David Arquette plays Rick Barona in The Good Half. The film is currently playing in select cities across the US and Canada.

An emotionally distant writer returns to his hometown of Cleveland for his beloved mother’s funeral, after having spent years successfully avoiding interactions with his high-strung sister, bumbling but well-meaning father, and untrustworthy step-father. While in town, he forges a new relationship with a charming, energetic stranger who pushes him to realize that he can’t avoid conflict forever — with his family or within himself.

I spoke with the actor over Zoom about how the project addresses grief, the importance of memories, why he was fascinated by his character, the smaller story details, and more. Keep reading for our conversation!

I am so excited to speak with you, congrats on this incredible movie. It’s really well done, amazing work. 
David Arquette: Thank you. I think it’s a really special movie as well. I’m so happy to be a part of it. 

What stuck out to you about how the story handles loss and grief, especially with presenting the five stages of grief?
Yeah, that’s really what spoke to me when I first read the script is how it did address grief and it addressed it with all the elements, but a lot of humor, which is something that’s really hard to tap into when you’re going through such a painful process, but it’s always part of it. There’s always these cringy moments where somebody says, “How are you doing?” Sometimes I find myself doing that as well but I don’t know, I love the character that I got to play, Rick. He’s such an interesting guy and I didn’t have to do much. I just had to sort of read the role and be a narcissistic take on it, and it was fun to be a part of. 

One of the things that stood out to me were the ‘good half’ speeches. Nick and Brittany did such an incredible job with their respective scenes. How did you feel reading those moments in the script for the first time? What were your original thoughts and did they make you think of anything specific?
Absolutely. It really did make me look back and think about the people I’ve lost in my life, the time that I had with them, and how much that is the good half of life. But one of the things about grief that I’ve learned is that gratitude is a really healing element to it. So the more you can look back and be grateful for the time that you did have together and try to really remember all those wonderful moments, talk to people and get stories, keep sort of their spirit and their memory alive and your memories in your heart alive for what you’ve been through together, I think that really is part of the healing process.

I love how there were flashback memories for some of the characters and their mom because yes, it’s a movie about getting closure but remembering those moments through the process is so important. I don’t know if that stood out to you as well. 
Yeah, it really did. I love those flashbacks, too. Elisabeth was such an incredible actress, to be able to work with her was such a dream. I mean, it’s wonderful, the way those memories exist in my mind with people that I’ve lost and people that I love, and it is sort of a different world but sometimes you can go to those memories and kind of be transported back to that time. If you can find other people that share those memories or have other memories that you may have forgotten, it really is another great way of sort of like, ‘Oh, yeah, I remember that,’ and you can go right back to that moment in time.

Yeah, it’s a great way to transport yourself back. What do you believe is the key to finding that perfect balance between heart and comedy when it comes to a film?
Oh, man, I think finding the perfect balance really requires a wonderful director like Robert Schwartzman. He just did such a great job with this and Brett Ryland is an incredible writer. He was tremendous, he dug in and tapped into his personal experiences. This whole project, he said was a real cathartic exercise for him to sort of get it out, deal with that, and put all those things down. I mean, for people from Cleveland, they might take a bashing. It’s not the kindest to Cleveland but I think a lot of that has to do with his feelings at the time and his feelings of what he was going through but things live on in a movie, so I’d hate if people from Cleveland are not gonna feel loved and represented because I’ve been to Cleveland and it’s an incredible town and there’s wonderful people there. If you haven’t, you have to go see the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. They do a wonderful award ceremony every year, where all the bands play. It’s just such a cool time.

This is a complex story with a tragic situation, but there’s also the different family dynamics being explored and how everyone’s not reacting the same way, which is very human. I’m curious, what about that appealed to you as an actor? 
I think what appealed to me was that it brought up a lot of what I had gone through and how you see the essence of existence in those moments. You see your pain, it’s really raw and right to the surface, and a lot of things come up, a lot of past sort of dynamics come up, a lot of juggling of different personalities and trying to understand through their experience and what they’re expressing, like what they really mean. Sometimes people can come from a place of hurt and it’s just hurt, and they could be upset about something, but it’s about something completely different. So it’s a great time to be really sensitive to that and patient with people, and humor actually is a really great way to get through it, as silly and as kind of morbid as that may sound, being able to find the humor in life and how ridiculous it all is, ultimately. It’s a way of getting through it and just knowing that it’s all gonna be all right.

