Marin native Erinn Hayes still visits her hometown a couple times a year with her husband and children, but this weekend she’s in Marin as a local celebrity.
The actor, who graduated from San Anselmo’s Sir Francis Drake High School, will be at the 35th Mill Valley Film Festival for the Saturday and Sunday screenings at the Rafael Film Center of the film It’s a Disaster, which Hayes stars in along with Julia Stiles, David Cross, America Ferrera, Rachel Boston and Jesse Draper.
Hayes’ character Emma and Emma’s husband Pete host a weekly couples brunch in Los Angeles and become oblivious to apocalyptic events while they are preoccupied with interpersonal dramas.
Hayes told Patch the film isn’t the typical apocalyptic movie. “It’s not one of the movies where the stars are out there saving the world, but instead it’s about the Joe Shmoes stuck in the house,” Hayes said. “It’s a funny and touching independent comedy in the way it focuses on relationships and what the couples are going through.”
In the film, Emma is having a bad day - aside from the apocalyptic disaster, according to Hayes.
“She’s having one of those days where you don’t want to be doing what you’re doing, you don’t like yourself very much and you’re trying to put on a front to enjoy all these people you used to enjoy,” Hayes said. “[Emma] probably used to be a really cool person and there is still some piece of that in there, but over the years she has forgotten how to have fun. Her and her husband have fallen out of love. They are getting a divorce and she’s on the cusp of trying to figure out who she is. She’s kind of grouchy.”
Hayes said she grew close with the film’s well-known cast during the filming. Instead of having trailers, the stars spent time in a large craftsman-style house across the street from the Los Angeles West Adams residence where the movie was filmed.
Check out a clip from the film, directed and written by Todd Berger, at right.
CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL IS 'THE BEST JOB'
Hayes is in the Adult Swim show Children’s Hospital, a satirical comedy that lampoons the medical drama genre.
“It’s the best job I have ever done, hands down. I would do that show for free and I hope it goes on for years and years,” Hayes said. “We just won an Emmy, which is incredibly amazing for a show that mostly consists of a bunch of poop jokes.”
Children’s Hospital recently won a 2012 Emmy for Outstanding Special Class – Short-format Live-Action Entertainment Program.
She’s also on the new NBC show Guys With Kids, about 30-something fathers struggling with parenthood.
Hayes was born in Mill Valley – in a house just above the 2am Club and lived in Larkspur and San Anselmo while growing up. Her mother currently lives in Fairfax.
Hayes' husband, a fellow Drake grad, also has parents living in Fairfax. They drive to Marin from LA roughly four to six times a year, she said.
“I love coming home," she said. "It was such a wonderful place to grow up and I wish we were in a position where we could move home and raise our kids there, but we are not there yet.”
Before graduating from Drake High in 1994, she was involved in Marilyn Izdebski plays in San Anselmo, school theater performances and studied drama through Drake’s Communications Academy.
Hayes said it’s special to have a film she’s in screening in Marin, where many people she grew up with can see it.
The 411: The screenings of “It’s a Disaster” are set for Saturday, Oct. 13, at 1:45 p.m., and Sunday, Oct. 14, at 8 p.m., at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, 1118 Fourth Street, San Rafael. Tickets are $13.50 (CFI Members, $11), unless otherwise noted. Purchase tickets at www.mvff.com.
