Synopsis
In Scrambled, quintessential eternal bridesmaid Nellie Robinson (Leah McKendrick) constantly finds herself between weddings, baby showers, and bad dates. When she begins to feel like the clock is ticking and is faced with bleak romantic prospects, Nellie decides to freeze her eggs — setting her on an empowering journey to a brave new world where she ultimately discovers “the one” she’s looking for might be herself.
Leah McKendrick
Leah McKendrick is a Latina American multi-hyphenate filmmaker and actress from San Francisco. Her directorial debut, Scrambled, which she also wrote and stars in, premiered at SXSW 2023 and is based on Leah’s real journey through egg freezing and 30-something singledom. McKendrick has multiple projects in various stages of development including the Paramount romantic comedy Better Late Than Never which she is attached to direct, and penning the screenplay for TriStar’s reboot of the 80s cult classic, Troop Beverly Hills.
Up next she’ll be writing the legacy sequel to the 90s slasher, I Know What You Did Last Summer. McKendrick previously wrote, produced and co-starred in the vigilante thriller M.F.A. alongside Francesca Eastwood which premiered at SXSW in 2017 and was dubbed “the first horror movie to speak to the #MeToo era” by The New York Times.
Interview
Cinema Scholars’ own Glen Dower recently sat down with writer/director/star Leah McKendrick to discuss her new feature film, Scrambled. They talk about the semi-autobiographical aspect of Scrambled, having trust in your producer as well as the importance of having the right soundtrack, among other topics.
(Edited for content and clarity)
Leah McKendrick:
Hi Glen!
Glen Dower:
Hi Leah. How are you, Ma’am?
Leah McKendrick:
I’m so good. Check out your Rocky poster in the back!
Glen Dower:
This is my guy.
Leah McKendrick:
I love it!
Glen Dower:
I love your poster too, on brand for today.
Leah McKendrick:
Its kind of douchey. This is my home office, if I kept it, I’ve always kind of judged people that had all their own movies on their wall, but then I’m like, well…
Glen Dower:
If I made Rocky, I would have Rocky everywhere.
Leah McKendrick:
Me too. That’s if I made Rocky. It’d be everywhere. Everywhere throughout the house. I would wear Rocky clothing.
Glen Dower:
That’s what Sly does anyway, to be honest.
Leah McKendrick:
True. He earned it.
Glen Dower:
He’s earned it. But you’re a filmmaker too, of Scrambled. You are a triple threat on this film. You’re the writer, director and lead. I know from your notes, it’s semi-autobiographical, of course as you’ve been through that process yourself. You were there, and went through the grueling process, one can only imagine, as a male of course. But you said to yourself, ‘where’s the movie for this’? And you’re so right. We’ve had so many ‘pregnancy movies’ across all the genres. We’ve had drama, comedy, horror. But this specific area has been neglected, but it’s not so traditional. Is it such a modern concept of frozen fertility? Why do you think ‘let’s make this movie and I want to make it’?
Leah McKendrick:
I think that it comes with a lot of shame being single in your thirties, not just freezing your eggs, but having to admit it, all my friends are getting married and I have not found my person. There must be something wrong with me. I must be damaged goods in some way. So I guess it might come down to, in some ways it’s a newish technology proven by the fact that my WGA insurance, that everybody talks about is so great, did not cover anything, it covered blood tests for a hundred bucks. Thanks guys!
And also that, I don’t know if anybody really wanted to make it. If anybody was like, I’m going to be the one to put myself on the line. And I kind of understand because I feel very naked right now. Now I’m getting it. I feel very naked. But I had heard that there was a horror egg-freezing script out there somewhere, and I was like, Ooh, that sounds dope. But my version of it, I think that we should do every version of it, to be honest. I’m like, make that one too. But my version of it, I was just like, I’m going to allow my true experience of my breakup, my dad, my family, the throwback tour of the ex-loves and my egg freezing. I’m just going to use my true story as the North Star.
