Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with Long Story Short’s Zahra Newman

Award-winning actress Zahra Newman is unquestionably blazing a trail in film, television, and on the stage. Her impressive list of credits include projects like The Book of Mormon, Truth, Neighbours, and dozens more.

This summer, Zahra makes her debut in her first romantic comedy Long Story Short.

Pop Culturalist had the pleasure of speaking with Zahra about this exciting milestone.

PC: Tell us about Long Story Short, your character, and what drew you to this project.
Zahra: Long Story Short is a romantic comedy with a bit of a sci-fi, time-travel twist thrown in. I play Leanne, who is the wife of the protagonist, Teddy. When you first meet her at the beginning of the film, she’s not necessarily super happy with where she is in life in terms of work. She feels like she’s giving energy to something she actually hates. She wants to be a writer. She wants to be writing fiction.

Then she ends up meeting Teddy, who gets this gift or curse, depending on how you look at it, where his life starts moving a little too fast. He learns some lessons along the way about what might be at stake if he doesn’t start paying attention and giving energy to things that matter and that bring value to his life. Leanne is one of the vehicles through which Teddy learns some of those lessons.

When I first read the screenplay, I was attracted to the way it was written. It read very much like a play. My background is in theater, so that was something very familiar to me. I immediately was like, “I get this. I see how the scenes are moving along.” There were a lot of two-hander scenes. The way that the characters were written, they had a really great repartee. You could see that in the writing. I could feel that in the writing. There was a lot of room to play. That was really attractive.

I really have not done a lot of romantic comedies. I wouldn’t say that I’m the go-to romantic comedy actor. [laughs] So it was a challenge. It was an exciting challenge to pitch myself that way and visualize myself in that type of role.

PC: There’s this incredible banter between Teddy and Leanne. How did you and Rafe [Spall] approach the dynamic between your two characters?
Zahra: Rafe has quite a lot of theater experience as well. That created this comfort between us. He was really willing and available to run different ideas. While they were doing setups or when we had downtime, we’d often be running lines or playing around with the scene. We didn’t have a lot of rehearsal time, so that was helpful. It was Rafe, Josh [Lawson], and myself. That really helped us establish the story that we were going to tell. We were all on the same page. We knew what was happening, and we were able to play around the edges of that.

Once we knew what the center of the story was, we knew how far we could break away in terms of playing around with things or making different decisions. Ultimately, it was about trust. I really trusted Rafe. I hope he felt the same way. If someone did something a bit differently or went off script a bit, it was fine. Having that trust helped build intimacy. It facilitated the intimacy that you want to see on screen—the little nuances in their relationship.

PC: This is your biggest film role to date. Did anything surprise you about the experience? What was the biggest lesson you learned about yourself and your craft?
Zahra: I think the biggest thing I learned was not to be afraid of the freedom you have to try different things. I learned that watching Rafe. He has every other line in the film. He’s the whole film. He’s never not on screen. He had a massive task in front of him. But watching him be very free with it all and not being precious with the text or ideas but being able to throw things away and try things differently, that was a great learning experience.

There’s a lot of fear. I’ve certainly felt that before. You come onto a set and you’re like, “I did it this way so I have to do it this way again. They don’t want to reshoot, and we already did the wide. It’s going to screw everybody up in the edit.” You have to respond instinctively and use your intuition to organically react to things. Some takes are going to be different. You can’t be too precious about things. That goes for the rehearsal process too. That’s when you get out all your bad ideas, right? You try them all until you find what works best.

PC: What do you hope audiences take away after they see the film? Has it changed just given the year that we’ve had?
Zahra: I hope people walk away feeling a bit warm and fuzzy. It’s a rom-com. I hope they have a really good time and that they’re entertained by it. I hope in the back of their heads they’re like, “Hmm, maybe I need to take stock and have a little look at what’s going on in my life. Do I need to call that person? Do I need to check in on them?” Or maybe it’s like, “Maybe it’s time to learn golf. I’m going to go and learn how to play golf.” Whatever it is, big or small, I hope that people have a little check-in with themselves.

We shot at the end of 2019. We were in ignorant bliss—no idea about what was to come. But once we started doing press for the film, the themes started to come into sharper focus. It was a very reflective experience. The film is really about focusing on the small things in life. Not the grand gestures but the small things and what’s important and valuable.

Long Story Short is in theaters, On Demand, and Digital.

Photo Credit: Brook Rushton