Alison Brie knew we were going to ask about the Community movie

Somebody I Used To Know is a rom-com… kind of. “We call it a rom-com, but that’s not totally how I would describe the movie. I think of it more as an adult coming-of-age story,” Alison Brie said during a conversation with The A.V. Club on Wednesday, before dubbing the film a “rom-com, with a heavy dose of dram.”

This assessment is more than fair; while Somebody I Used To Know doesn’t lack for romance or comedy, Brie explained that she and husband Dave Franco, who directed and co-wrote the film with her, were trying to tap into an 80s/90s/Nora Ephron feel. It wasn’t about having constant jokes so much as making the jokes that were there feel earned—just like every other emotion in the film. “When you go back and watch When Harry Met Sally, Pretty Woman, Sleepless In Seattle—they’re very dramatic films,” she shared. “Once you get into them, ultimately, they are relationship dramas, and then it’s a matter of peppering how much comedy you want.”

So what was it like writing a rom-com (with a heavy dose of dram) with your spouse? Brie makes it clear that while a specific scene involving her cat is based on a true story, very little of the film is pulled from their real lives. (Brie’s character has the Alison-adjacent name “Ally,” a decision she chalks up to a combination of “laziness” and a subtle nod to Julia Roberts’ “Jules” in My Best Friend’s Wedding.) As far as the writing goes, Brie called it a “natural progression” of their work together on The Disaster Artist and The Rental combined with what they thought would be a two-week “writers’ clinic” at home in March 2020.

“We were trapped at home in the same house. We would write together—we’d put on matching sweatsuits—and sit in the living room and start at our computers. And then usually, it devolved into Dave as the one who is at the computer and I’m the one who’s walking around, acting out the scene,” Brie recalled, explaining that once the outlines were done they would improvise further with each other. “I love writing dialogue with him.”

The film also sees Brie reunite with her Community co-star Danny Pudi. “We wrote the role for Danny. Danny is one of my closest friends still. We have not shot together since Community… Everybody loves Danny. I can’t think of a person who wouldn’t get along with him,” she lauded. “Dave would let the cameras roll while Danny and I were messing around, doing bits, and a lot of those would make it into the movie.”

Brie knew exactly what question was coming next: what is going on with the Community movie? “Well, it’s happening. We’re doing it for Peacock,” Brie confirmed. “We are allegedly shooting it this summer, is the most that I know. I saw Joel and Danny last week and I was like, ‘Joooooel, where’s the script? What’s the plan?’ And he was kind of just bouncing around. I think right now, it’s just a matter of everybody’s schedule. Most of us have all signed on to do it, everyone who’s in is in, and now everyone is kind of assessing their schedules and hoping that we can make it work to shoot it this summer.”

That’s great, right? “That’s great!” Brie confirms. But. “I say this with a hint of [sighs] I don’t trust it! I’m not a skeptic, I do believe that the Community movie will get made. It’s been sold—to Peacock! But because of everything we went through on that show… I’ll believe it when I see it. It’s not until I’m on set that I’ll be like, ‘We’re making it!’ In the meantime, I’ve just been having that anticipatory excitement feeling… This is the most hopeful any of us have been in a long time.”

In that meantime, Brie is happy to have made her contribution to the rom-com renaissance. “[Rom-coms] never die, they kind of just take on different forms… they went through a period of people thinking they weren’t very good or very cool or whatever, but I think everyone was still secretly watching them.” She adds, “Now, I think what’s happening is that a bunch of young, cool, interesting filmmakers are tapping into the genre and finding new, interesting ways to tell romantic stories so it feels fresh and different and people can admit that they like those movies in a respectable way again.”

For Brie, there was a period with both romantic films and studio comedies that tended to prioritize laughs-per-minute and buzzy stars over “the look and feel of the thing.” However, movies like The Big Sick, Palm Springs, Fire Island, and Bros, she says, have started to tap into the energy of those Nora Ephron/80s/90s rom-coms, which she calls “really good movies, that looked great.” She concludes, “I hope that Somebody I Used To Know fits into that.”