And if I don’t laugh, I would cry. I would just cry my whole life. So I have to poke fun at myself. I have to poke fun at my heartbreaks and my embarrassments. So that’s just who I am as a person. There’s always going to be humor in everything that I do because how else do you get through life? But my sister calls it, she’s like, you made a fertility comedy instead of a romcom. She’s like, you’re starting a new genre, I hope so, because there’s many shades and versions of this story, and I think that there’s enough space for all of us.
Glen Dower:
Let’s talk about your character, Nelly. One of the things I noticed during, let’s call them the ‘Hey Stranger…’ chapters of the movie, how she kept changing her exterior: her hair, clothes, make-up, to try and please all these douche guys from her past. Do you think the character was trying to change herself externally to offset all the stuff going on internally?
Leah McKendrick:
Nobody’s asked me about this, and I love talking about this. So initially she goes home, she’s at her parents’ house, and she’s going and she’s pulling out the old prom dresses, and she’s kind of excavating the past and she’s going, they still fit. Oh, I still have my old lip glosses. Oh, I still have my old hair clips and my crimper. And she’s trying to go back in time to a time where she felt like anything was possible, not just with men, but with your dreams. And that’s why in that scene, when she runs into the prom king, she’s talking about, I thought I was going to go live in Paris. I thought I was going to be a celebrity jewelry designer. And that part’s really emotional for me.
I’ve always been somebody with these huge, huge, huge dreams that everyone was kind of like, yeah, whatever, Leah. I believed in them so wholeheartedly when I was young. And I’ve had so many heartbreaks in this business that have really taught me to not dream so big, taught me that I was kind of the dumb one to have dreamed as big as I did as a kid. But that time in my life of being 16 years old, I just had so much confidence and I just thought everything that I wanted to be, I was meant to be. So that’s comes from me going back to my high school bedroom and dancing in the mirror and trying to reconnect with younger Leah. So that’s what Nelly does.
And then she has that terrible experience that proves to her, you can’t go back. Door is closed. You can’t go back. You don’t want to go back. So then she kind of tries to fast forward and she’s putting on more mature clothes, like, well, maybe I’m a grownup, maybe I’m a woman. And that doesn’t quite fit, because we know that she’s somewhere in between. She’s searching and she’s trying to fake it till she can make it, which is my life! I’m looking at myself right now in my blazer, and I think I look pretty cute and professional, but I always feel awkward in some of these conference rooms.
That’s why when I go to meetings and they want me to go to the lot or at the agencies, they want me to go to the conference rooms, I’ve just said, I don’t do that. I don’t do that. I’m an artist. Meet me. Let’s have a drink. I want some champagne. Let’s go have a grilled cheese. That’s how I roll. I’ve embraced a little bit more of the fact that I’m just not going to be certain visions of women, certain tropes that we all would love to be, but that’s what Nelly’s doing. She doesn’t know quite where she fits in because she’s in the in-between. And by the end, she embraces the in-between and her own timeline, and that every timeline is different.
Glen Dower:
Just in the last few scenes, how more she’s at peace and she seemed to be herself, thank God she’s got over all that. With the story itself, you say you don’t want to keep to norms. Was there a script or a version of the story where, for example, we didn’t ever see Sean, he just stayed as this offscreen presence of what ‘could be’, and was there a version where we jumped ahead in time and Nelly had used her eggs and had a baby?
Leah McKendrick:
Such good questions, such thoughtful questions. Because the Sean piece is so heavily inspired by my real life, and it’s interesting because I wanted him, and it feels like it worked for you in the sense that he was sort of this invisible figure that’s constantly referenced.
Glen Dower:
On this pedestal.
Leah McKendrick:
Yes, idolized.
Glen Dower:
How perfect is this guy?
Leah McKendrick:
Yes! And that’s what I really wanted. And I kind of kept putting in these people, badgering her. Well, how is Sean? And she kind of keeps answering the question differently every time. What happened with you and Sean? Oh, we grew apart, or, oh, I wish him the best. And oh, it’s all good. Which was me in real life because my ex is such an incredible human and such a big inspiration for me in my life and in my career. I was so protective of us and him, but it left me looking like an idiot because they were like, he’s so great. Why did you break up? Did you blow it? Did you cheat? What happened there?