For Rick’s scenes, did you do anything specific to find inspiration or get in the right headspace? I mean, you have that big funeral scene but also, I loved the ending moment with him, because I felt like, regardless of what happens after that for Rick and the family, it was a little peace offering. 
Yeah, me too. Rick was a real narcissistic character, so I’ve always been fascinated with narcissists. I once asked my therapist — I was just talking to him about narcissists and trying to understand certain people who I know are that way and he said, “You know what, I don’t have any narcissistic clients.” I said, “Really, that’s insane,” and he asked, “Do you know why?” I said, “No, why,” and he said, “They don’t need me.” That said everything to me. I took that into the role for sure and it’s a kind of character or personality that really does think about himself, he says a list of needs and his are on the top, you know? And so, whatever he was doing in planning this, he was making it as comfortable for him as possible. There’s something really funny about that scene where I get upset at the Renn character, played by Nick Jonas, who did an incredible job. I was so impressed with how talented he is as an actor and just a wonderful guy.

So, we had this scene, but what people didn’t know was, within the script, it’s written that we all get into this limousine and we ride from the funeral to this memorial service, the party. It’s not really a party, but Rick saw it as a party. But when Robert came down to it, he was like, “You know what, we’re not gonna have you in the car, it is just gonna be the other members of the family.” I was like, okay, and it was fine. I didn’t mind as an actor and as myself, but Rick was really pissed because he had paid for the limousine. He’s like, “What? I can’t ride in the limousine.” Rick was upset about the limousine, so as much as he’s angry at Renn and kind of trying to make him feel bad in that scene, he’s also very upset about not riding in the limousine. That’s really what it came down to. I’m telling you, even as I’m out the door, “I hope you guys enjoyed the limousine!” I don’t think anybody understands how much it meant to him because Rick had never been in a limousine. That’s also what I played in my head. He picked out the limousine and he’s like, “This is going to be awesome. Does it have alcohol in it?” He was really set on this limousine ride. They took that.

There you go, that’s the key to Rick’s character. I know there was a lot of collaboration on set, what was your favorite collaborative moment, whether it was with the filmmakers or the cast on a scene or something with your role, anything like that?
I think Robert, the director, was just so willing to have fun with it and play with stuff. He came up with a line and I was like, “Okay, I’ll say it.” I didn’t know where it came from, but he came up with it really quickly. He is a very comedic person himself and he really loves music, loves life, loves dynamics, and loves comedy. He’s a very funny person. So he was like, “Let’s give it a try.” He was open to that stuff and also, when I drove up really fast, the first AD was freaked out. They thought I was gonna crash the car or something, the Miata. I was really excited about the Miata too, because it was written and it was very specific about how Rick loves his car, which is such a funny thing, too. I know that kind of thing, but so yeah, [the line he gave me] was just kind of funny, finding a way to make it sort of a throwaway. But I don’t know, moments like that were really fun.

Yeah, I imagine it makes it even more fun as an actor when you get those little details to help build the role. As silly as something like that sounds, I feel like they all kind of build up in your head to help you tell the character’s story.
Totally. I mean, part of this, the fun exercise in playing this character was not to push it at all, not to push the comedy, just allow the writer and his words to really play, and the way Robert was shooting it to come through and the dynamics with the other actors. Like, there’s an awkwardness and there was an awkwardness with me on set because I’m playing this character that’s an outcast. I typically feel like an outcast in just walking into a party, charity, or some kind of thing. I completely always feel sort of uncomfortable in my own skin, so I could just lean into it. He’s comfortable in his skin, but I could still have that outcast sort of emotion going.

Lastly, this was just an incredible cast. Who surprised you the most in terms of how you were able to play off of them?
Yeah, everyone was really comfortable with improvisation or going with the moment and everyone was sort of on the page. They were all great at that and Matt Walsh specifically, I’m such a huge fan of him in general and just love his style of comedy. Nick and Brittany were just great. I mean, there was always this little elephant in the room and the elephant in the room was me. So I always kind of, even on the set, as much as I felt like ad-libbing with them, I was never a part of it. The entire time, even with the scene where we’re all together with Elisabeth’s character, I still was kind of like, oh, I felt like I was bugging everyone.