Max Greenfield Is That Dad

The first thing you may observe about the dad in Netflix’s upcoming teen drama Don’t Say Good Luck is that his hair looks perfect. That’s only the start of the aspirational cues coming from this character played by Max Greenfield. In this funny — and, yes, tear-jerking — family drama, Greenfield’s character juggles work, elementary-aged twins, a big-feeling teen, and his wife’s cancer diagnosis. While he is at times off-kilter from all that life throws his way in the film, this dad does not bumble his way through it. In every scene, he finds ways to be the emotionally available parent and partner.

Greenfield says that understanding the character was easy. “There’s so much of me that’s in that movie,” he tells Fatherly. “I felt so close to what we were doing.” It could be, perhaps, because his daughter, like the main character, is a high schooler; she has mutual friends to the lead actress, Sunny Sandler; and her experience — at least onstage, navigating high school life — just resonated.

We sat down to give Max Greenfield the Cool Dad questionnaire, and then talked about the movie, finding patience, and fighting parental anxiety — and why LA’s bagels are seriously underrated.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

I finished watching Don’t Say Good Luck today. I definitely did some crying.

They keep playing clips in these interviews that I’m doing for press, and they’ll play it before the interview, and I’m constantly like, “I need a minute.”

It’s intense. It’s a wonderful film. I’m wondering how close of a dad are you to who you play on screen in Don’t Say Good Luck. Are you that dad?

I mean, there’s so much of me that’s in that movie. I felt so close to what we were doing. It was really the reason I wanted to do it. My daughter, I think, is a year younger than Sunny [Sandler, the lead], and I was really aware that this was going to be a movie that Sunny was starring in. And from everything that I had heard, I had never done a Sandler movie before, but his sets are famously the best. And so I really wanted to just make sure that she had a comparable experience on this with somebody else. I felt like I knew how to do that.

“I didn’t know if I was going to be very good in the movie as an actor, but I was like, ‘I think I know how to be the dad.’”

My daughter and her have mutual friends, I know where she goes to school… just a lot of the stuff I just was like, “I know this world well.” And so talking to somebody like Sunny is not an issue for me. And trying to be light and supportive in this environment, it was something I felt like I was capable of doing. I didn’t know if I was going to be very good in the movie as an actor, but I was like, “I think I know how to be the dad.” And then there’s the two young boys in the movie, the twins, and they were so funny because they were just never acting. They just were running around.

They’re a little bit younger than my son, but I just coached my son’s basketball team, and wrangling all those kids and getting them going, getting them involved, it was very good prep work for dealing with these two boys. And it made the scenes and made the movie so much fun.

It felt very real.

Yeah. Everything was just like, “Oh, this is what my real life is.” And being there with Sunny, I understood that relationship. Being there with the boys, I was like, “I get this relationship.”

There was a more dramatically real scene later in the movie … I personally had a similar experience to the lead character. My mom had cancer when I was a sophomore in high school, and all I could think about was how I wanted you — your character — to be my dad for that time. For example, that scene when you were sitting in the car and Sunny asked, “Are you okay?” And you asked, “Are you okay?” And both of you said, “No.” It was just… right.

That was a really cool scene. Julia Hart, who had directed the movie and wrote the movie along with Laura Hankin and Jordan Horowitz … [had] a lot of conversations about that scene, and they were so generous in my input. It really felt like that scene was going to be the scene for this relationship. And as we started to see how the movie was playing out and what was happening before then, we had sent a bunch of drafts of that scene back and forth to one another, and we all collectively landed in that spot because it really needed to set up everything that comes after that, but it needed to honor everything that was built up before it, and it needed to feel real.

I didn’t want there to be an answer or a fix to what was happening, but I wanted them to feel it, both characters. When we shot that scene, it was nuts. It was really heavy, man.

In this movie, you run a bagel shop. So what’s your order?

Oh, wow. Great question. I’ve probably gotten older and more healthy than I need to be, more LA than I need to be. I’ll give you two. One’s an everything bagel [with] just cream cheese, onion, tomato, lox.

Respect.

That can’t ever miss, it’s the best. The other one is … either a light cream cheese spread [or] the right type of hummus and then just veggies. But fresh, good veggies that are with the right type of dressing on it and salt and pepper. There’s a place in LA that has been hyped and hyped and I finally went there, I don’t know, a month or two ago. It’s called Courage Bagels. And the line is a mile long. And I was like, “I’m not waiting in line.” And then my daughter and I were like, “Let’s go wait in line.” So we went over there and they had one, I think it’s called the Garden or something. I don’t know. Holy sh*t. It was unbelievable.

One of the big themes of the movie I wanted to get your take on is disclosure to children. That is, what you tell a kid, what you don’t tell a kid, when you’re protecting them from the truth, and when that backfires. I was just wondering if you had thoughts on how you strike that personally.

It’s a really good question. I actually feel like I’ve done a good job with this, personally. There are certain things that I want them to discover on their own, and hopefully my job is to have created a space where they feel comfortable to then bring those things up to me. And then depending on how the question’s asked or how much they want to know, you ease them into certain topics of discussion and what you choose to discover based on what they’re asking. And you let that conversation be ongoing. And so I’ve had some real good success in some areas where those conversations have opened up and become more in-depth over time. And as a result, I see that my kids are way more comfortable with information that I was worried might be confusing or scary. And because they’ve sort of been able to take it in at their pace.

How has your outlook changed now that you’re past the baby and elementary parenting and you have a 16- and 11-year-old?

I’m making a lot more mistakes. That thing we talked about, responsibility versus what to let go, that line is thinner and thinner every day. And there’s so many times where, what are the things that I feel like I need to control to make me feel safer in this situation that is so scary? And being a fear-based parent is not a good zone to operate from.

“When I’m sitting in a car with my daughter and she’s driving, this is real fear. This is what real fear feels like.”

And so it’s like my daughter’s now driving and she gets her driver’s license and it’s just like, my wife and I are both like, “Well, so the next day, is she just driving to volleyball practice? Is that how that works?” And if you strip all the fear away from it, you’re like, “Yeah, she practiced and worked up to it and has now passed the test and she’s allowed to legally drive. So yes, why wouldn’t she be able to?” There’s a period of time when they’re small where you’re like, “Yeah, this is just going to keep getting better.” And then it shifts in the most terrifying way and you’re like, “Oh, this is all so much worse.”

When we were [learning to drive], I would sit in the car with her, we would drive, and I would go, “Oh, you know what? All the anxiety and fear I have about the future and life and work and all the nonsense, that’s not real.” When I’m sitting in a car with my daughter and she’s driving, this is real fear. This is what real fear feels like. It’s like, this is the shark in the water kind of fear. And it’s heavy and it’s tangible. And you almost hold it and you go, “This is what real fear feels like, and this is appropriate for the situation.” So outside of that, when I do feel any sort of anxiety about the future or whatever it is, I go, “Oh, this is not real.” And now I know the difference. So at least I have that.