Q&A with Reboot Studios
Beyond the Filter: Jill Kargman on Influenced and the Reality Behind the Performance
In theaters May 8
Get More Information and Tickets: InfluencedMovie.com

Tanya Schevitz, Chief Innovation and Communications Officer at Reboot, spoke with writer and star Jill Kargman (New York Times best-selling author and creator of Bravo TV’s Odd Mom Out) about her new film Influenced, a hilariously foul-mouthed, warm-hearted satire of New York City’s Upper East Side “influencer” culture.

What interested us about this film is that while it’s incredibly funny and sharply observed in its portrayal of influencer culture, status and performative giving, it’s also doing something deeper. It starts in a world that’s about being seen, but over the course of the story, it becomes much more about actually seeing other people and about the responsibility that can come with that.

This film seems so resonant, especially through a Jewish lens, and it’s part of what makes the film seem so interesting to us at Reboot. Those ideas are in the world of the film itself, in the B’nai Mitzvah storyline, in the questions it raises about charity culture and obligation and in the way that children often seem to see things more clearly than the adults around them.

Read more to learn through our conversation with Kargman about the making of the film, the world it captures, and the deeper ethical and cultural questions running just beneath the comedy.

Jill Kargman: Thank you, Tanya. That is such a beautiful analysis. I’m so honored that you would share those kind words. I honestly was not trying to do any of that. Like, I’m just thrilled you picked up on it, because I was more trying to hide the meat in the pasta for the little kids kind of thing. I just wanted it to be funny and light, and I wasn’t  you know, aiming to go deep, but I feel like influencer culture is so superfluous, you wanted to thread a moral through it a bit. But I’m just so grateful to you. Thank you for getting it.

Tanya Schevitz: I think that’s great, because people really want to see the film, and then they get those subtle messages. This film really has so much to do with a specific world, the Upper East Side status, anxiety, performance, philanthropy, influencer culture, all of it. What felt richest or funniest to you about setting the story there?

Jill Kargman: Well, I’m from here, so it’s definitely right what you know, but I’ve always felt like, as with my show, Odd Mom Out, I have, like, one foot in, one foot out. I’m definitely steeped in it geographically, but my values are different than some of my neighbors, my family is very chill, they’re not into who’s who, or who has what, it’s just not how I was raised, but there is a culture, especially now with social media of fabulosity. And that’s just not how I was raised. And even in the 80s, at the peak of sort of Gordon Gecko Wall Street life, the girls who had sort of that echelon of wealth were embarrassed by it and had their limousine drivers drop them off two blocks away from school, and now it’s like, people are posting on their private jets, it’s very braggy, and that’s just strange to me, but people I think I want to peek behind the brocade curtain of Upper East Side life. And people follow influencers for this almost voyeuristic you know, chance to see… it’s aspirational. They kind of think that that’s the perfect life, and it’s not. And so, there’s this chasm between what you see on Instagram and then the real person, and we were lucky enough to partner with Instagram to get all their user interface, and really lend veracity to the format, so you see what she’s posting, and then you see there’s a loneliness in reality behind the scenes.

Tanya Schevitz: Right, and I think that’s very common, like you said. Like, it has really changed culture in such a profound way in how people are seen, and how they want to be seen, and what they’re really feeling.

Jill Kargman: Right, it’s not them, it’s the ambassador of themselves, and there’s filters, and there’s makeup, and there’s special lighting, it’s not real.

Tanya Schevitz: What felt so powerful to me was that she was presenting this, but at the same time, she was so warm, and her family just was so close. I don’t know if it’s because I’m right in the middle of that time with my kids, I just was so moved by how much the character, and it seems like you are like that, too, in the way you just described your life. The warmth of the family, despite all of that that was around them, that really struck me in this film and felt really powerful.

Jill Kargman: Thank you. I feel like she definitely is caught up in it with her friends, and then ultimately realized, like, influence can come from within your own house, and that kids see things in a different way, and can really inspire you more than somebody who’s meant to be your idol on social media, or Hollywood, or whatever. The best influence comes from kids.

Tanya Schevitz: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and I want to get into that for sure. But first, I know, Dzanielle started as a character that you were doing on Instagram. At what point did you realize there was sort of this bigger story underneath the satire?

