Charlie Day and Jenny Slate on Drunk Acting and Threesomes for 'I Want You Back' Movie

While the new romcom I Want You Back may look like a guide on how NOT to handle a breakup, stars Charlie Day and Jenny Slate admit there may be some helpful advice hidden in there too.

The romantic comedy arrives on Amazon Prime Video this Friday, just in time for Valentine's Day. It stars Day and Slate as two people who have been dumped by their respective partners, and together they vow to help each other win them back.

"I mean, you definitely shouldn't do what our characters did," Slate told Newsweek when looking back on the actions of Peter (Day) and Emma (Slate) in I Want You Back. Peter is dumped by Anne (Gina Rodriguez) at a birthday party while Noah (Scott Eastwood) breaks up with Emma over breakfast.

Typically, the broken-hearted don't take the news well, which leads the pair to form an unlikely alliance and hatch an ill-fated plan.

"Like any good movie, there's a series of bad choices that become either dramatic or comedic, but there's some good lessons in there too," Day told Newsweek.

"I think there's a lot of like forgiving and caring for one another in the story that happens with all the characters, which is kind of a winning concept."

"At the beginning of the movie, like when both characters have gone through their breakup, there's like a montage of gentle, delightful pain," Slate added. "Feel your feelings is what I mean by that, and that is weirdly a very satisfying part of the movie."

Peter and Emma certainly do feel their feelings in a pivotal scene where they drunkenly sing through a medley of break-up songs at a karaoke bar.

Knocking Back the Non-alcoholic Beer

Drunk acting is one of the toughest assignments for an actor to play, so Newsweek asked the pair what their methodology for appearing inebriated on screen is.

"A lot of research goes into it. Years of research," Day joked. "How does one react to alcohol?"

"A couple of decades of just hitting it hard," Slate laughed.

While the pair convincingly scream and slur Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know" down the mic, the reality couldn't have been further from what we see on screen. Luckily a combination of delicious non-alcoholic beer and a break-up playlist helped them shoot the scene during the morning.

"We shot that early in the day, so after that we had other scenes to shoot. So you don't want to be drunk for your sober scenes," Day said.

"That's right," Slate continued. "It's also like, what kind of drunk is your character? Are they happy drunk? I went for happy drunk and I was very happy to be there singing the songs so you kind of fall in there."

Slate shot I Want You Back just a couple of months after giving birth to her daughter Ida, and as a result was steering clear of real alcohol. "It [the non-alcoholic beer] tasted good and at the time I was on the breast pump very often so I was not having any alcohol.

"Some people will take like a nip of the real thing but that wasn't an option here," Slate concluded.

A Threesome 10 Weeks After Giving Birth

Slate's role as a new mother once again became an issue later on in the movie when her character starred in a threesome scene with Peter's ex Anne and her new boyfriend Logan (Manny Jacinto).

Even though it's a threesome appearing in a comedy, it was still taken seriously enough to have an intimacy coordinator on set with actors Slate, Rodriguez and Jacinto.

"We had long discussions and we wanted to make sure that we weren't making any comments about whatever particular lifestyle someone wants to have. Like, if you're a polyamorous person then you don't think having threesomes is a big deal," Slate said.

But when it comes to her own opinions, "I happen to be very square, dorky—I just want one person to love me forever and just to have sex with that one person, so I was a little bit embarrassed by that scene."

Fortunately for Slate, her co-stars made it an enjoyable day on set. "Manny and Gina were wonderful, so it was actually just fun.

"Most of my concerns were just about my boobs that were filled with milk," Slate said,"and truly, I had just had a baby 10 weeks before and I was just like, 'this is very far from actually what I feel like right now'."

Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 16

Before wrapping up the interview with Newsweek, Day dropped a hint as to when we'll see the next season of his popular FX show Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

"I don't think we'll even get into the writers room till after this summer," Day said.

He tentatively predicted, "So hopefully we'll have to out by top of 2023? Maybe then? I can't say for sure."

Season 15 of Always Sunny featured eight episodes and aired its finale just before Christmas 2021, meaning fans of the show may have to wait over a year to see the next season.

In the meantime, they can enjoy Day alongside Slate in the romcom I Want You Back which is dropping on Amazon Prime Video soon.

The romantic comedy is written by Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger, the duo who've previously worked on the likes of Love, Simon, How I Met Your Father and This Is Us.

Big Time Adolescence writer and director Jason Orley directs I Want You Back.

I Want You Back is out on Amazon Prime Video on Friday, February 11, 2022.