‘Palm Springs’ actor lives a time loop on screen and off
Nobody's playing football in the Rose Bowl probably anytime soon, so Cristin Milioti's taking the field herself.
The Southern California stadium has been turned into a makeshift drive-in movie theater, and Milioti's checking out a screening of her new movie, the inventive time-loop romance “Palm Springs,” with friends. In socially distanced cars, of course.
“I've been to one drive-in before in my life, a couple of years ago, and I remember having a blast. I just wish there were more of them,” Milioti says.
A hit at this year's Sundance Film Festival, “Palm Springs” (now streaming on Hulu) is a breakout role for Cristin Milioti.
She stars as Sarah, the cynical maid of honor saved from a drunken toast at the wedding reception of her sister (Camila Mendes) by carefree yet nihilistic guest Nyles (Andy Samberg). Sarah and Nyles hit it off; afterward, she accidentally gets stuck living the same day over and over again — an experience Nyles (and, honestly, everybody right now) knows all too well.
“It speaks to how often we try to escape ourselves and our lives, and when you're made to sit in the choices you've made or the things that have happened to you, it can be wildly uncomfortable and you try everything in your power to run away from it,” she said.
USA TODAY spoke with the actress, who's quarantining in California with her dog, Rupert, about the new film, bad weddings and Black Lives Matter.
Question: What’s the trickiest aspect about acting in a time-loop movie?
I had my script on me at all times. Every single scene, I really tried to calibrate it in terms of what (Sarah) knows, what she doesn't know, because you're shooting the same “scene” eight times in one day, but it's entering at eight different points in the movie. You have to just keep really good notes, basically.
Q: Of all the shenanigans Sarah gets into during her infinite time loop — choreographed barroom dancing, stealing an airplane, learning quantum physics — what would make your bucket list?
I'd probably do a bunch of the stuff she does at the wedding, like really (messing) with people. And maybe the dance sequence as well.
Q: When you finally break free from your quarantine loop, what’s first on your agenda?
I want to have dinner with friends at a restaurant. For sure. And I would love to see a concert. I think that's one of the things I miss the most, is seeing live music with a group of people.