Jill Kargman: I would say it was when Vogue did an article on Dzanielle, Danielle, with a Z. Vogue did this article, I was so flattered that, I guess, people were watching. I think I had a captive audience, everyone was pretty bored during COVID. So I just started posting these every day, and then when Vogue covered it, a few producers reached out saying, “There’s something about this character that’s sort of clueless, lovable, would you ever want to work on it?” So I had sold it as a TV show to be a half-hour comedy to IFC, and then all my executives were fired, and it was really disappointing, because we were very close. We did rounds and rounds of notes, and everybody loved it, and it was going to be greenlit, and then everyone got shitcanned, so it sort of lay dormant in a drawer, so to speak, and then I met my co-writer, Carol Hartsell was a director in an indie that I was in, and we hit it off, and she said, you know, would you ever want to work on anything together? And I said, well, I have this script, but it’s 30 minutes, it’s a half-hour comedy pilot, maybe we could turn it into a feature. So she and her husband came up with the idea of Gary, and, you know, really fleshed out the characters, all of them. And, we just, like, put our heads together, and I feel like it was a great collab.

Tanya Schevitz: Oh yeah, I mean, it turned out great. I mean, and the Gary character really does make the film, and obviously it turned it into this deeper thing. You did say that you did not really think so much about the Jewish part of it, that you wanted the film to have heart and Jewish values, but not hit the people over the head with them. What did that balance look like for you as you were writing it?

Jill Kargman: I just thought, you know, we would tell the story and show these people. It’s more of a portrait. It’s not like you’re gonna be eating your popcorn with your heart pounding. It’s not, like, plot-driven, per se. It’s more of a character study, and I just think this moment in time in influencer culture on the Upper East Side, you see so much excess, but you also see poverty, and so I just wanted to do a snapshot of one block.

Originally, the script was called Miracle on 74th Street, because it’s just meant to be one block in New York. It could be, you know, there’s millions of stories just like this, but it’s one block, and the people that live on this block, and then the sort of upstairs, downstairs, the dog walker, the pedicurist, the homeless person, you know, so you really get this whole cross-section snapshot of just one microcosm of New York City.

Tanya Schevitz: Yeah, that was beautiful. Some of the lines were just so brilliant when Gary says, “Thank you for helping….someone else.”

Jill Kargman: Yeah, so we have an unhoused character, Gary, who is entirely clad in cast-off bar mitzvah swag. So it’s, like, sort of an Easter egg for Jews, who see his shirt all the time as, like, a different bar mitzvah shirt. And it actually happened to us, it’s crazy. So my son, Fletch, he was, Halloween, which is my Christmas, and he had a Bar Mitzvah. We did a haunted house-themed Bar mitzvah called Little Shop of Hora.

And we made all these hoodies, and a lot of people took them, but a lot of people just didn’t, they forgot, so we donated them to this food pantry where we volunteer as a family. And then two years later, in the wild, I saw a guy wearing a little Shop of Horror sweatshirt, so I, like, ran down the street for two blocks to sneak a picture for my family. It was, like, the funniest thing. 

So that was sort of the nascent Gary idea.

Tanya Schevitz: I love how you integrated that! And well one thing I like about the film is that the Jewishness is not just background texture, you know, however you meant it to be, it really… the Jewishness is not just this background texture. It’s in the social world, the B’nai mitzvah  storyline, the language, the assumptions, the whole fabric of the movie. I mean, so, we’ve talked a little bit about this, but, like, how conscious were you of building a specifically Jewish world, even within this broad comedy?

Jill Kargman: I wasn’t really focused on building a Jewish world, it was just this particular character, and how she would be determined to throw this great B’nai Mitzvah. Really, because of our (movie) budget, it’s nothing compared to the bar mitzvahs you see online these days, where it’s almost embarrassing. Some of them are so excessive, I say they’re BFTJ, bad for the Jews. If we had had the budget to do that, I probably would have, but then you also feel like some of it could cause anti-Semitism. So I wanted this to kind of thread the needle of it being branded and silly in that way. Because some people do, like, have branded bar mitzvahs, kind of. But I wanted it to still be, like, down to earth and have values, but that’s where the kids came in, because that was the kids leading the mom.

Tanya Schevitz: Right, absolutely, which was so powerful. Did you, with this B’nai Mitzvah thread, because that ritual is supposed to mark a young person taking on responsibility, were you thinking about Jared and Dakota’s moral awakening as a parallel to the idea?

Jill Kargman: Yeah, I think the kids were more attuned. I’m in my 50s, but you walk down the street, and you see people who are unhoused, and of course it’s sad. I mean, when I grew up in the 70s, it was even worse. New York was really dangerous, and our car window was smashed a bunch of times, and I remember my parents always talking about Tzedakah and charity, but they weren’t giving cash to homeless people on the street. There’s sort of that difference in the movie of, like, you want to help people, but could they be an addict? Am I funding, like, their alcoholism, whatever. So, I think kids really see it in a more granular way, like, well, this is just a person, and I want to help this particular person.

