our idiot brother– production notes - Twcpublicity.com

Adam Scott; Shirley Knight; Hugh Dancy; Kathryn Hahn; Janet Montgomery; T.J. Miller; Sterling
Brown; and the young Matthew Mindler.
“I lucked out in casting this movie,” Peretz comments. “Everybody responded to the
quality of script, and it all came together very quickly. I think one of the things we had going for
us is we had a tremendous amount of respect among this group of actors. These are all smart,
talented people, and very quick. And with all of them, they don’t aim so much for the joke as
the emotional reality.”
Three respected independent producers teamed up to shepherd OUR IDIOT BROTHER to
the screen, including Anthony Bregman, who produced THE EX for director Peretz and whose
credits include ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND; and partners Peter Saraf and Marc
Turtletaub, whose joint credits include LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE. Says Saraf, “We loved this idea
of a character who comes through and radically changes people’s lives. Ned goes from sister to
sister to sister and wreaks havoc, but ultimately affects them all in a really positive way. It’s
almost a road movie that doesn’t go on the road.”
Ned’s first stop after his mother’s house is the Brooklyn brownstone of his sister Liz,
played by Emily Mortimer. Liz and her family are part of the gentrifying wave that has turned
Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood into a hotbed of organic food coops, mommy blogs, and
farm-to-table restaurants. Liz seems the model of the purposeful, organized, enlightened New
York mother, but as Mortimer notes, appearances deceive. “Liz and Dylan lead this sort of
politically correct existence, where they don’t eat any sugar and the baby is carried around in
an eco-friendly sling. Liz does lots of yoga and is quietly going out of her mind,” says the
actress. “She’s a mess, but she’s disguising it with this very calm, kind of smug attitude that she
picked up from her husband.”
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