And it’s not until the support group that she tells the true story. And I think you’re right, that there is a version where I never show him, but I think for me, it needed to be that all is lost, utter humiliation, he is happy and his path looks beautiful, and it looks like the dream, and it looks like a goddamn Hallmark movie. So here you are, you’re a mess. And this line, it’s so funny, and I wonder if this lands, I have to let go of it landing or not landing, but the line where he says, ‘what are you doing’? And she says, ‘I dunno’. I really wanted it to feel like he’s saying, what are you doing in life? And she’s like, I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing without you.
And I had a version where I kind of said, I don’t know what I’m doing. And then Jonathan was like, no, no, no. My producer was like, you’re spoon-feeding. You don’t need it. You don’t need it. So I trusted him and we went with the more nuanced version, but that to me is the utter moment of defeat. I am trying to be strong. I’m trying to be a grownup. I’m trying to take care of myself like a partner would, but I don’t know what I’m doing without you. I don’t know how to do this alone. But then she says, congratulations, which is the thing she couldn’t seem to conjure ever before. Congratulations, I’m going to bow out with my tail between my legs. And then she does handle it.
So even in this dark moment of hormonal madness, her dad’s a dick, no one’s showing up for her. She’s just like, I admit it. I’m not a feminist. I’m not a village in one woman. I can’t do this alone. And then the unexpected hero steps in to hold her hand. So these are some of my intentions as a filmmaker. I’m sure some will hit some people and some will not hit anybody. But I guess they’re what I had in my mind when I wrote it and when I made it.
Glen Dower:
I watched the film with my wife, just coincidentally, we were both 34 when we had our first little boy, the same age as Nelly in the film of course.
Leah McKendrick:
No way!
Glen Dower:
Yeah and we said, oh, wow. Before we watched the film I had my preconceptions that the message was going to be ‘women endure’ and ‘men are pigs’. But what my wife took away from the film was your playlist or Nelly’s playlist, if you like. Was that Leah’s playlist, and did you have all those songs in mind throughout the process?
Leah McKendrick:
Absolutely! And I was kind of a demon with my music because I had specific songs that I had listened to while freezing my eggs. Changes by Black Sabbath, like Pink Pony Club, like Candy. I mean, there were so many songs, Robinson’s Nothing to Regret, which is the last song before Ping Pony that I was so attached to that I was like, I need this song. And my music supervisor, Ricky, is like, well, maybe I could get you a similar song. And I’m like, nope, it’s got to be this song! I got to write to Black Sabbath. We got to get Donna Mitchell, my favorite artist to cover it. I mean, it was like everybody was like, does she know? Does she think we’re making a hundred million dollars movie?
But it was like every director has their demands, and the music was one of mine. I wanted all female vocalists. So that was why we made our own version of changes that I’m very proud of. But it was so essential. Music is like, I listened to it when I’m writing, I can hear entire movies in one song. I mean, it’s my muse in many ways. It anchors me. It is everything to me. I was a singer before I was an actress, so the soundtrack I’m just so proud of. And again, I really fought for these songs. Really, really fought. I mean, DMing the artists, writing love letters, begging, calling publishers. We really had to fight for every song.
Glen Dower:
As you should, because this movie, forgive the pun, is your baby.
Leah McKendrick:
Truly. But as far as the men are pigs, I will say that in the end, the return to her brother and he dad to me was in some ways my love letter to the men in my family, as problematic as they can be at times, they’re the loves of my life. They’re the men in my life that will always love me and that I will always love. So that was sort of unexpected, I didn’t really realize that that was the arc, but that’s the arc of my life. So I wanted to share that for the men.
Glen Dower:
We’re not all bad. Leah, thank you so much for your time and the best of luck with your film.
Leah McKendrick:
Thanks, Glen. I so appreciate you.
Scrambled, written, directed and starring Leah McKendrick had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 11, 2023, and is scheduled to be released in theaters on February 2, 2024.
