With his wife and two young sons in tow on opening night last week at the Beverly Hills Film Festival, an exuberant Stolberg talked about the encounters between the nine couples in the film that lead to conception.
“The truth is, a lot of the stories are different aspects of our relationship,” Stolberg said, speaking of his marriage to actress-producer Leila Charles Leigh (Kids in America). “There’s a fighting couple, which we do; the frustrated couple that doesn’t have sex enough, that’s us sometimes; and then some of the stories like the lesbian couple came from friends.”
Stolberg, a veteran writer of big-budget studio films such as Good Luck Chuck, and the not-so family friendly Sorority Row and Piranha 3D, called on several of his close friends to help bring polish to his personal project.
“Yes, Josh and Leila are my friends,” says Emmy-winning actress Pamela Adlon (Californication). “They cast their friends and it just so happens that we don’t suck at acting.”
Indeed. Among the friends on hand for a day of shooting: David Arquette (Scream), Gregory Smith (Everwood; The Patriot), Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights), Julie Bowan and Sarah Hyland (Modern Family), Aaron Ashmore (A Separate Peace) and Jennifer Finnigan (The Bold and the Beautiful) and husband Jonathan Silverman (The Single Guy).
“He gave us the script and gave us a choice,” says Finnigan, who teams with real-life husband, Jonathan Silverman in Conception. They chose to play the married couple in a rut, Finnigan admits, “mostly because it didn’t involve showing my naked boobies.”
Between hugs and congratulations after the Beverly Hills screening, Adlon talked about playing a lesbian making a life-changing decision.
“Moon Bloodgood and I are a couple in the film and we inseminate together at home,” Adlon explains. She and Stolberg have gay couples with kids in their circle of friends.
“My best friends have two daughters and they did the sperm bank thing,” says Adlon. “We all have gay friends who have children; we’re very gay without being gay,” she says of herself and her three daughters.
The entire film was shot in only 10 days—one day per couple, plus one day for the school teacher scenes featuring David Arquette (straining to deflect student inquiries about where babies come from).
Conception won the Palm Beach International Festival’s Best of the Fest award and will screen twice at the upcoming Newport Beach Film Festival, on April 29 and May 5.