Meet the Cast of Fun Mom Dinner: Toni Collette, Molly Shannon, Bridget Everett, and Katie Aselton

Put four funny women together and not only do you get FUN MOM DINNER, but you also get a laugh-packed interview!

Put four funny women together and not only do you get FUN MOM DINNER, but you also get a laugh-packed interview!

On Monday I had the chance to sit down with the stars of the film, Toni Collette, Molly Shannon, Bridget Everett, and Katie Aselton at the FUN MOM DINNER press junket.

Just in case you haven’t yet seen the trailer (or watched the movie), FUN MOM DINNER shows us what happens when four moms whose only common ground is their kids’ preschool class, decide to get together for a harmless “fun mom dinner.”

The night begins as a disaster, but the combination of alcohol, karaoke, and a cute bartender (Adam Levine!), leads to an unforgettable night where these seemingly different women realize they have more in common than motherhood and men.

While these four women become great friends in  FUN MOM DINNER, it’s obvious they became friends in making the movie and I’m thinking there had to be as many laughs during filming as there are on the screen itself because all of them are SO FUNNY!

I have been a Molly Shannon fan forever, beginning with her SNL years, and if you haven’t yet seen Bridget Everett’s videos on YouTube, they are HILARIOUS (but definitely NSFW and you want to be sure your kids aren’t looking over your shoulder while you watch.)

And while those two are primarily known for being funny women, Toni Collette and Katie Aselton showed how funny they can be as well!

While FUN MOM DINNER is a ton of fun, it also talks about the struggles of motherhood, marriage and friendship.

These women had a lot to share about daily life as a mom – movie stars seriously have lots of mom guilt, struggles and uncertainty just like anyone else!

Here is how each of them answered questions about life, motherhood and being a woman. But to get to know a bit about their own personalities, likes and dislikes, we asked them these questions:

What do you miss about your life before becoming a mom?

Toni Collette: Sleeping in.

Katie Aselton: Having a day just to myself. I walked all over the city yesterday. I landed at 3:00 and walked up and down. At some point I saw the subway. I was like, “I’m going to go down a subway,” and I did. Then I ate when I was hungry and went to bed when I wanted to go to bed. That was wonderful

Molly Shannon: My husband and I went away for the weekend, and we were in Palm Springs. We ordered breakfast -chilaquiles. We were just sitting in bed talking uninterrupted and we were like, “Oh, my God, we haven’t done this for so long.”

What’s your dream date?

Toni Collette: It has to involve great food, really good wine, and swimming naked under the stars.

Katie Aselton: I just love a night where we’re both in sync. You know those nights where you’re like “Oh, you hear me and I hear you.” That’s a dream date.

Molly Shannon: Sometimes I’d just like to accept what’s simple, like if you just go to a movie. And it doesn’t have to be some big fancy romantic thing, but just something really simple.

Bridget Everett: Poppy and I go to the Mexican restaurant on Monday nights. That’s my dog, and it’s our date night. We do it every Monday night. They have these margaritas there that have kerosene in them or something. I can drink a lot, but, I can only have, like, one and half of them. Then we go home and we’re in bed by 8:30. It’s wonderful. (Bridget is a Dog Mom after my own heart!)

How do you take a break?

Toni Collette: I love massages.

Molly Shannon:  I like massages and I like to go swimming – 30 minutes or an hour if I have enough time. I do an older lady above the water stroke, I really do, but it’s really good exercise. Especially if I have a super straight gorgeous blowout that I don’t want to get wet.

Katie Aselton: I love hitting a Pilates class. I like 45 minutes of bizarre body pain with good music. I like a massage. I like a manicure. I like a pedicure. I’m big on cutting some time out of the day for you.

Bridget Everett: It’s similar to Pilates, but I get a pineapple and I cut it up into tiny little pieces and then I put them in a bottle of Tito’s and freeze it. Then at 5:00 I shake it up, put it on some ice and I drink my pini-tini. That’s it, just pineapple, ice, and vodka. It couldn’t be easier.

What advice do you have for other moms?

Toni Collette:  I think women wear so many hats, and I think they need to give themselves a break and not feel that they have to be perfect all the time. The amount of guilt that most mothers that I speak to, the guilt is rife. And it’s really unfair that we do it to ourselves. And I think we can probably let go of that. It’s not healthy.

Katie Aselton: Shaking the pressure to be that women that everyone looks at and says, “How does she do it?” I feel like we do that to ourselves a lot. You can’t do everything all at the same time. It’s okay. It makes you a more accessible, more human to say it’s “okay, I’m going to fail sometimes. I’m going to fall a little short, but that doesn’t mean I’m a bad mom or a bad wife or a bad friend. It just means I can’t ace it all of the time.”
Fail, fail gracefully and let it go. Move on.

Molly Shannon: I read this amazing book called Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety. It’s fantastic. Basically it’s about how women can be really hard on other women. There are women who work, women who don’t work, and there’s a lot of insecurity about these choices. And they’re not taking it out on men, but the women take it out on one another. It was just such an excellent book that I loved. It talks a lot about how we’ve almost gone back to the ’50s with this idea of attachment parenting and and it has made women so much harder on themselves – trying to be perfectionists. So, yes, I would say it’s important to take care of yourself and give yourself a break, like Toni was saying, and do nice things for yourself, because then you can go back and be a better mother because you have balance.

Bridget Everett: I don’t have kids. I have a dog, Poppy Baby. I don’t believe in giving unsolicited advice. That would probably be my advice – to not give unsolicited advice. But I also say I like to take lots of time to show my appreciation and love for my little girl with scritchy-scratches and tummy rubs. I let her know every day what she means to me.