Blockers Star Geraldine Viswanathan On The Crucial Scene That Nearly Didn't Happen

Geraldine Viswanathan learned everything she required to know about America—and acting—from watching Friends as a kid growing up in Australia. Well, everything she thought there was to know. Right now, as a 22-year-old actor currently living in New York (out of "two suitcases," she mentioned, she can visualize where the beloved TV comedy led her astray. "I have to mention that New York is so different than the New York in Friends," she joked to MTV News.


Still, if not for Friends, Viswanathan might have never fallen in love with sketch comedy and pursued a career in acting. Blockers may be her first American gig, however right after delivering the breakthrough comedic efficiency of the film, it will hardly be her last. Viswanathan fully holds her own against comedy vets Leslie Mann and Ike Barinholtz, even matching her onscreen dad John Cena's movie-star charisma.


Blockers follows three best friends—Kayla (Viswanathan), Julie (Kathryn Newton), and Sam (Gideon Adlon)—who make a pact to lose their virginities on prom night—and the three parents (Mann, Barinholtz and Cena) who attempt to stop them. However the film is a lot smarter than your average teen sex comedy. It not only respects its female characters and their sexual desires, although it also skewers the double common that permits teen men to celebrate sex while chastising teen ladies for the same thing.


MTV News chatted with Viswanathan about what makes Blockers so refreshing in the sex comedy genre, working with director Kay Cannon, the hilarious line she completely improvised, and the essential scene that nearly didn't happen. (Spoilers below.)


MTV News: I had no idea what to expect going into this movie, so I was pleasantly surprised by how female-centric and sex-positive it was. Is that something that drew you to this project?


Geraldine Viswanathan: Certainly! It’s crazy—we shot the movie before Me Too and the Time's Up movement, however the fact that it's coming out right now feels really brilliant. It’s just so rare that you visualize a R-rated comedy like this with three young ladies at the forefront. And then Leslie Mann and Kay Cannon beyond the camera. It was a very female-centric set, and I think that’s what makes it a really refreshing movie.


MTV News: What did Kay Cannon bring to the film from the director’s chair?


Viswanathan: Kay Cannon really brought her own really smart, fresh perspective. I don’t think that this movie could have been directed by a male, let alone anyone other than Kay Cannon. I really just feel like she make it her own. It’s specifics that only females would know. We made sure that consent was really clear, especially because my character does a lot of contraband and drinking so that was a thing we really spoke about. She just made us feel so free and at residence. From day one I was like, "Oh, I'm in good hands."


MTV News: And it’s critical to be able to see young people having these open, trustworthy conversations about consent—and not just how it pertains to sex, like you mentioned, however also to illegal narcotics and liquor. Your character makes a point to consent to sex before drinking, and it’s so casual, too.


Viswanathan: I feel like each person in this movie is treated with respect, and no one is the butt of a joke, nevertheless it’s still funny. I love the males in this. They set a good example. There really are so several movies that have come out before that are like coming-of-age stories or guys wanting to have sex in high school, college—that sort of film—and some days they can encourage bad behavior, and I think this movie does the opposite of that.


MTV News: The teen gentlemen in this just desire to have a good time and respect their dates.


Viswanathan: Yeah! They’re like, "Oh, you don’t wish to have sex? That’s cool. Oh, you desire to do other stuff? OK!" They’re just really respectful, which is so essential to be able to see on screen.


MTV News: Cannon mentioned that while in filming she and the writers would throw jokes at you guys in the moment. What was that experience like?


Viswanathan: I loved it! You just had to be on, and there were a team of writers and producers and Kay in back of the camera just being like, “Say this as a substitute opposed to that line!” Or, “Do this!” It’s good because you don’t have a chance to imagine it and second guess yourself—you just have to do it. And that’s where exhilarating stuff happens because you’re not thinking about it. Kay also encouraged us to improv and pitch our own ideas.


The cast of Blockers: [director] Cannon, Mann, Adlon, Barinholtz, Viswanathan, and Cena


MTV News: Did anything you did make it into the final cut of the movie?


