'BABES' Director Pamela Adlon Talks "Vital' Female Friendships

BABES arrives in select theaters Friday, May 17 and we’re already expecting the female-driven comedy to strike a chord with audiences everywhere.

Source: Courtesy / NEON

BABES follows childhood best friends Eden (Ilana Glazer) and Dawn (Michelle Buteau), as adulthood puts them and their friendship to the test. While Dawn is married with a toddler and new baby, Eden finds herself expecting after one night with a stranger (Stephan James). Both women encounter some of life’s greatest challenges, which makes for hilarious and heartwarming moments for audiences.

Global Grind Sr. Content Director Janeé Bolden spoke with director Pamela Adlon about the film ahead of its release and had to ask about the scene, also included in the trailer, where Eden takes a look at Dawn’s vagina for her after her water breaks.

GLOBAL GRIND: What is it about women that we can be so close we can look at our friend’s vagina?

Pamela Adlon: “Thank you for using the proper terminology. I’m having so many thoughts right now, I’m trying to figure out which is best for me to share with you. Frankly sometimes women get a tampon stuck up there, or a diaphragm or whatever — you need somebody with a friendly set of finger tongs to help you out once in a while. It’s a really cool question because we give doctors so much authority. ‘We can’t do that. I can’t discuss that until I go and I see a proper medical professional.’ Right? Why do we do that as women? We know more about our bodies than a male doctor does. You can go study it all day, that’s great, but it really is true.

I’ll talk about my daughters now. My daughters have no modesty and their friends have no modesty. They all walk around like it’s the Spearmint Rhino in my house all the time. It’s crazy, but that’s massively important because it’s like one person has bad eczema and maybe somebody has something else and they share it with each other. That’s profound. That’s that friendship thing. And when one woman can look at another woman’s vagina for a clinical reason, for helping them, that’s true friendship.

Source: Courtesy / NEON

GLOBAL GRIND: Was there anything you learned in the making of this?

Pamela Adlon: “Totally. It’s so funny because I was talking to my daughter and one of her best friends, who’s just like my daughter, and I discussed the scene in which Eden says you can’t get pregnant when you have your period. And my daughter was like, ‘Wait, you can?’ Her friend was like, ‘Seriously?’ And I said I didn’t know that, but you know I’m from a different time. My people rolled the dice wherever we went. I grew up in the ’80s in New York City. We were rolling the dice everyday. So yeah I learned a lot from this movie.

Source: Courtesy / NEON

GLOBAL GRIND: This production was only a 25 day shoot, that had to be really difficult, in New York City at that. What was the biggest challenge?

Pamela Adlon: The heat. The heat. We still were doing COVID protocols so we were all masked. Every day started at 100° and would push 115 indoors or outdoors and Michelle was wearing a pregnancy belly, or Ilana was wearing a pregnancy belly, right? And winter clothes and you’re outside on the West Side Highway and it’s supposed to be winter and then a guy’s running by with no shirt, dolphin shorts and they’re like, ‘Can we paint that out?’ I’m like, people are crazy all year long, it doesn’t matter. I think that the volume of the amount of things that they wanted and needed us to shoot in a day, and the time and the heat, with COVID. Then I lost my steady cam guy, because he just got swabbed and he tested positive. They were dropping like flies. It was challenging but my crew was unbelievable. I adored my crew.

BABES is currently in theaters in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, and Austin.

Source: Courtesy / NEON

The cast and crew of NEON’s BABES stepped out on the Red Carpet Tuesday evening, May 14, to celebrate the New York Premiere of the SXSW breakout film. Director Pamela Adlon, Producer, Co- Writer and Star Ilana Glazer, Co-Writer Josh Rabinowitz and Cast Michelle Buteau, Hasan Minhaj, John Carroll Lynch, Stephan James, and producers Susie Fox, Ashley Fox, and Jamin O’Brien were in attendance.

Other notable guests included: Zoe Kravitz, Quinta Brunson, Chris Perfetti, Paul Downs, Janelle James, Jorma Taccone, Jerrod Carmichael, Alysia Reiner, Alex Wong, Emily Tarver, Morgan Saylor, Megan Mitchell, Ian Paget, Miranda Rae, Yamaneika Saunders, Latham Thomas, Judy Gold and more.

Director Pamela Adlon introduced the film to a room full of cheers and hollers. “Having people laugh together is spiritual to me,” she stated before expressing her gratitude to the wonderful cast and crew behind BABES.

Following the carpet and premiere screening, cast and crew attended the after-party at Little Rebel to celebrate.

Check out more photos when you continue.

1. Zoe Kravitz Showed Ilana Glazer Support

Source:NEON

A fresh-faced Zoe Kravitz was seen on the scene.

2. Stephan James Plays Eden’s Baby Daddy

Source:NEON

Without giving too much away about the film, one of our favorites Stephan James has a memorable role as the father of Eden’s baby. It’s definitely Stephan as we’ve never seen him before!