Daniel Robbins sat down for a chat over Zoom to discuss the hysterical award-winning Jewish comedy, Bad Shabbos, now expanding in theaters. The film took home a Solzy Award last year as one of the best comedies of the year.

In Bad Shabbos, David (Jon Bass) and his fiancée Meg (Meghan Leathers) are about to have their parents meet for the first time over a Shabbat dinner on New York’s Upper West Side when an accidental death (or murder?) gets in the way. With Meg’s Catholic parents (John Bedford Lloyd and Catherine Curtin) due any moment, this family dinner soon spirals into a hilarious disaster.

Robbins directs from a script co-wrriten by himself and Zack Weiner. The film stars Jon Bass, Meghan Leathers, Cliff “Method Man” Smith, Milana Vayntrub, Theo Taplitz, Ashley Zukerman, Catherine Curtin, John Bedford Lloyd, with David Paymer and Kyra Sedgwick.

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 finally meet you today. How are you doing?
Daniel Robbins: Same. I feel like we’ve met a number of times, but then I couldn’t really remember it. I feel like we’ve just been talking for so long.

We’ve either been talking through email or Instagram.
Daniel Robbins: Yeah.

At a time when antisemitism is very horrible, how exciting has it been to see the film playing so well on the festival circuit and in theaters since late November?
Daniel Robbins: Been great. I think if you make a movie in any year, you’re gonna be able to find pockets of antisemitism. But it’s nice because we were nervous what the response would be. Because after October 7, there was such a backlash just to Judaism, Jewish content. A lot of Israeli filmmakers boycotted from certain festivals so I thought, well, our movie’s finished.

But then it came out and there was just such a resounding support for it. People just loved it, because I think we made it from a place of love where myself, Adam, Zack—we loved our Jewish upbringings, wanted that to come through in the movie and try to show a positive portrayal of Judaism, and also just make the funniest movie possible.

I think giving people both things warm their hearts and also gave them something to laugh about for 90 minutes. Just seems like it works better now than it would have two years ago.

Yeah. Do you have any fear about any backlash to Theo’s character, especially with the IDF shirt.
Daniel Robbins: Yeah. We’ve gotten some complaints about it. I think when you make a comedy—also, Theo, actually, he’s a student in Columbia. He graduates in May, so I can’t imagine what he’s going through.

I think when you make a comedy, you can’t dilute it, because then it just loses its edge. Our goal was to make an authentic portrayal of an Upper West Side family, and that includes someone who’s obsessed with trying to get into the IDF and trying to join for a year or two. We could have maybe backed off on it once everything happened, but I think once you start doing that, your comedy is just going to become flat.

When did production take place?
Daniel Robbins: November into December of 2022. We shot for about a month and then edited for about six months with Kate.

We were relentless about the editing where we had a cut, and then we had an A and B cut that tried different jokes, and then we tested those, and then we tested the combined cut, and then we tested many other iterations, to just distill it to the best comedy possible.

When you learn about great comedies from the past and how they got that way, it’s from relentless refining through test screening where there’s so much you can’t really find out until you’re in the room with an audience.

It’s like a stand-up comedian. The funniest guys in the world still workshop their act on stage, for usually up to a year before they do the special. It’s like who are we to think that we don’t need that.

Even then, what works with one audience might not necessarily work with another audience.
Daniel Robbins: That’s very true. We’ve definitely had to mix it up.

What was the genesis behind this hysterical script?
Daniel Robbins: The genesis came from Zack, the co-writer, and Adam, the producer. Zack’s family host these very zany Shabbats—well, very loving Shabbats—on the Upper West Side with a lot of people, and his mom will sometimes prank people just to keep things light. She’s just a funny person.

Adam, the producer said, what would happen if one of these pranks ended up with someone dying? Zack said, Oh, that could be a funny movie. They called me and I thought it could be a funny movie. It just went from there.

Also, I should say about debuting in Tribeca, you deserve a lot of credit because it’s easy once people say, Oh, movie’s good, pople can come on to it. But you were the first person to see it and be like, this thing is kind of great, which takes a lot of conviction so thank you.

It meant a lot when you came out and said that, because we didn’t know how this was going to play and your review is one of the first ones. From there, a lot of people are hopping on the bandwagon. There’s even one big reviewer who changed their review headline after the audience award, like, Oh, I guess I missed something, and it was actually pretty good. But you were there from day one.

