For Brianne Howey, filming Kinda Pregnant was truly a gas.
In an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, the Ginny & Georgia star, 35, dished on the rom-com, which stars Amy Schumer as Lainy, a newly single teacher who, while pretending to be pregnant, meets her dream guy (Will Forte).
“I read the script when I was three months postpartum [and] I had never read anything that related so closely to where I was currently at in my life,” Howey told Us. “It was the fastest page-turner. I laughed at every joke.”
One hilarious scene, in which Lainy meets Howey’s character Megan at a prenatal yoga class, features a group of women relaxing so much that they can’t help but break wind. “Nobody kept it together — we couldn’t, it was impossible,” Howey shared of filming the moment. “The director [Tyler Spindel] finally just said, ‘Okay, one take with no farts,’ because we couldn’t get through it.”
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“We had to do one take with no sound effects [and] no farting in order to get the acting that we needed,” she continued, laughing. “It’s distracting! It took a few takes. That wasn’t a one-off.”
Howey’s Megan is a no-nonsense mother of one who’s expecting her second child — and according to the actress, the role “resonated so deeply” with her after she welcomed her daughter, whose name has not been shared publicly, with husband Matt Ziering in June 2023.
“Of all the characters I’ve ever played, Meg has hit the closest to home,” Howey shared. “My daughter has only become more wild as time has gone on, and my house has only gotten messier, so I feel like Meg is who I was, in real life, going to become.”
The Happy Madison-produced film was a “collaborative” experience for Howey, who used her real-life childbirth experience in a scene where Lainy and Meg have an emotional conversation about the reality of pregnancy, labor and motherhood.
“That wasn’t the original scene,” Howey explained. “Amy called me the night before and goes, ‘I love this scene. Do you think we can make it even more our own?’ and I was like, ‘Okay, talk to me — what does that mean?’”
Schumer, who shares son Gene, 5, with husband Chris Fischer, suggested the co-stars share their own birth stories to shed an authentic light on the experience. “We did it and I’m super grateful to her,” Howey told Us. “I’ve never gotten to do anything like that and it felt really special.”
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Though she was a fan of Schumer’s before joining forces on the Netflix film, Howey enjoyed watching the “comedic genius” in action. “I admire the way she operates and she’s super savvy,” Howey shared. “She gives you so much to play off of, so it was really fun — and scary — to bounce ideas off of her and to improvise with her.”
Working on Kinda Pregnant alongside other parents — including Bell, Forte and Alex Moffat — proved to be a positive experience for the then-new mom. “Amy offered to turn one of the rooms in the stages into a nursery because that’s what she had done with her son when she was shooting Life & Beth,” Howey explained. “My daughter was there a lot.”
“We have all these fun little memories around the house from the movie,” Howey told Us. “It was really a wonderful experience.”
Kinda Pregnant is streaming now on Netflix.
