Podcaster and writer Sean Clements on 'The Dink'

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This message comes from DataIQ.
AI is everywhere, but companies struggle to prove results. For that, they need people, orchestration, and governance working as one. DataIQ is the platform for AI success, built to bring it all together. Visit dataiku.com/n-p-r.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:23)
Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of maximumfun.org and is distributed by NPR.

**Jesse Thorn** (0:44)
It's Bullseye. I'm Jesse Thorn. Pickleball, as they say, is having a moment. Maybe if you're listening to this, you're a pickleball player or you've given it some thought, maybe even bought a paddle.
Why is pickleball such a thing? Well, it's like tennis, but the cord is smaller, the net is shorter, the racket and the ball are lighter. And because of all of that, you are running around less, not hitting as hard. It doesn't take the same toll that tennis does on your elbows and your wrists and your knees. And I played tennis for a little while. It was hard. Back in the day, my guest Sean Clements was a tennis player, a pretty serious one. Then he hurt his wrist. And so he played pickleball.
He was embarrassed to admit that he really liked it.
So he wrote a movie about pickleball. The Dink stars Jake Johnson as Dusty the Hammer Boyd, a former tennis prodigy turned burnout. He spends his time trying to impress the kids at his dad's racket club. And like Sean, he's dealing with a nagging injury. Also like Sean, he reluctantly tries pickleball. Even though he's a tennis pro, even though his grumpy dad hates pickleball. And as it turns out, Dusty loves it.
He ends up meeting another pickleballer, Candice, played by Mary Steenburgen. They become, well, best buds, maybe more. The Dink is a very fun, very silly movie. You can catch it now on Apple TV. And if that screenwriter Sean Clements' name rings a bell, you might know him from his other job, co-host of the podcast Hollywood Handbook. It's a comedy podcast where it's a little hard to describe, but I guess the goal is to make the guests as uncomfortable as possible but also to be really, really funny. We will talk about it later. If you've ever wanted to hear a big star like Iowa Deberry or Weird Al Yankovic or one time William H. Macy, I guess you would say ironically put in their place. We'll get deeper into it. I promise. Let's roll that interview.
Sean Clements, welcome to Bullseye and congratulations on the movie. I enjoyed watching it so much.

**Sean Clements** (3:04)
Thank you, Jesse. Thanks so much for having me.

**Jesse Thorn** (3:06)
One of the qualities of this movie is that it is a very sincere, direct movie. It is not a deconstruction of a sports comedy. It is not a deconstruction of a redemption film for a guy.
There are very few jokes that wouldn't pass in real life. Was that your intent to make a movie like that?

**Sean Clements** (3:33)
Well, I like movies like that. Some of the sweetness and the kind of underdog story and the washed up guy getting a second chance stuff, like it just, it works on me. And so I don't think we wanted it to be milk toast or boring or anything. But I think that there was sort of a feeling as we got into it, especially, and we're really like working on the script and doing reads and finding what was fitting and what was, you know, felt like maybe it was a little too far out to the edges that, you know, we could make a movie that had like a real mass appeal and that, you know, you could watch and enjoy and find funny like you did, but so like could my mom, you know.

**Jesse Thorn** (4:21)
How do you feel about getting to make a medium-sized straight ahead comedy film? Because there is so little of that. And even the ones that really work, I mean, among the others, Josh, one of Josh Greenbaum's other films is one of my favorite movies of the last decade. Barb and Star go to Vista del Mar.
I think Palm Springs comes to mind, which is so funny. And those are movies that seem like, it seems like miracles that they exist in a way that it wouldn't have 25 years ago or 20 years ago. And also, they're like movies where normal people I know maybe have never heard of them.

**Sean Clements** (5:13)
Yeah, that's true. I mean, comedy has just been relegated in this way where it's just not, it's not seen as good business largely.
Critics are tough on comedy. Like it's like, it's not, you know, because the humor is so subjective and people are not watching it in a theater with other people. Like we had a premiere for this on Monday where I got to watch it in like a full theater with a lot of people. And it was like, so, so fun. And you can't help but feel like I wish more people would see it this way because the laughs of the people around you build and, and make it, you know, they make the whole energy of it change. And it's not the same to watch a comedy at home. And this is like horror does great in theaters right now because of that same kind of communal like tension being shared among the group. And it seems like comedy would, but for whatever reason, maybe because there's so many different tones, like people don't bet on it. And so like, how do I feel about being allowed to make it? I feel so, so, so lucky. I had, you know, been fortunate enough to like, I had done a lot of work helping Ben Stiller on other small projects. And so there was some trust between the two of us there. And I could get him to read a script. And I also happened to have been going through a personal experience where as a former tennis player, I had gotten into the pickleball community and found a lot of things that seemed funny and characters that, you know, felt like they could bounce off each other in a surprising way. And also the animosity between the tennis and pickleball world and the, you know, infighting that was happening there, where I had an idea for a movie that also is a very trendy, zeitgeist-y topical thing. And so having been and having something that was a topic, I think they felt like they could mark it if all else fails, at least as like pickleball people come see this, made it, you know, made it something where I could get it done. But like, you know, I've never made a movie before. I can't believe it. It was so fun.