Jones in just some
of the incarnations
of her character, Ann
Perkins, on Parks
and Recreation,
which stars Amy
Poehler (top).
“it came from having a lot of friends who had learned
how to be who they are with someone and now they don’t
want to lose that relationship; they want to rewrite the
rules of how you separate,” Jones says of the script. Natu-
rally, it is autobiographical. “if you’re not writing from a
place you know, you’re either a genius or a liar.”
Jones and McCormack were introduced by his sister,
the actress Mary McCormack, and dated for a few weeks
in the 1990s, but ultimately became best friends, travel-
ing the world together and forming a writing partnership.
informed by the genre-defying, heartbreaking-yet-funny
films of woody allen, James Brooks and Cameron Crowe,
their first venture was Celeste and Jesse Forever, a script
steeped in their personal experiences and sharply ob-
served slices of life in the l.a. dating pool.
“we wanted to take a conventional idea and make it
more real,” says McCormack, who has a supporting role in
the film playing skillz, a hysterical composite of Hollywood hipsters.
McCormack calls Jones’ performance a “transforma-
tion, like the bomb that goes off when a great actress and
part intersect” and he is equally enamored of her as a
friend. “she’s passionate, compassionate, intelligent and
ethical, funny without being mean, a feminist but still
girlie,” McCormack raves. “i am not sure people realize
how talented she really is.”
“i think the whole movie was therapeutic for her,” sam-
berg says. “this is the most complicated and impressive
acting that i have seen her do and i think it’s telling that it
took her putting pen to paper to make that happen.”
For Jones, the process was arduous. though the script
was written in four months, the movie took almost for-
ever to get made, falling in and out of studio deals until it
was finally independently financed and sold at the 2012
sundance Film Festival.
“My feelings for it deepened as the rejection of it
expanded,” she says, smiling. “Filming the movie was the
highlight of my life, not just because it took so long, but
because as an actress it was the first time i connected with
something that required giving all of myself. i cried for a
month and half during the filming of the movie.”
Celeste, she concedes, is a total child, with “no interest
in seeing the world in any other way than she sees it. she is
petulant, immature and ridiculous, a heightened version
of things i do not like about me, my self-righteousness, my
obsessiveness. it’s very 21st century to be able to parlay that
into a movie and exorcise all those false demons in front of
an audience,” Jones says. “ten years ago, i had an idea of
what i wanted people to think i was like—that i knew ev-
erything, i was composed and you couldn’t crack me—and
i wanted to make sure that people thought that. and now,
i think who gives a [expletive]? everybody’s got problems.
You’ve got to keep it real.”
NBC UNiversal, iNC. ( 3); opposite: BeN watts/CorBis oUtliNe
