If you happened to watch Girls last night (or even if you didn't), you may have noticed two familiar faces: AndrewAndrew, our theater critics and longtime Friends of PAPER. For those who live in New York, AndrewAndrew are regular presences in the nightlife scene -- often behind the DJ booth -- but for those who don't, you may be scratching your head and wondering, "Who the hell are those two?" We had the chance to chat with the "brand consultants and iPad DJs" -- as Elijah puts it -- and hear about the moment Lena Dunham first spotted them, what filming at Greenhouse was like at 7am and what one of their mothers said after she watched the show. How did the cameo first come about?
It was confusing because I remember our manager shot us a text and said, "Do you know Lena Dunham?" And we were like, "Oh yeah, she's on that show," and she said, "Okay, I'm working on something [with Lena]." Our manager made it seem like we had partied with Lena and we had met her before -- it was very mysterious how it panned out -- so it came as a shock when we were in the makeup room, after having no sleep, and Lena told us this whole backstory. Lena had seen us reviewing theater [for PAPER] at Lincoln Center and she said to her friend, "Look at those two weirdos" and her friend said, "No that's AndrewAndrew." After that, Lena told us, "I became obsessed and started googling you and Facebook stalking you," which is kind of amazing to hear, and she just wrote us into the show.
What was filming like?
It was scary because we got the script a day before and we were both so nervous because we thought we'd have lines and we didn't, thank God, because I don't know if we could've handled that. We had to be on set at 7am and I think we had DJ'd the night before, too, so it was ridiculous.
We were there all day -- definitely for a solid twelve hours if not longer. I remember being kind of terrified because the final shot they did of us -- they didn't end up using it -- was a shot overhead almost from our perspective. They wanted to style the booth and asked us what would be in it and there was this consternation about getting an ice bucket of champagne and glasses and then at the last minute, someone threw cherries in the glasses and I thought, "Ugh, we would never have cherries in the glasses." I was in the mindset of "This has to be real."
Did you see the episode for the first time last night?
Yeah, last night was the first time we saw the final edit. I think we shot it eight months ago. What's amazing is that after the show, so many people are tweeting "is AndrewAndrew real?" That's got to be our favorite side effect of being on the show. I think that's the best question anyone has ever asked about us.
Were those real people in the club or just a shitload of extras?
[Extras.] Their casting was so spot-on in terms of getting people who looked good and dressed like they were at a club at 4 in the morning.
I love being in nightclubs in the off-hours because there's something magical about the fact that in nightclubs, for a window of time, a small amount of distance becomes incredibly important. For four hours a night, the difference between being outside and being inside the nightclub and the difference between being in the club and in the VIP room becomes incredibly huge. So I love going to places like Greenhouse in the morning because you see it without all of its "hair and make-up" [so-to-speak].
What did you think of your description on the show as "brand consultants and iPad DJs?"
[It felt like] not only did we have to talk about ourselves but it was almost like Andrew Rannells [Elijah] was doing our business for us -- it was like he was reading our bio or our business card. The fact that he flushed us out and said we were brand consultants as well as DJs blew our mind.
[At the time we were filming], we didn't even know Andrew Rannells was going to be on the show. We know him primarily from [being in] Book of Mormon so when we got into the make-up trailer at 5:30 am and saw him staring back at us in the mirror, we kind of freaked out.
And what did you think of that conversation between Hannah and Elijah when they're wondering whether you have sex with each other? Do people ask you that?
The whole AndrewAndrew experiment-project-lifestyle, whatever you want to call it, spans this grand anthropological-sociological experiment and we discovered things about the way that people react when something is out of the ordinary. Apparently people lose all sense of decorum. I would never ask anybody upon meeting them what they do with their genitalia.
Were you fans of the show before you filmed your cameo?
We've definitely seen a good chunk of episodes and it's the kind of show that if you miss a couple of episodes, you're out of the loop about what's happening. It's such a cultural touchstone right now. Just don't watch it with your mother. We may have watched it with one of our mothers. We may also have gotten a disturbing phone call from one of our mothers after she saw the show. She was proud [of us] but also said, "It was lovely seeing you two -- is that really what the dating scene is like these days?" That's such a mom thing to say. This is the same mother who didn't like The Sopranos because she "didn't care for that type of person." So she has a history of not being able to stomach culturally-significant television.
Also just the fact that we've been DJing like this for 14 years -- it's nice to still be relevant. Previously, we also had a cameo on Gossip Girl and our goal is to make a career out of playing ourselves on TV shows. We wanna DJ victrolas on Boardwalk Empire and DJ lutes while wearing jester hats on Game of Thrones.
What was your biggest or craziest party night á la Hannah and Elijah?
The thing with being working DJs, the craziness really happens after 4 am and after we invite friends back to our place. [One night] we went to a premiere of our friend's play and the play itself featured group sex, murder -- it was a really crazy show. We ended up back at our place after three iterations of after-parties and within five minutes of being in the apartment, Andrew had sabered a bottle of champagne, I had cut my hand trying to serve someone scotch, then someone tipped over the ice bucket and the champagne ended up all over the floor. The coat rack fell down and everyone's coats were soaking in the champagne. There was a three-way in our bathroom and I think someone was taking a shower, too.
Photo by Carly Otness/BFANYC.com