Kristen Wiig has already proven herself a gifted comedienne– earning five Emmy nominations for her celebrated work on Saturday Night Live and an Oscar nomination for co-writing the riotous 2011 comedy Bridesmaids in the process– but for those hankering to see the actress in more dramatic terrain, Hateship Loveship might be for you. The romantic drama revolves around a teenager who orchestrates a romance between her lovelorn housekeeper (Wiig) and her father, a recovering drug addict (played by Guy Pearce.) The film is based on a series of short stories by Alice Munro, who previously wrote the original source material for the Oscar-nominated 2007 Sarah Polley Alzheimer’s tale Away From Her. Liza Johnson (Return) directed the film from a script by Mark Poirier (Smart People.)
This isn’t exactly the first serious role that Wiig has attempted. Wiig had a small part in 2010 drama All Good Things opposite Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst and played an unhappy woman in the little-seen offbeat indie Girl Most Likely last year, a performance that was one of the subtlest the actress has attempted. Just two months ago, she premiered the straight-out drama The Skeleton Twins with her SNL co-star Bill Hader at this years Sundance Film Festival. That film earned nice notices and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Prize at the Park City festival. In the meantime, she has managed to fill out her recent filmography with the more familiar broad strokes she’s infused in recent comedies like Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues and the IFC television mini-series The Spoils of Babylon, yet there’s an inkling as to whether say may become adept at mixing the genres– and joining the rarefied ranks of past-SNL alum like Bill Murray and Robert Downey, Jr. in the process. Other projects Wiig has forthcoming including Welcome to Me, a dramedy in which she plays a distressed woman who wins the lottery and Nasty Baby, a drama about a gay couple trying to have a baby.
Hateship Loveship, which had its world premiere at last fall’s Toronto Film Festival, also stars Oscar-nominees Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) and Nick Nolte (Warrior.) Jennifer Jason Leigh (Margot at the Wedding, The Spectacular Now) and newcomer Sami Gayle (Noah) co-star. IFC Films picked the film and will release it, beginning with limited engagements, starting on April 11th.
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