Viswanathan: A lot of the stuff I did with Miles [Robbins], who plays Connor, a lot of that was us adding our own flavor to it. And then there’s the initial scene where you meet the ladies, and I’m crossing the street and almost get struck by a car—that was an accident! I ad libbed “I almost died” in the moment because it was so crazy. I’ve heard Kay talk about that scene, and she mentioned it was brilliant because it actually showed that while these young females are smart and in control, they’re also not 100 percent capable of looking soon after themselves in the real world yet.


MTV News: One of my preferred lines in the movie is from Kayla, any time if she says penises are like plungers. Was that in the script?


Viswanathan: That was a line that a writer threw out as soon as we were filming it. I can’t remember who it was, nevertheless I was like, “What? Plungers? OK!” Some days they would give us several jokes at once, and we would do them all in one take, just reset ourselves and do it again.


MTV News: Could you relate to Julie, Kayla, and Sam’s quest to experience such a coming-of-age milestone together?


Viswanathan: Every girl gets to a point where it’s like, “Oh, I want to know the world behind my parents, and I'd like to try stuff” — whether it’s illegal substances or drinking or sex, that’s all a piece of becoming an adult. So I certainly related to that and talking about it with your companions and wanting to share the experience and compare and like… me and my companions would habitually be, like, “Who’s going to lose their virginity first?” It was a thing!


MTV News: my main go to scene in the movie is the scene between you and John Cena, who plays your dad. He’s just barged into the hotel room and thrown her date into a wall. And they’re sitting there, and Kayla turns to her dad and says, “Why is sex so bad?” That really encapsulates what makes this movie special. What was it like filming that with John?


Viswanathan: That’s my main go to line of the movie, also. I feel like you could go into the movie thinking that it’s one thing, however it’s a lot more nuanced than I think you may anticipate. And that is a question of “Why does sex have to be bad, even for girls?” There really is such a double common there. It’s treated so differently in movies where guys are losing their virginity. It’s like, “Yeah, high-five dude!”


That scene itself was actually pretty interesting because we shot two different versions of the scene. One where we don’t have that conversation and I just kick him out of the hotel room and just scream at him, “You don’t respect me!” There was that version. And then we shot the version that’s in the movie, which was a higher class of way to deal with that. It was quite poignant, so we really took our time with it. At the end, John was riffing and making all of those sports references that I didn’t understand because I’m Australian. So I was like, “Go Bears?”


MTV News: On the opposite end of the spectrum, what was it like filming gross-out comedy like the vomit scene?


Viswanathan: The vomit scene in particular was hard for me to film because I really hate vomiting. It was a really long night. It was one of these night shoots where as soon as we came to set it was light outdoors, and then we spent all night vomiting, and then came back out into the world and it also was light again. We were very delirious at that point. However it's habitually cool to push yourself and try new things.


Viswanathan and her sketch comedy categorize, Freudian Nip


MTV News: Is comedy something you were habitually interested in? Because you seem like such a natural.


Viswanathan: I’m an enormous comedy nerd. I've Been forever. Any time Whenever I was eight, I would watch Friends religiously. I had the complete DVD set. That was my whole view of America. That really inspired me to do comedy and acting. This is my first big comedy movie, although I have sketch sort, and I had done stand-up. While I was on set and feeling intimidated by Ike [Barinholtz] and Leslie, I had to conjure my confidence, like, “No, you could do comedy!”


MTV News: Who was your preference character on Friends?


Viswanathan: I really loved all of these! I loved Phoebe. I thought Joey was pretty. Honestly, I couldn’t pick a preference. Nevertheless right now that I’ve been living In the United States, I have to mention that New York is so different than the New York in Friends.


MTV News: What do you hope that people, young ladies in particular, take away from Blockers?


Viswanathan: That [sex] doesn’t have to be a big deal, it doesn’t have to be special, or it could be special, it may really be whichever you want it to be, and it’s such a personalized choice. That’s what I hope ladies who watch it, especially because my sister’s going to watch it... She’s 16 and that's probably going to come up for her soon, so I’m excited for her to be able to see it.