With 'Babes,' Ilana Glazer wants to show the 'hilarious and insane' realities of pregnancy

Giving birth is more than a crowning achievement ‒ it can also be fertile ground for comedy.

Just take it from Ilana Glazer, whose pregnancy helped inspire her uproarious new movie “Babes” (in theaters nationwide Friday), which follows two best friends as they navigate the breast pumps and burp cloths of motherhood. The “Broad City” actress hatched the film with co-writer Josh Rabinowitz and producer Susie Fox, compiling a list of the most surprising things they encountered on the road to becoming parents. Those included raging hormones, backup underwear, and petrifying prenatal tests involving giant needles.

“All you've got to do to write an amazing, classic comedy scene is simply find out what an amniocentesis is,” Glazer recalls with a laugh. Also, “the absurd way in which birthing people are discarded from the hospital almost immediately. ... It’s hilarious and insane. I was in the hospital for only 24 hours after pushing a whole person out of my body.”

The movie 'Babes' presents a realistic look at friendship, motherhood

Directed by Pamela Adlon ("Better Things"), “Babes” follows a free spirit named Eden (Glazer) who discovers she's pregnant after a one-night stand with a handsome stranger (Stephan James). Although she never sees him again, she decides to keep the baby and raise it alongside her married pal Dawn (Michelle Buteau), who has just had a second kid of her own.

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Writing the R-rated comedy, Glazer strived to make something that was both “really funny and heartfelt,” capturing how scary yet exciting major life changes can be. It’s a theme she and Abbi Jacobson poignantly mined in Comedy Central’s “Broad City,” which ended its beloved five-season run in 2019.

“It’s a coping mechanism. It’s scary to grow up,” says Glazer, 37, whose daughter with husband David Rooklin will be 3 in July. “In my experience of having a child, the joy and pain are both amplified, so I’m holding higher highs and lower lows. With ‘Babes,’ I was reflecting what was happening in my life and among my friends.”

The heart of “Babes” is the once-inseparable bond between the two women, whose lifelong friendship evolves as they become parents. Eden, who has no close family, grows irritated when Dawn cancels on plans and doesn’t show up to her doctor’s visits. And Dawn, exhausted by postpartum life, struggles to create space for herself as she returns to work.

Producer Fox, a mom of two young kids, hadn’t seen that specific dynamic on screen before. As a new parent, “I was definitely somebody who, when my friends would say, ‘Do you want to come out?’ I was like, ‘No, do you want to come drink wine on my couch?’ " she says. "There was no fallout – it was just closing one chapter and starting another.”

The comedy doesn't shy away from the messiness of pregnancy, with frank conversations about bodily functions and fluids. In turn, the film has been labeled "raunchy" and "gross-out" by critics, although Fox prefers the term "realistic."

"There was definitely a conversation around, 'Are we allowed to show Ilana peeing in the trailer?' Things that probably wouldn't be a conversation if it was Adam Sandler," who's seen peeing on a door in the "Big Daddy" poster, Fox says. "You could easily picture Will Ferrell or Jim Carrey doing so many of these things."

In reality, "we talk about this stuff all the time. Women have to kind of come together and teach and help each other because it isn't widely discussed (in television and film)."

Ilana Glazer looks back at bittersweet experience making 'Broad City'

Becoming a parent has informed much of Glazer’s life in recent years. Along with “Babes,” she co-wrote the 2021 horror film “False Positive,” which drew from her fears about motherhood and the U.S. health care system. Pregnancy also helped her to embrace her identity as a nonbinary person.

“That’s what feels true to how I feel in my body, which is actually something I discovered while I was pregnant,” says Glazer, who uses they/she pronouns. “For the first time, my femininity didn’t feel like drag or a joke or a role, but a powerful, open space. And my masculinity was also something I didn’t need to make a joke out of. It was something that I thought was cool and hot and a part of me. That was an interesting aspect of being a queer, birthing person."

A four-time Emmy nominee, Glazer has juggled producing, directing, acting and writing for the last 15 years: “Broad City” began as a web series in 2009 and moved to Comedy Central in 2014. The show quickly became a millennial touchstone for its outrageous yet relatable depiction of flailing twentysomethings in New York. Lately, she’s found it “sometimes painful, but increasingly warm and sweet” to look back on.

When it ended, “it had been almost a third of my life that I lived in that character and world,” Glazer says. “To see who you are outside of the show takes a lot of work.” She remembers at times, working behind the scenes, there were "people who were trying to undermine our vision and take advantage of us because we were young women. Sometimes people don’t know how indoctrinated they’ve been into this system, where they’re limiting or oppressing others' voices.”

She feels encouraged by changes she’s seen in the industry since, and hopes that “we keep trending toward marginalized voices telling their own stories authentically and getting the support they need.” Looking ahead, she’s developing another film with Rabinowitz and Fox, as well as an HBO series with Ally Israelson. She also recently taped a stand-up special, following a 52-city tour.

“I feel so privileged and blessed to be able to connect with people (through comedy),” Glazer says. “And I have to say, I like being older. I feel safer, I know how better to protect myself, and it really gives me joy to share tips with younger artists and comedians.”