15 Moviegoing Questions With Rosebud Baker

Dream movie theater snack: A full seafood tower.

Name: Rosebud Baker
Location: On tour!
Occupation: Comedian, actor, Emmy-nominated writer
Links: Rosebud’s memoir Fully Baked, Instagram

1. What’s your favorite day & time to go to the movies?

Tuesday afternoons. I like the feeling that I’m technically supposed to be doing something else. Also, the audience is peppered with people who are either retired, deeply depressed, or skipping work, which is my preferred demographic because they’re all fed up. I love a group activity for isolationists.

2. What’s your favorite movie theater?

Metrograph in New York. It feels like someone built a movie theater specifically for those who desire to be emotionally devastated in an indulgent way. Their seats also make you feel like you’re in your rich aunt’s library instead of a multiplex sticky with Mountain Dew.

3. What’s your go-to movie theater snack & drink combo?

The drink is always a really liberal combination of limited-edition Coke Zero flavors. It has less to do with how the flavors combine and more with not being able to choose one.

If I’m feeling wild I’ll go with peanut M&Ms dumped directly into the popcorn so I can dig through it like a raccoon, but my go-to is popcorn with an absolutely profane amount of butter.

4. What’s your dream movie theater snack & drink combo (if noise and sound weren’t an issue)?

I don’t know, maybe a full seafood tower? Horrifying visually, impossible acoustically, and offensive in terms of its odor, but we’re talking about dream scenarios right now.

I’d also accept just really good French fries. I don’t know why so many theaters act like French fries are impossible to engineer - I mean, they have nachos.

5. First movie you remember seeing in a theater?

My Girl. Truly an insane theatrical experience.

6. Last movie you saw in a theater?

Weapons. I love that movie. I love horror movies in general, because they’re so closely linked in my mind to comedy. Comedy and horror both elicit an involuntary and audible response from the audience that I appreciate both as a comic and as an audience member, because it’s a confirmation that we’re all on the same page.

7. Is there a movie you wish you could have seen in a theater?

I wish I could’ve seen Boogie Nights in theaters opening weekend just to experience the collective cultural horniness.

Boogie Nights dir. Paul Thomas Anderson (New Line)

8. Have you ever seen a movie more than once in theaters?

Yes. I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in theaters maybe 3 or 4 times. It’s a movie I will never get out of my head because it’s so representative of life, so unbelievably tragic and hopeful at the same time. The idea that we could be so transformed by a relationship that our bodies recognize someone even after having them wiped from our memory, and that we would choose them again and again even knowing how the story is going to end really grabs me.

9. Do you stay through the credits or leave as soon as the film ends?

I leave, sometimes I read them on the way out. Is that better?

10. What’s one thing you would change to make movie theaters better?

I think we should allow more talking, but limit it to just talking back to the movie. I feel like this would really enhance the experience for funny people.

11. Tell me about an especially memorable moviegoing experience that stands out in your mind.

Because I have a toddler who isn’t old enough to go to the movies, the last movie I saw in theaters was the premiere of a horror/comedy movie I did, called Hell of A Summer. It was the first real movie I ever got to be a part of and was written and directed by Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryck. These guys are in their early twenties, and I was just so blown away by the two of them. When I was in my early twenties, the closest I’d come to creating anything of lasting impact was an accidental period stain on my boyfriend’s bedsheet. I say sheet, singular, because I didn’t date a man with a top sheet until I turned 28.

12. What’s a movie you’re looking forward to seeing?

I’m really excited to see Practical Magic 2, but I need to see The Devil Wears Prada 2 first (I know I’m late!). I know that to call 2 movies an abundance is telling, but I feel like we have an abundance of reboots for the girls right now, and in this economy? I’ll take whatever I can get.

We’ve also got Frozen 3 coming out in 2027 and I plan on taking my daughter to see that for her first cinematic experience. If you told my pre-child-having self that I would be this excited to see Frozen 3 in theaters, I would have no trouble believing you. I absolutely love an animated musical.

13. What’s your dream combination of director and lead(s)?

Paul Thomas Anderson directing Michelle Williams and Adam Driver in something emotionally catastrophic. I really love to get my heart blown up, it reminds me I’m alive. I know how toxic that sounds, but I don’t feel like rationalizing it right now.

14. If you could live in a movie, which one would it be?

When Harry Met Sally. Fall clothes, neurotic conversations, everyone eternally in their mid-thirties, affordable, gigantic New York apartments, a will-they-or-will-they storyline. Pure fantasy.

When Harry Met Sally dir. Rob Reiner (Columbia)

15. Why do you think people should continue seeing movies at the movie theater?

There are plenty of answers I could give here about the value of coming together with others to appreciate the art of cinema but my real answer is this: I believe that watching somebody’s masterpiece while shopping for vitamins, or scrolling for answers to every question that pops up while watching said masterpiece, is spiritually damaging us on an individual and collective level.