Tanya Schevitz: That really came over through that, them bringing that out, and then the shift. The film does get a lot of comedy out of the charity culture, the liposuction for manatees, things like that.

Jill Kargman: Shop for a cause is a big one here. I mean, I get so many things every day about, like, “Shop for a cause.” And it’s like, they give 10%, I mean, I guess it’s better than nothing. We made it 7% (in the film) because it’s funnier, but I’m not shopping for a cost. Like, the cheapest thing is $1,500, you know what I mean?

Tanya Schevitz: Right. And you bring that out, the comedy of it, how ridiculous it is, but it’s also asking a serious question about the difference of being seen as charitable and actually being responsible to other people. And was that tension central for you from the beginning?

Jill Kargman: Yes, my mom has been volunteering at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Hospital here for 40 years, and she always talked to me about, you know, she’s in there with patients, she’s in a lab coat, she’s, like always going to the hospital, whereas there are people who say they’re really involved, but they’re just, like, stuffing benefit invitations. And not that there’s anything wrong with that, that all helps, and they’re bringing in a ton of money. But there are different levels that people want to participate, and I just feel like my character doesn’t really want to get her hands dirty, she’s sort of like, that’s over there, I’ll shop for a cause. And then the children really are more interested in the human component.

Tanya Schevitz: Right, absolutely. And with that, there’s sort of something resonant about the story where children on the verge of a B’nai Mitzvah begin asking what should actually be done with money and privilege and attention. And did that feel meaningful to you? Did that feel meaningful to you as a Jewish frame for the story?

Jill Kargman: Yes, definitely, and at our synagogue, Central Synagogue, you have to do a bat mitzvah project or bar mitzvah project, and I think most synagogues in New York, people have a charity you can give to, stuff like that, and there’s a volunteer component. But you still see such excess, Hermes bracelets and, you know, all these labels and Tiffany things, and it just feels like it’s just a lot of gifts to a 13-year-old, and I just wanted to touch on it. You can hold a Funhouse mirror to your culture. You know, a lot of the Black comedians I admired growing up would still sort of lampoon aspects of their community, and this is all done with love, it’s a satire, but I definitely wanted to touch upon some of the frivolity in excess.

Tanya Schevitz: In line with that, the film really does seem interested in the gap between ceremonial Jewishness, social Jewishness, and ethical Jewishness. Does that feel true to what you were playing with?

Jill Kargman: I didn’t really focus on it, I just sort of saw the forest through the trees and was trying to focus on this one family. I didn’t really analyze it like that, but I’ll take it.

Tanya Schevitz: Your work is so sharp about status performance and social codes. Do you think there’s something particularly Jewish about using humor to puncture hypocrisy while still feeling affection for the world that you’re depicting? Like you said, you’re in this world, you just feel a little differently about it than some of your neighbors.

Jill Kargman: Yes, I think Jews have used humor to get through things. Observational comedy has always been a very Jewish thing, a schtick, and it’s a coping mechanism, especially now, since October 7th. I did a lot of Jewish film festivals that had very heavy films right now—and by the way, those are extremely important, and I actually tend to watch those more than comedies—but a lot of people said to me, “I just wanted to turn my brain off and watch something silly for 88 minutes and laugh,” and that’s hopefully what this movie is. Like, I really wasn’t trying to be deep, it was just meant to be silly and a fun romantic comedy. That’s sort of what I grew up watching. So I just wanted something light, because everything feels really heavy.

Tanya Schevitz: But do you think, because it did end up having this sort of deep theme that it is powerful, in a way even more powerful…because I’m just like, I just need a break, I just, you know, I can’t watch something heavy, I’m exhausted, I just want to turn my brain off and have a little bit of fun and laugh. But what was so powerful about this film is that it made me laugh a ton, I laughed out loud, but it also made me feel. And do you think inadvertently, almost, you did do that?

Jill Kargman: I guess, inadvertently, if you say so, that makes me happy, but that wasn’t the goal. I really just wanted to do something fun.

Tanya Schevitz: Well, you did a great job, it’s amazing. So Gary could have just been a device in this story, but he doesn’t feel that way. The film really gives him humor, dignity, and humanity. What mattered to you about how he was portrayed? And I know that you developed his character with your co-writer.

