Thankfully, we seem to be well past the era where everyone questions whether comedians can play dramatic roles — thanks KristenWiigJimCarreySarahSilvermanetc.etc.etc.! However, as thankful as I can be that no one is going to be skeptical about genre crossover, it’s hard not to still marvel at the surprising juxtapositions between comedians’ consistent onscreen personas and the new, gravely real roles they’ll be playing.
It’s just been announced that Broad City‘s Abbi Jacobson will be starring alongside Dave Franco and Jane Kaczmarek in 6 Balloons, a Netflix film that looks into the heroin epidemic within America’s upper middle class. Deadline describes the film as taking place on July 4, when Jacobson’s character Katy sees that her brother (played by Franco), who has a 2-year-old daughter, has relapsed on heroin.
Because Broad City was what skyrocketed Jacobson (and comic partner Ilana Glazer) to comic stardom and pegging notoriety, this will be one of the first major starring roles in which we’ll see Jacobson not playing her absurdist alternate self. (Or, if we’re considering Val — the prohibition era lounge singer — an absurdist alternate self to her preexisting absurdist alternate self.)
The film was written by Marja-Lewis Ryan who, interestingly, wrote the Splash remake, which will star Channing Tatum as the equivalent of Daryl Hannah’s original mermaid character.