John Bedford Lloyd and Catherine Curtin play the Catholic parents visiting their daughter’s future in-laws in the award-winning Bad Shabbos.

Bad Shabbos has been a hit since it first premiered at the Tribeca Festival in June 2024, winning the first of many audience awards. Menemsha Films first released the film in South Florida in late 2024 and the film has continued winning awards while playing the Jewish film festival circuit. Memorial Day weekend sees the film open in New York while the L0s Angeles opening will take place on June 6. Check the Menemsha Films site for additional playdates.

It’s so nice to meet the both of you today. How are you doing?
Catherine Curtin: Really good, really good. Thank you.
John Bedford Lloyd: Very good. How are you?

I’m doing well. I just watched Bad Shabbos again for the third time the other day and it just keeps getting funnier and funnier.
Catherine Curtin: It’s so funny, isn’t it? They did such a good job.

Yeah.
John Bedford Lloyd: You have to see it in a movie theater.
Catherine Curtin: Oh.
John Bedford Lloyd: Please. You must go, Danielle, and see it in a movie theater.

I’m waiting for them to open in Chicago.
John Bedford Lloyd: Good.

I was not in New York for Tribeca last year, so it took the 3rd attempt at getting the screener to play. Otherwise, I was about to give up.
John Bedford Lloyd: It’s a very different experience. I tell everybody about this movie and I tell them, you have to see it in a movie theater. Don’t wait for streaming X number of months from now, because to sit in a theater as Catherine and I did, to see, feel this movie with hundreds of people laughing out loud, very loud a lot. It’s a long, long time since I experienced that. So get yourself to a brick and mortar place.

Was this your first experience attending a Shabbos dinner, even if it was for a film?
John Bedford Lloyd: Catherine, what about you?
Catherine Curtin: No, I’m a native New Yorker, so I have many, many friends who are Jewish, and half my family is Jewish. I go to Shabbos, and sometimes though, I feel like I know more about Judaism than my friends. I actually make the effort to bring all of the good things that you’re supposed to. And then I’m like, Oh, okay, well, I’m the only one who did this. It’s loose. I think New York Shabbos maybe is very strict, and then maybe it’s also not very strict. It’s kind of loose, but it’s always a joy. My favorite actually, of all of the Jewish holidays, is Passover. I think that’s the most beautiful, just the prayers and what it means. There’s just so much there that is embracing, really, just embracing of all of us, of the human spirit and of everybody who is journeying, lost, and on the way. All of these are very beautiful. All of these occasions, ceremonies, blessed events are very, very beautiful, and it’s lovely that it happens often. That’s a really nice thing, too.

Yeah.
John Bedford Lloyd: I was as clueless as the character I was playing. In fact, I would tell Daniel Robbins, our fearless director—I said, Daniel, really, I don’t know what a yarmulke is, really, I don’t know how to say chutzpah. He said, It’s actually true. I came home after the first day, and said to my wife—who is from Wisconsin and was raised Catholic as our characters were; they were Catholic—is it possible, is it real, that this guy would not know these things? And she said, Yes. Not because they’re anything other than not knowing other Jewish families. She said he first Bagel she ever ate was when she came to New York. It made me feel very comfortable to know that it was true. They were not versed in this world. But to watch people learn, screw it up, and get better by the time it’s over, is a delight.

Yeah. Well, I mean, we have wine spills on occasion, but not the type that’s intentional.
Catherine Curtin: (Laughs) What about you, Danielle? What’s your story with all the Shabbos dinners in your life? What’s that? Do you love them? Do you go to them? Have you been to them? What’s your deal?

I go weekly.
Catherine Curtin: Oh, you do! This has meaning for you. This hits home.

Yeah, I grew up Jewish. I moved to Chicago originally for improv and sketch, comedy and weirdly become a film critic along the way.
Catherine Curtin: Oh. That’s very cool. Kind of all the same thing, really, in a way, but that’s very cool.

What was it about the script that drew the two of you to your roles?
John Bedford Lloyd: It was very, very, very funny.
Catherine Curtin: Very funny and very well written. I just feel like it’s so specific. I was raised Irish Catholic. My mother would probably roll over in her grave, hearing me say this, but the deviled eggs on Easter did not always make it to the table and so the whole concept of the family dinner gone wrong, it’s so much a part of, I think, all of our cultures. I think it’s cross cultural. It’s just a human dimension and I think they got it so right. It’s so absurd, it’s so ridiculous, and the humor is so good. The timing—the timing is amazing, right? It’s truly great timing. I don’t know if it’s Borscht Belt or if it’s influenced by the Yiddish theater, but it’s delicious. I was blown away when I read the script. I was like, this is my family in a ridiculous situation with Method Man. Don’t you love Method Man, you guys? Don’t you think Method Man is extraordinary?

He was.
John Bedford Lloyd: I was just talking to Megan from 42 West and I am very, very happy to hear that he is doing a lot of publicity for this film.
Catherine Curtin: Oh, is he? Oh, good!
John Bedford Lloyd: Danielle, you’ve got to understand that his energy on the set was extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary. The people who love Wu-Tang Clan, if they see him and go wait a minute, I’ve got to see Method Man in this crazy movie. It would be delightful. It would be a wonderful, wonderful mashup of worlds and I hope that’s what happens.
Catherine Curtin: Me, too.