Jill Kargman: So my co-writer is married to a guy, a comedian, Sean Crespo. They’re both writers, she’s a director as well, and he was actually unhoused. Truly. So it’s not like we’re appropriating someone’s trauma. This is, like, partly his story, and there is a humanity and sense of humor. You don’t just, like, see a drug addict on the street with mental illness. Like, there are people who just like him fell on hard times, and was between work, and one thing led to another. Luckily, his was very brief, that chapter, I think it was 3 months, but there are people who just can’t find their way back, and they might have addiction and other things, but that (storyline) was really entirely their creation. I feel like I chimed in, we all rewrote each other, etc, but that was their idea, to sort of ground, even on the Upper East Side of a wealthy area, you see people who are homeless. I just thought it would bring more of that reality, because New York, you don’t really see that in Gossip Girl or Sex and the City, and I thought that brought a lot of depth to it.

Tanya Schevitz: So important to be seen, people to be seen, which is, like, another theme of the film, like, being seen in a different way.

Jill Kargman: Some people are invisible in New York, and we wanted to just have it have the real balance, and you’re right, especially with a culture of visibility, and likes, and shares and the influence world, where you’re, like, profiting off being seen, I thought it was a great addition that they had someone who’s generally invisible.

Tanya Schevitz: And was that, sort of an idea in going into the film, this dichotomy of being seen in one way, and not being seen, and then seen?

Jill Kargman: Definitely. I mean, it wasn’t originally. Again, like, we didn’t think it through that much, but I feel like, yes, that was the antidote to the frothy influencer culture.

Tanya Schevitz: So the children, of course, in the film seem to recognize Gary’s humanity more quickly and more instinctively than the adults do. What were you interested in exploring through that contrast, or what do you think ended up being explored in the film?

Jill Kargman: Well, my daughter Ivy once broke down crying when she was, like, 5 or 6, because there was a homeless guy on our block, and she was worried he’s cold, does he have food, and it’s one of those things we had to really talk to her about it, and we brought him food, and we wanted her to feel that we were doing something. And they (kids) have just bigger hearts, and they think about the individual, as I said, versus the macro, like, “don’t fund people’s drug addiction.” Like, that was sort of the general thing, give money to organizations that will help homelessness. Don’t just, like, give a 20 to somebody. But we just went and bought him food. Like, we did say to her, let’s help him. And she inspired us to go to the grocery store and do that, and we’ve been volunteering at a food pantry ever since. And we really feel like we can give back that way, but it’s hard, because I still pass people on the street, and you don’t know if they’re stable mentally, you don’t know, you know, if someone is asking for food, I will stop and buy a sandwich, but a lot of the time, you just kind of walk by, because it’s just not customary, and you don’t know what kind of addictions may be there, and you don’t want to fund that. It’s hard. Like, that is something that I think all New Yorkers struggle with, or should.

Tanya Schevitz: But it’s powerful that the kids, like you said, I mean, they see it on the base level. Like, your daughter was 5, she’s like, this guy is hungry, he’s cold, he’s out there in the elements, and she’s, of course, not thinking about those other things

Jill Kargman: That’s the innocence, because they don’t know, you know, all the other stories you hear about, like, whatever trauma or mental illness got them to that place. She just sees someone who’s cold and hungry.

Tanya Schevitz: Yeah, that was beautiful. And in this film, the kids also just see that.

Jill Kargman: Yeah, that’s really inspired by Ivy.

Tanya Schevitz: I love how, you know, he’s singing, and they’re like, “Oh, you’re like our mom, she loves to sing, but she’s terrible,” or whatever, but they just see him as a human, as, you know, just like their family.

Jill Kargman: So my husband and I were in LA two weeks ago, and we parked the car, and the neighborhood was a little dodgy, and there was a homeless guy on the street, and he started singing, and it was the most beautiful, he’s the most gifted singer. I was like, I want to clean him up and sign him to a record label. But who knows what was going on, why he’s living there. But unbelievable talent, and we made up this whole story over dinner of, like, did he get to LA to try to be a rock star, and then fell on drugs?…It was, like, life imitating the movie.

Tanya Schevitz: That’s amazing. A lot of Jewish teaching draws a distinction between charity as a performance of generosity and responsibility as something more demanding. Did you think about Dzanielle as someone who begins in one mode and is slowly, awkwardly pushed toward the other?

