Andrew Rannells’ New Film Is a Funny Reminder ‘Gay People Can Kill Too’

Andrew Rannells wants audiences to know his new movie with Nick Kroll is more than just a “gay rom-com.”

In I Don’t Understand You, Kroll and Rannells, both 46, play an American couple who travel to Italy for the perfect babymoon before adopting a child. After getting stranded when their car gets stuck in a ditch, things go downhill — and quickly.

“We start murdering people,” Rannells told Us Weekly at the I Don’t Understand You special screening on Monday, June 2. “I didn’t see that coming. And hopefully, I mean, I know the audience knows that there’s some murder involved, but yeah, it was a real twist. And it was a nice reminder that, you know what, gay people can kill people too!”

Rannells, known for his role on Broadway as Elder Price in The Book of Mormon and Elijah Krantz on Girls, also sings a bit in the film. “Brian Crano and David Craig, who wrote and directed the movie, just crafted this really wild ride of a script,” Rannells said.

Rannells added that he relates to the script because he has experienced losing everything he’s ever dreamed of in one “heartbreaking” moment. In the movie, it’s seemingly the couple’s dreams for a baby; for Rannells, it was a breakup.

“When I was doing The Book of Mormon and I was nominated for a Tony award and I was performing on the Tonys, it’s all very exciting. On the Friday before the Tonys, my boyfriend broke up with me,” Rannells told Us. “I still had to take him to the Tonys because I was so overwhelmed. And, in retrospect, that was not the right decision, but I was so overwhelmed.”

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Kroll, who is married to landscape artist Lily Kwong, said the reality of his romantic and exciting “dream” of living in Rome with his wife while filming the movie was “complicated and hard” since he was already a parent to a young son, Leo, now 4, and his wife was early in her pregnancy with their second child, daughter Gaia, now 22 months.

“[It was] very gratifying, especially now to be here to see the finished film and have my wife here and our children, and everything turned out OK,” Kroll told Us.

The Big Mouth actor said being a father altered his perspective and really helped him get into his character.

“I think making this movie after having had my first kid and understanding how much work and how much effort and emotional energy and what you have to relinquish as far as control and your own priorities when you decide to have a child, it was a really helpful thing to tap into,” Kroll said.

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Kroll said the film was a great example of the realities of parenting because “you don’t know what you’re getting into.”

“I think that it really was a metaphor of how crazy things can get, but how you will stop at nothing to get your kid, and it’s such a big part of it,” Kroll told Us.

With reporting by Nikaline McCarley