A Chat w/ Rebecca Henderson on the Tribeca Premiere of "Driven"
Yes she's very cool & yes we talked about queerness on TV!
This piece is part of the Tribeca 2023 coverage here on “I Care About…” //
I’ve had an Uber turn into a therapy session or two but never has it gone this fucking far. In Driven, starring Rebecca Henderson as Teddy and Krissy Lemon as Yari, two strangers/artists meet during a rideshare and spend the rest of the day getting wrapped up in each other’s lives.
Has somebody ever told you to mind your own business but then kept talking anyway and told you all of theirs? That’s Yari. She is hella rude for no reason (in the best way possible lol) and taking her bad day out on Teddy who is having what feels like her own 30th bad day in a row. They meet when Teddy — a failed novelist who now sleeps on a twin bed in her brothers’ laundry room — picks her up from another unsuccessful gig where she’s a deaf yodeler.
They have a chemistry and it’s beyond the two of them being low-key failures at the things they love. Failure is a big word, it looks different for all of us. Maybe this episodic hit differently ‘cos I just got fired a few weeks ago lol but it was something I had to bring up in my chat with Rebecca.
“It’s interesting. Personally, with work, I don’t really think in terms of success or failure. I think it’s because I learned a long time ago that this business will never love you back.” It’s so fly to me that she thinks this way ‘cos I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about failure when it comes to my career.
I’ve recently felt like I let folks down after my Culture Editor role was dissolved/eliminated/whatever is legal for me to call it, but I don’t know why especially because the elimination had nothing to do with my work and was supposedly just a financial move for the company. I took some of it personally — it was hard not to — and in Driven, Teddy takes her failures very personally too. “She wants to be a famous, revered writer. She wants success to be the answer to her problems. So her ego is currently a lot louder than her creative voice. That’s where we meet her, in the middle of that struggle. I loved playing in that struggle because, while I don’t relate with it personally, I can recognize that wanting something that much can bring you to an emotional crossroads. And that’s the kind of place that’s exciting to play in as an actor.”
I’ve been following Rebecca’s career for a while now, not really purposefully but she always pops up in great shit that I’m watching and knocks it out the park every time. We all know how I feel about the incredible Desiree Akhavan and Henderson was in Appropriate Behaviour! She was also in Russian Doll, Inventing Anna, and most recently Single Drunk Female with Sofia Black-D’elia, Sasha Compère (A DETROITER), and Lily Mae Harrington (My soon to be friend).
Rebecca is queer in real life, married to Leslye Headland and they just welcomed a very sweet baby a few weeks ago! But dig this, a lot of characters she plays are also queer. “These roles come to me AND I seek them out. There is a big effort right now to cast queer characters with queer actors which I really appreciate. I am always excited to play any interesting character in an interesting story —gay, straight, or undefined… but also I am very happy to authentically represent my community onscreen.”
I obviously love it when characters are just outright dykin’ or otherwise. It comes from desperately wanting to see myself on TV when I was younger, but that doesn’t mean I need for the character to be wearing a rainbow in every scene or starting every line with “I’m queer!” and it’s something that Rebecca agrees with too. “I love to play queer characters. I really do. But I’ve been lucky that, with the queer characters I have played, "being gay" is not their defining characteristic. Take Teddy, for example, her sexuality isn’t explicitly stated in the pilot but she’s a compelling and fascinating character you immediately want to get to know. If Teddy had been straight, I still would’ve connected to her as deeply as I did.”
Teddy’s queerness isn’t the only thing that folks will connect to, she’s got some mental health shit going on as well. It’s captured in the script but David Shane — the writer/director — uses camerawork to show the viewer her battle on the inside. “…I love the way the pilot was shot. I loved playing in that struggle because, while I don’t relate with it personally, I can recognize that wanting something that much can bring you to an emotional crossroads. And that’s the kind of place that’s exciting to play in as an actor.”
Teddy is just another role that I’m really excited to see Rebecca flourish in, with a supporting cast like Krissy, Liza Colón-Zayas, and Gary Perez I’m sure she’s gonna do just that. Before I let her go, I asked if she’d ever had any odd Uber rides like in the Driven pilot, “I haven’t had a weird rideshare experience, but I’ve lived in New York for 20 years, and certainly had several odd subway rides. When I was younger, a drunk woman passed out on me on the subway and right before my stop she very gently threw up on me. That was fun.”
I may not have the story of throwing up on her on the train, but now I can say I’ve interviewed her about a show I’m hella hopeful to see more of. But if I’m being honest between me and the lady on the train, I’m genuinely unsure of who has the better story.
This was so fun to read Shelli, I loved how you weaved in your recent career experiences into that interview and review. This movie sounds great!!