Jill Kargman: Yes, I think that Dzanielle’s friend group is very much into the performative charity thing, and a lot of women truly want to help. I think their heart’s in the right place, but just societally, no one’s getting their hands dirty in that way, and they tend to do these “shop for a cause,” or whatever it is that feels like a little bit at arm’s length. And in a milieu where people have these Amex Black cards, and they can, like, shop and feel like they’re doing something good, that’s sort of the scene in which Dzanielle’s enveloped. And then, yes, the kids draw her out into actually doing something different and making change herself, instead of, like, funneling it through several places to get to where a small percentage might actually help.

Tanya Schevitz: So the film is hilarious, it’s really funny, but it’s not especially cruel. Even when Dzanielle is absurd, there’s still a tenderness to her. And like I said, like, I really felt a connection to her and to the family. Was it important for you that the film make room for that?

Jill Kargman: Yes. Well, I have the same comments with (my series) Odd Mom Out. I mean, I don’t think that any of my work is ever mean-spirited. A satire can be with love. You know, where it’s a silly, hyperbolized version of it, but it’s not hateful, and it’s with love. And look, if I hated it, I wouldn’t live here.

Tanya Schevitz: And what have the audience reactions been like?

Jill Kargman: Well, we just had our New York debut at the 92nd Street Y, and it went great, and that was 550 people very happy about it, laughing a lot. It’s sometimes age-dependent, because I curse a lot, so some of the older audience members at the Jewish Film Festivals were like, why do you need to use so many four-letter words? And I just really feel like they wouldn’t say that to, like, a Black man. It’s that a Jewish mother is held to a different standard, and I don’t know. I’m not supposed to say fuck, I guess, but, tough shit.

Tanya Schevitz: Again, going back to the Jewishness, what do you hope that Jewish audiences, in particular, recognize in the film, with the obvious cultural markers, the jokes, but some of the the themes, like, through the B’nai Mitzvah.

Jill Kargman: I hope Jewish audiences just, like, get a break from all the stress, and can laugh a little bit, and see some of their family flickering in this family’s journey towards the Bimah, and the stress that comes with that, and just, you know, you’re spinnng a lot of plates to raise kids and try to get to this milestone, and I just want them to laugh, honestly.

Tanya Schevitz: That’s great. I can’t remember if you said that the instance where you saw your son’s Bar Mitzvah sweatshirt out in the wild, was that before you wrote this?

Jill Kargman: Before.

Tanya Schevitz: So you wrote it in because of that, because you had actually had that experience?

Jill Kargman: Yeah, well, we had thought about it a million times, because we had donated them. I had actually seen homeless people before wearing swag, which I was like, this is so funny, because that was probably, like, a million dollar bar mitzvah, and they just, like, chuck the shirts. But (for the film), I did a sort of a shout to friends, camp friends, does anyone have Bar Mitzvah swag left over? And I got so much stuff, so we didn’t make anything that was all just moms leaving stuff in their lobbies for us to collect. Weiss Weiss Baby was a rap-themed bar mitzvah.

Tanya Schevitz: That is amazing.

Jill Kargman: I know. It’s so funny.

Tanya Schevitz: If the film leaves people with one lingering question about their own lives, their own communities, or their own obligations to other people, what do you hope that question is?

Jill Kargman: I hope that they question influence culture and what they see on social media and pull back a little bit from it. I get sucked into it. I use it for different things. I’m not really the voyeur of people’s lives, and I don’t want anyone’s life except my own. I use it more for, like, funny memes and comedy and stuff like that, but I get sucked down that rabbit hole. And I would hope that people just don’t take what they see on Instagram as reality, necessarily, and understand it’s very curated, filtered, you know, a snapshot of something that’s been altered, and it’s not real.

Tanya Schevitz: And in terms of your Jewish life, did the film at all, or for your kids did it change your sort of thoughts on Jewish life and the responsibilities?

Jill Kargman: No, I feel like our life was pretty solid, our Jewish life, and we have such a community, and so many friends, and our market, and we just feel already like we have such a strong community here. But going to Jewish film festivals all over the country was interesting and strengthening, and you see there are people of all levels of religiosity and seriousness and different senses of humor, and I hope it just continues to make Jews feel seen, at least this particular kind of Jewish person. It’s definitely not, probably Orthodox-friendly. Who knows? I’ve been surprised before.

Tanya Schevitz: Well, thank you so much for your time.

Jill Kargman: My pleasure, Tanya. Thank you for your support.

Reboot is the Jewish Outreach and Engagement Partner for Influenced with our partners at Menemsha Films.

*This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.