He was so much fun in the film.
John Bedford Lloyd: You wouldn’t believe it. I’m watching him at the table. I’m watching him at the when we’re doing all the improv and the crazy stuff, and he comes in. I’m like, this guy should never ever be allowed to stop acting. He should be in everything. He was so loose, and so free. In a way, I’m like watching him and going, Damn! I wish I could do that. He was delightful, delightful to work with and delightful to watch.
Catherine Curtin: Yes, so much fun. When he goes down the hallway, he’s going to catch the elevator, and he’s off-duty as the doorman and he’s on as the boyfriend, and he goes, “It’s Shabbos, baby.” I mean, it’s just there’s nobody in the world that could have delivered that better than him. I mean, he’s so funny. He’s brilliant, he’s truly brilliant. What an amazing thing. Oh, that’s my white dog! I hope you don’t mind. My dogs are here. My dogs will be in the interview.

I just got sidetracked, but I don’t mind.
Catherine Curtin: She’s filthy. It’s my Daisy, one of my rescues. Yeah.

What do the two of you typically look for when you’re reading a screenplay?
John Bedford Lloyd: It sounds stupid, but well, it’s not stupid, it’s just so simple. It’s just good words.
Catherine Curtin: Yeah.
John Bedford Lloyd: Just something that’s well written because that’s the hardest job. The writers have the hardest job so if it starts, it starts there. If it’s well written, if it has integrity, then you you want to be on board.
Catherine Curtin: Yeah. Yeah. Also, the people involved, like meeting Daniel and Adam. Just meeting the creatives. They were so kind, joyous, and they were so loving and giving. I think that’s a big win for me at this stage in my life. I just really want to work with people that I like to work with, it’s that simple. It’s gotten down to just—there’s a lot of ways to spend your day in life and there’s a lot of good scripts out there. This is a great script, but it’s also a great group of people and people who really—I don’t know, John, how but they would come up to me so many times in shooting and during the day, and they’d be like, Hi! How’s it going? How’re you doing? That checking-in, that caring? Just amazing. It just goes a really, really long way to making a very wonderful set. I truly believe that kindness and generosity on set, I think you feel it on camera. I think a toxic set is something maybe we’ve all worked on, but I don’t know. I think the toxicity bleeds. This set was just—it was funny. It was joyous. It was wacky. It was accelerated. There was a lot of velocity. We shot a lot in any given day, would you say? I think we really moved pretty quickly. It was lovely. It was a great experience. I would love to work with these guys again. Let’s make Bad Shabbos 2. Let’s just do that. Can we commit to that? Let’s just commit to that. Where is everybody?
John Bedford Lloyd: We are committing to it. We are committing to it.
Catherine Curtin: We’re committed to it. Okay, good.

Well, I’ll ask Daniel when I interview him later today.
Catherine Curtin: Please!
John Bedford Lloyd: He did mention one thought, which was when Jon Bass’s family—David Paymer and Kyra Sedgwick—they all come to Wisconsin for what would might be called Bad Xmas or Bad Easter or Bad Whatever. I said, Daniel, really, really, really? He goes, Well, if this one takes off, you never know. So just go out there and see Bad Shabbos so we get to go to Wisconsin and make the sequel.

Who knows? Maybe your characters will have a chance to visit the Pope’s home in Chicago.
John Bedford Lloyd: (Laughs) Have you been there?
Catherine Curtin: I love Chicago. Chicago is an awesome town. It’s an amazing town. I love Chicago, maybe not in December, January, but I love Chicago.

Yeah, winter here can be rather brutal.
Catherine Curtin: Brutal, really brutal. Yeah. I did a show there years ago at the Royal George across from Steppenwolf in January and I didn’t know it was possible in the world for anything to be that cold. I was wearing 2 and 3 coats. It doesn’t matter what you wear. I was not clear on that. They didn’t put that in the Equity memo that you will be freezing. They didn’t put that in, but a great town. I love Chicago. I love the Chicago Art Museum, too. That’s genius. The Chagall. When you go in, John. I don’t know if you’ve been there, but when you go into the Chicago Art Museum. You guys have been there with the Chagall Mural? It’s truly extraordinary. It’s extraordinary. The 7 Tenants of Judaism—that is in the Chicago Art Museum.

It was so nice getting to chat with the two of you this morning. Congrats again on this very hysterical film!
John Bedford Lloyd: Thank you.

I hope no one gets any wine or soup spilled on them.
John Bedford Lloyd: Me, too.
Catherine Curtin: (Laughs) Well, it’s pretty funny, though. Maybe a pie in the face? That would be the next one. That’s going to be in Wisconsin, right? Wisconsin is all about pies, right? We’re gonna have to do a pie in the face when we do Bad Shabbos 2 or Bad Xmas 1.

Or cheese.
Catherine Curtin: Or cheese! Exactly, exactly.

Menemsha Films released Bad Shabbos in theaters on November 29, 2004.

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