Months after its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in June, Mark, Mary & Some Other People has arrived in theaters. The movie, which serves as up-and-coming director Hannah Marks' sophomore feature, is a modern twist on classic romcom tropes. This time around, its leads meet (again after several years), fall in love, and get married... Then decide they should see other people.
Mary (Hayley Law, Riverdale) is a passionate musician and out-of-the-box thinker while Mark (Ben Rosenfield, Mrs. America) is much more traditional and inside his head. Their very different ideas about married life cause them to clash a few times before agreeing to try out the concept of ethical non-monogamy, and the story follows the ups and downs of their trial run as well as their personal journeys through young adulthood.
Marks, who wrote and produced the film in addition to directing it, spoke to Screen Rant about some of her creative choices and shared why she loves her cast so much.
Screen Rant: I love how Mark, Mary & Some Other People explores the entire life cycle of a relationship, instead of coming in with a married couple. What inspired you to choose their meeting again as the origin point, as opposed to any other?
Hannah Marks: That's such a great question. I haven't thought about that in a while. I wanted one character to remember the other, and that's really the only possible if they're re-meeting and you see that. I wanted Mark to have this memory of Mary as this girl from college that he thought was really cool, and to have her have no recollection of him.
I thought that really set everything up the correct way for them to start this romance on equal footing. That was really the impetus behind that choice.
Was there ever a time you planned on being in the film yourself, and how did your acting experience inform your directing?
Hannah Marks: I knew I wasn't going to act in it, just because the characters I'd be right for were in Mary's band or Mary herself. I wanted real singer-songwriters and girls who play instruments, and I didn't want to sacrifice that just so I could be in it.
Then the only other role I could have played was Bunny or Alexandra, and both of those characters make out with Ben Rosenfield's Mark - and I thought that's inappropriate for me as the director and the producer. I think we all know now, in the time of Me Too, that we should not be doing that kind of thing with power imbalance.
I just figured I'd take a step back, and this was such a fun opportunity to work with actors I love.
Speaking of those actors you love, what made Hayley and Ben right for the roles of Mary and Mark respectively?
Hannah Marks: I really love people that have a bit of a freak flag; that have a little bit of weirdness to them or are a little left of center. I find them both so incredibly appealing and talented, but they also have a lot of individuality. They both felt right for their characters in their core, and that was really important when improvising.
We knew we were going to do a ton of improv, so you kind of need your actors to have a side of themselves that's very similar to the character in order to be able to successfully improv as them. That was a dream, and I love them both deeply.
Ben spoke about doing some improv with the songs that he'd be singing, which I thought was so great. And as you mentioned, we also have Hayley playing Mary, who is in a band. How important was music in this story, and how did you use it as a way to connect or separate them?
Hannah Marks: I love the idea of her encouraging him to sing because, to her, it's no big deal to just let loose. He's more in his own comfort zone and in his own box, and it was important for me that she was trying to expand him - and vice versa. They're both trying to get each other to see the other one's perspective.
And then for the band scenes, I really wanted to challenge myself. I like to take each project as an opportunity to shoot something I haven't shot before. And I'm such a music video fan; I'm such a fan of music and films. To me, it was just an exciting opportunity to explore that. We had a music company that was financing and producing, so it really worked out. The girls' first song was written by Courtney Love and the second was by Patrick Stump, who was our composer.
Even though they're not a successful band, they have very successful songwriters. The songs are actually really good.
Mark and Mary's relationship was the heart of the story, but they each have their own support systems in the form of Mary's sister and band members, or Mark and his friends. What was it like to explore these other sides of them affect the relationship but are outside of it?
Hannah Marks: I think on the surface, they're side characters. But they each have something interesting to them that brings out a new side of the story.
With Nik Dodani's character, it was important to have a queer character in the story, because queer people really started ethical non-monogamy and open relationships. I wanted to be inclusive - and also, regardless of all of that, he's a terrific actor and a terrific comedian. I was really lucky that he was willing to bring a lot of himself to what could have been a side role. They really added a third dimension to it.
Same with Matt Shively, who's a longtime friend of mine and who played Mark's other friend. He had his own thing going on, with his own feelings on woke culture. I loved putting them at odds and then having Mark realize that everyone else has their own life and their own problems they're going through. It's not all about him.
And I loved working with Odessa A’zion and Sofia Bryant, who play Mary's friend and sister. They're both such rock stars, and they learned those songs in two seconds. I'm so proud of them.
There's so much humor throughout but, at the same time, they're dealing with some very heavy topics - like Mary's pregnancy for one. How did you achieve that balance, and did you ever have to make a conscious choice to dial the funny up or down?
Hannah Marks: I kind of let it be silly where it was supposed to be silly, and then when things got hard, I ripped that away. I really tried to think of what would actually happen in this situation and let that guide me. It wasn't like, "Now I want it to turn into a drama." I was just like, "Okay, what would happen if they were really in this situation? What do I think would happen to me?"
That was really the North Star for the whole process. "What would happen?"
And what will happen next for you? What is your next project?
Hannah Marks: I just directed a movie for Amazon in New Zealand called Don't Make Me Go. It's very, very different from Mark, Mary & Some Other People. It's a father-daughter road trip movie and definitely more of a drama. I'm very honored to be a part of it.