It was the third attempt because it was an Indee screener. I remember that it was Indee and not Vimeo. And yeah, Indee—unless it’s one that has a code to play through the app or is able to be screened through their apps—isn’t fun sometimes. This was before I got my new laptop. I’m pretty sure of that because I did have to get a new laptop last June. This was one of those where it took three attempts just to get it to play and I was all about to just give up. Thank G-d, it played on that third attempt and played in full.
Daniel Robbins: Thank G-d. Thank goodness. I feel like that’s almost a Chanukah parallel there.

I love how it took me on twists and turns that I wasn’t expecting.
Daniel Robbins: That’s good. That’s part of the goal where Zack and I have this saying, where you want to take an audience off autopilot. If an audience, after ten minutes, they have an idea of where the movie’s going and if you follow those beats, they kind of lean back and they’re not engaged. But once you can shake them out of it in some way, that’s how we like to feel in the theater. We try to do it with every movie in some way.

I was speaking with John and Catherine earlier and asked them if they’d ever attended Shabbos dinners before signing on to the film.
Daniel Robbins: What was their answer?

Catherine has been to them before. John—this was his first time experiencing one.
Daniel Robbins: Wow.

Whether it’s in person or in a film.
Daniel Robbins: That’s cool.

I’ve seen white spills happen and I’ve been guilty of that, but not intentionally.
Daniel Robbins: John—he had a Jewish upbringing in Houston, but I don’t know how—they might have been more like High Holiday celebrating. I don’t know. And then, Catherine lives in New York. If you live in New York, you’re gonna find yourself at a Shabbat dinner eventually.

I didn’t really do the deep dive on Wikipedia for John. I was just looking at the press notes from last year.
Daniel Robbins: You could ask me anything about him. We could just make it about John. He’s a brilliant man.

In making this film, were you all trying to turn off non-Jews from attending Shabbos dinners?
Daniel Robbins: No. The goal was to show the beauty of Shabbos and how great of a tradition this is. Rabbi Sacks says that Shabbat dinner is probably the thing that most kept Jews together through all these years. Every Friday night, just gather everyone together, no matter your wins and losses through the week, you’re just hanging out and being present. It’s a beautiful thing.

And actually, the reaction from non-Jews—because we’ve had fully non-Jewish audiences—they’re lit up about Shabbat and they’re like, Oh, my G-d! Really, no phone for a day?!? I want to do that with my family. I love that you guys do the dinner.

I think there are even some people involved with the movie that are doing more Shabbat dinners than before.

It’s nice getting that one day to rest and relax, although since October 7, it’s been more of a what’s happened in the last 25 hours since going offline.
Daniel Robbins: Yeah, it’s definitely a stressful time.

Aside from the whole rushing through dinner to force the guests out, I love how everything in this film feels so authentic.
Daniel Robbins: I’m so glad. That’s partially because I went to Jewish school for 12 years and partially because almost every item on the table is from my parents’ house because we couldn’t really find ones in prop houses that felt authentic enough.

I called my mom and I was like, Could we stop by? Lily and her team just picked what they thought would be great.

We’re one of the only movies that show Shalom Aleichem, which is this thing that happens before the blessing over the wine, which most movies skip over because it’s usually dead space and it’s a really long song. But with this movie, we had the opportunity to turn it into a joke.

Actually, one of the only cuts of the movie is, we also had them washing their hands at a point. It was this check-in point with David and Meg looking at each other, like before battle, almost like, this is going to be nuts, let’s do our best. And then they head in. But we didn’t need it in the end, because they were so locked in.

Also, people were like, how many prayers are there gonna be before they eat? (Laughs) We had a question in the test screening. How many for the amount of prayers? Was it just the right amount? I could use more or a little less?

And with the Al Netilat Yadayim, we had like a lot a number of people wanted like a little less, and then we cut that. And it was right.

I’m trying to imagine—if that had been a larger dinner, the amount of time it would take just for people to wash their hands!
Daniel Robbins: Yeah. It could go on for quite some time.

Could you have pulled off this film in the same way if you had cast non-Jews in Jewish roles?
Daniel Robbins: So, with this, I don’t think so, because I can’t imagine. Every actor was the best possible person for that role.

I’m actually not so big on the only Jews can play Jews, or whatever analogy comes from that. I just think to make something great, you usually want to get close to authenticity and that usually means casting the people who are that role.

But I think actors are amazing and sometimes, they could surprise you and do a role authentically, even if they’re not the person.

