With an Academy Award nomination for Greatest Tailored Screenplay to her title, Nicole Holofcener is aware of a great script when she sees one. So when she caught phrase of Lesley Arfin’s “Nervous” pilot, she made it clear that she needed to direct it.
“We have been at a celebration and we had a mutual buddy who stated ‘This girl wrote the most effective pilot I’ve ever learn,’” Holofcener stated within the IndieWire Studiointroduced by Dropbox. “And I stated ‘Can I direct it?’ I imply, who doesn’t wish to direct the most effective pilot ever written?”
Holofcener was joined within the IndieWire Studio by Arfin, Alexander Tanner (who wrote the unique novel that impressed the collection), and stars Gideon Adlon and Rachel Kaly. The 5 girls mentioned the method that led to “Nervous” turning into one of many hottest episodic initiatives of the 2026 Sundance Movie Competition.
“’Nervous’ is a novel that I began engaged on in 2019 concerning the expertise of sharing a 150 sq. foot studio condo with my sibling,” Tanner stated. “It’s about two sisters that transfer in collectively. Poppy wants a spot to remain, Jules is a beleaguered e-mail job haver. They usually have adventures and hijinks they usually drive one another loopy. The ebook is about over the course of the yr, however we’re doing one thing completely different with the variation and layering issues in.”
Arfin defined that she is choosy with the fabric she chooses, and had by no means tailored another person’s work earlier than, however the humor and relatability of Tanner’s ebook was too good to move up.
“It’s so humorous. I’ve a sister as nicely. I don’t like a number of the stuff that’s despatched to me to learn, however I learn ten pages of her ebook and I used to be like ‘The place is she?!’ I didn’t know if I used to be in a position to do something with it. I had by no means tailored something earlier than. However I simply assume Alex is an outstanding author, a extremely humorous author and individual. And the truth that it was despatched to me made me really feel good.”
Watch IndieWire’s full dialog with the “Nervous” group above.
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