Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau are both moms. That more than influenced their roles in ‘Babes’

By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — Audiences will be forgiven if they forget that Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau are actually playing roles in their new film “Babes.”

The raunchy comedy about a pair of childhood friends who navigate two life-changing pregnancies is right in the wheelhouse for the actors, who have known each other since they were up-and-coming comics and have now both become moms in real life.

So is it easier or harder playing roles that might in some ways mimic their real lives? Turns out, it’s both.

“I would say easier,” Glazer, of “Broad City” fame, told CNN. “So much easier.”

“Easier to play, easier to understand how tired, how confused, how frustrated, how grateful you are to pump and dump (breastmilk), to have a shot (of alcohol) when you’re off the clock,” Buteau chimed in. “And also harder because then you’re away from your kids.”

The film – which is being compared to “Bridesmaids” and marketed as “a hilarious and heartfelt comedy about the bonds of friendship and the messy, unpredictable challenges of adulthood and becoming a parent” – was written by Glazer and actor/producer Josh Rabinowitz, who also worked with her on her famed “Broad City” series.

That series, which ran from 2014 to 2019, has a cult following, as does Buteau’s recently renewed Netflix series “Survival of the Thickest” based on her book of essays of the same title.

Suffice it to say with two such funny performers working together, not to mention the other cast members including Hasan Minhaj, Oliver Platt and John Carroll Lynch, it was a rollicking good time on the “Babes” set.

“We were cracking up, like crying,” Glazer said. “My co-writer Josh Rabinowitz famously during the plumber scene laughed so hard he smacked his head on his chair. He like injured his forehead, we were laughing so hard.”

Shooting in 25 days, with Buteau only being available to film for 15, heightened both the tension and the hilarity, they said, and Glazer confirmed that some of the best of those funny moments are being put together as extras for streaming.

Director Pamela Adlon, best known for her starring role on acclaimed series “Better Things,” said it was challenging getting the project done in such a short period of time. Yet the timing couldn’t have been better given that she had just wrapped the final season of her show.

Plus, the script really spoke to her, she told CNN.

“I read it and it was emotional besides all the comedy. And there was an edginess to it,” Adlon said. “All those things have to go together for me to really respond to something. I gotta have the dark, I gotta have the funny, I gotta have the heart. It’s gotta hit you in the gut to make you feel, make you cry, but then you gotta have a little light.”

Glazer should be proud to know that, as she said she, Rabinowitz and their producer Susie Fox worked really hard to mine their own life experiences as parents to craft a relatable script.

“It was really important for us to have something so funny, but to balance it with heart and emotional heft,” she said. “Those were our guideposts.”

“Babes” is in theaters Friday.

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