For example, with the mom, the casting directors asked if I want someone Jewish. I said, more important is probably someone kind of New York-coded, because the energy of New York is so specific. I think almost like a non-Jew in New York might have been closer to the role than a Jewish person from the Midwest.

But we got lucky in Kyra, who had both. She lives on the Upper West Side, her mom is Jewish, and she knew the Jewish traditions. She was the most ideal person for it.

I think it’s definitely good to aim for it and with this movie, it’s probably for the best.

What was the most challenging aspect about making the film?
Daniel Robbins: Probably that we shot in a real apartment on the Upper West Side. Every person and item had to go through that one elevator, up 16 floors every day and then out, which is a lot.

Even a big New York City apartment is small so we have to fit all the crew and all of our gear in that space. You can’t move walls away. Even if we’re shooting a simple shot of just one person talking in the hallway, looking left and the other one’s looking right. When we wanted to flip around to the other actor, we’d have to move everything to the other side of the apartment just to get that shot.

It was brutal, but it makes it feel authentic. Our saying throughout the movie was the more authentic it feels, the funnier it’ll be. Anything we could do to to help the authenticity, we just we went with it.

Was someone actually living in that apartment or was it one where you got lucky and it was an open rental?
Daniel Robbins: Normally, when you rent the person leaves the apartment. In this case, we actually lost our location two weeks before and were a little desperate. This person wanted to stay and she lived there the whole shoot, which I would definitely not recommend. She was a good person so I think that helps. But even so, seeing a film crew go around your apartment is usually a stressful experience, even if they’re doing a perfect job.

Yeah. I noticed how Zero Mostel’s son has a small cameo in the film.
Daniel Robbins: Wow! That’s good to spot. Zero Mostel’s son, Josh Mostel—he tells the joke in the beginning of the movie.

We had to cast that role and we spoke to casting directors. They’re like well, who would be perfect would be Josh Mostel. And then, okay, I mean, let’s offer it. So they called him, and he said, Do I have to audition? And we said, “No, you show up, you have it.” He said, “Alright.”

He just came for the day and was so gracious and so funny, and especially starting the movie, such a big responsibility, especially for an indie. People are going to either check in or out within 30 seconds. Having his gravitas tell that joke, I don’t know if the movie even works without him.

Also, he and David Paymer knew each other from City Slickers. I think there’s a connection there, but they didn’t shoot on the same day, so they didn’t get to see each other.

I was about to ask if Topol’s children were not available.
Daniel Robbins: Oh, that’s actually—yeah, they actually could have been good, too.

There’s this classic story where—because Zero had been cast as Tevye on the stage and then Topol gets cast in the film—sometime down the line, Josh is up for a part and gets it—Zero’s like, they should have gotten Topol’s son.
Daniel Robbins: Oh, that’s funny! I actually haven’t heard that story before.

Yeah.
Daniel Robbins: Interesting.

I read it in a book or saw it somewhere.
Daniel Robbins: I’ll check it out, and Josh Mostel is also in Billy Madison, which is one of my favorite movies, as Principal Anderson. We have something from Billy Madison in the film, which was Jon Bass’s idea.

When Method Man is bugging out to him, and he’s like, “You don’t imply dead, you say dead!” And he shakes his face. That’s what Adam Sandler does to the kid in Billy Madison, and that was Jon Bass just saying, I think it’d be funny, just like grab my face and shook it. I was like, yeah, let’s try it. And then we did it. I was like, it’s too crazy. We probably won’t use it. But then, we see it in the edit and Kate’s like, this is hilarious. Like, yeah, it’s hilarious, it was my idea and then we used it.

John Bedford Lloyd and Catherine Curtin brought up Bad Shabbos 2 or Bad Whatever and that they’d be on board for a sequel. David Paymer, too. Not to add pressure here, but where do things stand on a sequel?
Daniel Robbins: For a sequel this cast is magic so we’d like to make one…There’s a pretty good idea that revolves around Meg and David’s wedding in Wisconsin, but we haven’t fully cracked it yet. It would need to be better than the first movie for everyone to get on a plane

May is Jewish American Heritage Month. What is something that makes you proud of your Jewish heritage?
Daniel Robbins: I’m just now learning May is Jewish Heritage month. Think I’m most proud of the values Judaism added to the world e.g. Everyone is created in the image of G-d. Equality and the dignity of each person sounds obvious to us now but it wasn’t always that way.

Congrats on everything and I’m sure I’ll talk to you later.
Daniel Robbins: Thank you and we’ll see how it goes. Great to finally meet.

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

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