by Gill Pringle

Written and directed by husband-and-wife filmmaking team Aron Gaudet and Gita Pullapilly, the couple found inspiration for their film in the remote corners of the internet, where they landed on a coupon blog discussing the caper.

Pure escapist fun with relatable themes about beating the system, the film is actually two buddy comedies rolled into one, pairing Vince Vaughn’s US Postal Service inspector and Paul Walter Hauser’s hapless store detective as they track down our coupon-scamming heroines.

Offering up unexpected aspirational and wish fulfillment elements, the film also features pop artist Bebe Rexha making her debut film role as a cyber-thief.

With the two lead actresses having already collaborated together on The Good Place, Veronica Mars, and House of Lies, the filmmakers knew that Bell and Howell-Baptiste already had the chemistry down pat, each of them eager to sign on for Queenpins.

Bell and Howell-Baptiste talk extreme couponing with FilmInk:

What excited you about Queenpins?

KRISTEN: I was looking forward to reuniting with Kirby and working out the Connie-JoJo dynamic. Kirby’s JoJo is an entrepreneur who is trying her hardest and just cannot catch a break but, still, she’s the fun one in their friendship. Connie is a bit more calculating and ropes JoJo into her epic scheme. But they had to have a certain chemistry. Luckily, Kirby and I already had that friendship, so it was easy for us to dive into these roles. Kirby is one of the great friends of my life and our friendship grew with each of our projects together. When I read the script for Queenpins, I knew I wanted to do it with Kirby. I told Aron and Gita, I want to make this movie, and I have your perfect JoJo.

KIRBY: What got me excited was the idea of working with Kristen again because I know she has great taste both with the shows she picks and the shows she enjoys. But then I read the script and it was such an exciting read that I knew that if it was this exciting on paper, we could do something really amazing with it and I think what Aron and Gita gave us the space to have a lot of fun and make a really fun film.

KRISTEN: When I first met with Aron and Gita, their personalities were the first thing that swayed me because they are just wonderful people to work with. I don’t work with duds, and by duds, I mean in personality and kindness. Like there’s room for mistakes everywhere creatively and it’s subjective but, like, good people.

Do you have a personal connection to couponing?

KRISTEN: My grandmother was an extreme couponer. As a child, I’d visit my grandparents and a large part of their basement was made up of cardboard boxes filled with coupons, each box catalogued according to the discounted product. My grandmother ultimately started college accounts for all her grandkids from what she saved with these coupons, as well as through writing the participating companies and getting small checks back in response. So, I knew this had the makings of a big underground business. Personally, I love couponing too although I’m a bit of a goody-goody and feel nervous if I use an expired coupon.

KIRBY: This is why capitalism is so insane! I will slide that expired 2016 coupon across the counter brazenly. I will look them in the eye and dare them to refuse it because I believe, very strongly, that corporations are not people, so I don’t think that when I slide across that coupon, that the poor teller is losing money. The stores hike the prices up anyway, so just honour the coupon, and let’s keep it moving. I love a deal.

What is the furthest you’ve ever gone to get a bargain, or is the expired coupon the worst?

KIRBY: Absolutely not. I once argued in a Whole Foods for easily 20 minutes about a voucher that I realised when I got to the parking lot, was only an online coupon. But I made them honour it. Does Jeff Bezos need $10? No.

KRISTEN: Piggy-backing off that, I have been working for quite some time. I’ve been paying my own bills for quite some time and I have a savings account – and none of this is new information. And I love a deal if I can get it and it’s all kosher but I remember my husband was selling a car maybe eight years ago and, I’ll out it in perspective… We had a savings account back then, and the man who came over to buy the car was so sweet and they talked about the fact that they were both sober and I saw them hugging, and it was just this beautiful relationship and I was looking out the window and then I walked outside and I’m like, ‘So, is he gonna buy the car?’ and he’s like ‘Yeah, and I talked him down a bunch’, and I took him aside and said, ‘You are not going to talk him down – you’re going to give it way, way under what this car is worth because that is a good man’. So currently, my state of mind is to give it away kind of thing to people who deserve it.

KIRBY: And I agree with that heavily like, right now. I have been aware of trying to tip more when I go out because it’s incredibly difficult for people in the service industry. They’re under-staffed and over-worked, so give them that money. But, then, if you have a coupon that you think you can redeem in Whole Foods and the ‘online only’ is in the tiniest of fine print… stand there and argue and get what you deserve.

We find Kristen’s Connie during some dark times. Did you do the research into how it might be like to want a baby and not having her husband really have her back?

KRISTEN: It’s interesting. I don’t know whether we were trying to avoid stereotypes but sometimes those stories of someone wanting a baby, you think you’ve heard it before, but it also happens to every neighbour on your street. It happens to so many people. The one thing we tried to connect people to is just the desire for something that is not being given to you and that is with both the baby and the career, and I think the real life women who did this, because it’s a true story, felt that way. My character wasn’t an Olympian but in the movie they chose to have her be a retired Olympian because that is something that we don’t actually talk about at all; we put these people on a pedestal, we root for them and we demand that they represent our country and we’re angry when they fail and we demand excellence and, then, the vast majority of them do not have a way to support themselves for the rest of their lives. Like a lot of them file for bankruptcy and I don’t think we’re doing as good a job as we could in caring for the people who we are asking, in a fun sports way, to represent the country. So, I thought that was really specific and wonderful that they gave her this passion and this love for race-walking even though it’s like it kinda looks goofy, I had to train to do it and we shot some scenes that aren’t in the movie where I was race-walking and, let me tell you, it is the hardest cardio I’ve ever done. You look like an absolute goof doing it, but it is difficult and to have this woman feel like… I had a stage, people were rooting for me, and then it’s just crickets. And I can’t even get a leg up because there’s no opportunities for me, so to have to make some tougher decisions, some white collar crime decisions with her best friend, somehow you’re still rooting for her and I think that’s what we wanted people to connect to.

There’s a line in the film about the more you win, the more you want to win; winning becomes a habit. Both of you are successful actors but are there days when you feel like failures?

KIRBY: No. You should never feel like that. Fail feels like such a big word because failure to me feels really final. There are days where you feel, for sure, and I actually do feel like winning becomes a habit; you see that and that’s partly because when you get something that you want, you’re driven and you want to keep going and it builds confidence. And I think confidence almost has to be recognised as a privilege because it changes your status in life, in the world. Your position in the world, confidence changes that. So, I get there but I don’t think there’s a single person in the entire world, and I guess we put wealth up as the most important thing, so even if we’re talking about the most wealthy person in the world, I don’t think there’s anyone who doesn’t have days where they feel like their life has not gone to plan or there’s days where they feel they can do better. But I think the most important thing, and the thing that I’ve always been told, is that all you can do is try your best like, literally all you can do in your life is try your best. Hopefully, we’re all collectively trying our best to be our best. You can do your best and I think everyone has that barometer in them that knows when they are, and when they’re going down the right path.

Queenpins will drop on October 2 on Paramount+

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