Lucia Aniello CC’04 (left) with her partner, Paul W. Downs

Michael Nagle for the Los Angeles Times

Rough Night marks the first big studio R-rated comedy directed by a woman in nearly 20 years – and that woman is Lucia Aniello CC’04.

A film and media studies major at the College, Aniello is an alumna of the Upright Citizens Brigade improvisational and sketch comedy group whose original members include Amy Poehler, an executive producer of the TV Series Broad City, for which Aniello and her partner, Paul W. Downs have written and directed.

SONY

Rough Night also marks Aniello’s big-screen directorial debut and arrives at a time when women, especially in Hollywood, have been speaking out about “rough” treatment and are looking to directors like Aniello, along with Wonder Woman’s Patty Jenkins, to pave the way for more.

Producer Matthew Tolmach told Variety, “Lucia just knows how to get into her characters. It seems insane that we’re having this conversation, but it’s fantastic [for us], too. Women should be directing all the time, so if this movie shows that and inspires people then great — it should.”

Aniello added, “We were pleasantly surprised that there were a lot of people who wanted [the film], and when it came down to it, we wanted to go with the studio that was going to actually make the movie. Sony’s first offer was so aggressive we knew that they meant business.”

Tawni Bannister for The New York Times

The cast boasts A-listers including Scarlett Johansson and Kate McKinnon CC’06, who told The New York Times how women at the helm of this film provided an opportunity to show how men aren’t the only ones who can command a raunchy comedy. “Typically if a woman is in a comedy she’s just there to get married or wag a finger at the men acting foolish,” she said, adding that it was refreshing to see these characters take the lead.

Aniello is aware that the stakes for this film are higher than many believe they should be. “There aren’t so many female comedies in general … You don’t wanna inadvertently narrow the path for whoever’s coming behind you,” Aniello said in a feature piece for The Ringer. “Now that I have done it, I would do it again,” and also mentioned her interest in a variety of genres, including superhero movies and kids’ films.

Read more on Aniello and Rough Night in the links above, as well as in the Los Angeles Times.