Andrew Rannells: ‘My father died when I was 22 – it was a lot to process’

For many, Andrew Rannells is recognised as the quick-witted, sassy and iconic Elijah Krantz in Lena Dunham’s Girls.

But his many stage and screen performances highlight his ability to stretch genres and tone with ease and prowess, and his latest role is no exception.

In his new HBO film titled Miss You, Love You, Rannells stars as Jamie Simms alongside Allison Janney as grieving widow Diane Patterson.

Following the death of her husband Henry, her son is unable to visit her, and so he sends his personal assistant instead. Enter: Jamie.

What follows is a beautiful exploration of grief, ageing and family relationships, as the two strangers navigate the lead-up to Henry’s funeral.

Jamie reveals details of his own losses to Diane, sharing that he cared for and lost his own parents to cancer – and parental loss is something that Andrew could relate to.

While it was ‘a different situation’, Andrew admits that ‘the losing of a parent at any age changes your whole equilibrium’.

He told Metro: ‘My father died when I was 22, and he died rather suddenly.’

Reflecting now as a 47-year-old, Andrew said: ‘The relationship that I had with my father when he died – it felt sort of new.

‘We weren’t particularly close when I was a kid. As I was becoming an adult, we figured out a new way to talk to each other and how we could meet each other as adults.

It was a unique relationship to explore with Allison Janney

‘It was the first time that I really felt close to him, and then he died. And it took me a long time to process that.’

The reality of grief not being linear is something Andrew brought with him to the role. With writer and director Jim Rash, he explored the idea that although Jamie’s parents died a while ago, bonding with Diane is perhaps the first time he’s really opening up about it.

‘That’s where I think that they find themselves a lot in that film. It’s like they don’t really know each other, but they’re sharing things that they wouldn’t have told their partner or their son. So it was a unique relationship to get to explore with her.’

It’s clear it was a dream for Andrew to work alongside the I, Tonya star. He told us how they got on very well on set, understood when to be quiet around each other, and when it was appropriate to show each other funny videos of people falling over (with the sincere hope that the subject of the accident was ok, he assures me).

They have a synergy on screen that made me think of another wondrous on-screen partnership from Andrew’s career – working with Lena on Girls.

While Andrew recently told The Guardian that he wished he’d been a ‘better friend’ to Lena, she called him her ‘forever favourite scene partner, epic conversationalist, lengthy text recipient, essayist and dear friend’ in a 2024 Instagram birthday post.

One of Andrew’s standout memories from working on Girls was the grace Lena gave the cast, who – apart from Zosia – were all newbies to TV acting. ‘We didn’t really know what the rules were,’ he told us.

‘Lena, being the director, the writer and the star, allowed for a space where we got to ask questions and we got to figure things out.’

I would say let’s do a Girls reunion now

While Girls ended in 2017, many fans still question if and when the show would ever return, and what the characters would all be up to now.

Earlier this year, Lena told Andy Cohen on SiriusXM that she wanted Girls to feel ‘appropriately missed’ before considering a return.

We delved into it with Andrew, who is keen for it to happen.

‘If it was up to me, I would say let’s do it now. It feels like good timing because a lot of people are rewatching it,’ he stated.

‘A lot of people have watched it for the first time. There’s a whole new generation of young people who were too young to watch it when it first came out.’

Andrew is less sure about what Elijah’s romantic situation would be now, pondering if he would still be with Dill (played by Corey Stoll), or if her perhaps would have opted for somebody younger.

Nonetheless, we both agreed that he would be in his stride professionally, with Andrew remarking: ‘He would be successful in whatever he ended up doing. I feel like he had a long stretch of not knowing what the hell was going on, and I feel like when we left him, he figured it out.’

Andrew has kept a typically busy schedule in recent years, performing special anniversary performances of The Book of Mormon, acting with Blake Lively in Amazon Prime’s Another Simple Favor, and working with Dame Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood as a co-host on The Great American Baking Show, the US version of The Great British Bake Off.

Andrew admitted that he was initially ‘nervous’ around and ‘intimidated’ by Paul Hollywood, with his flash sports cars and his luxury helicopter.

‘He’s super fancy and famous. And I was like: “Well, he’s not going to love some gay Broadway trash rolling in here,”‘ the actor recollected.

Paul misses Prue – but Nigella is also an icon

‘Then we really hit it off, and it was so much fun. I would sit in his sports cars’.

As for Dame Prue, on day one, she and Andrew were ‘walking around arm in arm’ – a TV match made in heaven, it seems.

Unfortunately for us, The Great American Baking Show won’t be returning, according to Broadcast Now, so we shan’t be seeing Andrew and Nigella Lawson on screen together – a heavenly match if ever I heard of one.

‘The American version has wrapped up. But I did speak to Paul recently and he said it’s great. Obviously he really misses Prue. But you know, Nigella is also an icon.’

Miss You, Love You is available to stream exclusively on HBO Max in the UK and Ireland now.

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