guarantee that you would have done anything different when you’re operating on a fast clock.
If I could go back, and this is only for her own sanity, not because she didn’t nail it, I would put Bonnie Hunt in that poor situation where she had to conduct and sing with an actual choir, and the choir sang. I didn’t realize this until later, but I had sent her the choir singing it, and it was in a different key. But she hit it! I think she was stressed. But then, of course, she nails it, and it benefits Judith’s character that she can sing, but also is taking this moment for herself. I would give her more time, but she was a champ.
There’s a version where the congregation starts singing, and that could be a movie. I just knew that was a different movie. I jumped the shark this particular time!
Tell me about what you brought to the characters.
Janney: I think there was a lot of personal history we had to bring to these characters to fill them out and make them feel real to us, and who Tyler was to me—all stuff that helped fuel me. Once you get the fuel going, it just runs.
This thing goes, and it’s an enormous amount of fun to have a complete stranger come into the midst of Diane trying to plan her husband’s funeral, and this is who her son sent. The anger and resentment there, and the disappointment—it’s huge, and it all comes out. She feels free to take it out on him. She feels no need to be polite with this man at all, and he doesn’t either, which makes it very funny, the way she treats him and the way he takes it. He was a perfect, perfect person to play this role.
Rannells: I feel the same way. Jim handed us these sketches of these incredibly complicated but really interesting people. I love that Jim doesn’t hand you a lot of the backstory. Initially, you meet these people in this moment where they’re suddenly in a very tense argument while they’re meeting each other, and then you slowly start to learn more about them and what makes them who they are. I thought he did such a beautiful job creating them that much of the work was already done.
Did you approach this film as a play?
Rannells: Well, Jim wrote it as a play, and then he adapted it as a screenplay, but we definitely approached it as a play.
Janney: We called each other beforehand and decided we had to memorize this before we showed up.
Rannells: We did get some time to rehearse. We had a couple of days before the rest of the crew arrived, so we had some time alone in the house to block out the longer scenes. The first scene of the movie is about 20 minutes long and covers about 20 pages, so we memorized it and blocked it like a little play.
Andrew, how hard was it not to use that singing voice of yours during the funeral scene?
Rannells: I was gonna bust out. I was happy that it was not required. I think that scene is watching Allison do it. And by the way, she did that in a church full of crew; there she is, all by herself, singing Barry White. Seeing Allison Janney do Barry White, that’s probably not something you thought was gonna happen!
Janney: Even though we know it, I had never tried actually to sing it. I was like, “Oh, this is kind of a hard song!”
Allison, you have a natural command of any scene you’re in. Did you ever feel as if you had to dial it down?
Janney: I trusted Jim to tell me if he wanted me to. He’d always say if he needed me to tamp it down a little bit or bring it up. It was easy to work with him that way. But I think from the beginning, we just ran the lines together and did it. In that first scene, Jim trusted us, and it felt like we knew these people from the start. It felt so good with him, even though he’s a complete stranger. These people were meant to be together for this time, for this moment.
Was there a small detail that you brought to your performances that you’re glad made it in?
Janney: I love to work with props. It just makes me so happy. The more props, the more things I have that I can bring to it, because I love that it’s effortless. And I think Jim has no idea how lucky he is that I could do this!
Rannells: It’s true. You did have a lot of Tupperware.
What’s something you’ll never forget—something you didn’t expect you would take away from this movie?
Rannells: Well, I never thought I would watch the Super Bowl with Allison! Big sports fans. Jim hosted that party. We watched the Super Bowl together, which is just one of those unexpected things when you’re working out of town. We’d had some great dinners and things like that, but that was something I wouldn’t have expected. Like, “Oh, you’re gonna throw a Super Bowl party?” Gonna make hot apps!
Janney: Just the fact that we did it, and it’s such a feeling of accomplishment for both of us. I think it was such a huge thing to do. We were like, “Let’s throw ourselves into it,” and we did. And the fact that it found the home that it did with HBO Films, I think we’re both so very grateful.
This interview has been edited for clarity. “Miss You, Love You” premieres on HBO Max on May 29.
