Actress COURTNEY HENGGELER Discusses Her Role in the TYLER PERRY Film ‘Nobody’s Fool’, Improv, and OSCAR Predictions

Trying to get back on her feet, wild child Tanya (Tiffany Haddish, Girls Trip) looks to her buttoned-up sister Danica (Tika Sumpter, Ride Along) to get her life together. As these polar opposites hilariously collide, Tanya discovers that Danica’s picture-perfect life, including her online romance, may not be what it seems.

With the aid of her eccentric mother (comedy legend Whoopi Goldberg), Tanya will do whatever it takes to help… even if it means completely blowing up her sister’s life! Omari Hardwick (Power) and Amber Riley (Glee) also star in this side-splittingly funny hit.

Nobody’s Fool was just released on digital and is being released on Blu-ray Combo Pack and DVD today, from Paramount Home Media Distribution. The Digital and Blu-ray Combo Pack releases are loaded with more than an hour of wildly funny bonus material including an outrageous gag reel, over 20 minutes of deleted, extended and alternate scenes not seen in theatres, a special introduction by Tyler Perry and Tiffany Haddish, and nine hilarious featurettes.

Courtney Henggeler’s first acting gig was as Susan Beth in the film The Bog Creatures and as her career grew she made her appearance on television with notable shows such as Criminal Minds, Working Classy, Happy Endings, Melissa & Joey, Faking It, Bones, Henry Danger, Moms, and the ever-popular The Big Bang Theory. Henggeler has appeared in numerous films as well, including the recent romantic comedy Fixed, and (of course) Tyler Perry’s comedy, Nobody’s Fool.

Have a look at the Nobody’s Fool trailer right here!

Can can you possibly recall if you can how you got the part as Hillary in Nobody’s Fool?
Courtney Henggeler: I can. I remember it very distinctly. I had an audition for it. It was a Tyler Perry movie. That’s all I knew about it. I didn’t get a script for it. I got five scenes that really didn’t add up to anything. And it was kind of just my lines, so I didn’t really have any context. And that day (much like today) I had to take my son with me because I couldn’t find a sitter. And usually, when that happens, I bring him to the audition and find a nice girl who looks like me and who is waiting as well to go in and I ask him to stay with this nice girl while I go in there and read my lines.

That usually works out just fine. We get there, and there was nobody in the hallway except for a really good looking man. So I decided I was going to take him into the audition with me and then the whole time I was doing this audition I was very distracted by my son thinking he was going to cry any minute. He did not. They asked me to improv what I was doing, what I thought was child appropriate improv talking about Santa Claus because my son was looking right at me. And they wrapped it up and said, “thank you.” And I left that audition thinking “well I just blew my chance of ever being in a Tyler Perry movie.”

It was a terrible audition, and my improv didn’t make any sense whatsoever. And then I think it was a month later… it was a while later anyway. I got a call from my manager, and he’s like “Hey do you want to go to Atlanta and be in a Tyler Perry movie?” And my reaction was. “What?! They want me. After that crazy audition?” But they did, and in fact, by the time I got to Atlanta, and we were on set Tyler was like “Just do what you did in the audition.” And I was like “I talked about Santa.” He said “Yeah, yeah. More of that. More Santa talk.” Oh well. It all worked out for the best.

Was there room for improv on the days that you were on set? Was that dialogue pretty regimented?
Henggeler: There was. And we didn’t know that because Tyler works quickly. I didn’t know at the time until I got to set and people familiar with Tyler said “Do you not know the way Tyler works? He works extremely fast.” There’s nobody in the world who works as fast as Tyler Perry, period. So the sets are pre-lit and everything kind of all set up, so he is there, ready to go.

So I knew I wanted to be by the book. I want to do exactly how what was written and then by our third take (and by the way hardly anyone gets three takes. You just get a take and go.) he was like, “Do what you did in that audition.” And I said, “Oh, we can improv?” And he said “Oh yes. Please do.” Which was so cool. So he I guess he did want us to improv. I just didn’t want to mess up his flow. He was very encouraging of us just doing what we all did in our original auditions. I guess that’s why he hired us.

Your scenes are at Tika’s day job at the marketing agency she works at. How many days were you on that set?
Henggeler: Yeah. I was just there for two days. Yes. It was fun. It was kind of magical.

It looked like it would be fun working with Missi Pyle as everyone’s boss in the film.
Henggeler: She is the best. Watching her made me want to quit acting because she’s so good. Talk about improving… Tyler would come by, and she had a lot of dialogue. She had some crazy speeches and some lengthy monologue things. And she had it down. We were in a van together heading to set, coming from the hotel, and I remember kind of like going over her lines, and there were so many lines for her. I remember getting to set and Tyler saying, “Ok. All of that is great, but could you do it like you are a little high or maybe you’re a little down. Maybe you took some uppers, maybe you took some downers, I don’t know what you did, but you did something. Go do it like that.”

And she just took that note and did it, and she was so goddamn funny. Tyler would give her another take and say “Yeah. Maybe you took two and a half pills instead of three pills. Go!” And she would do it, and it would be completely different than what she just did. Yes watching her was like everything to me. And I was like “Well I have to quit now. I obviously don’t know what I’m doing, but Missi Pyle does.”

There were two themes from the movie that I took away that I’d be open to discussing. One was ‘The List.’ Have you ever made one, and do you think that a thing like that has any validity when you’re searching for a soul mate?
Henggeler: This is embarrassing, but my sister was helping clean up my mom’s basement. I guess it was last month. And I just got a photo of a list on my phone. It’s my handwriting. And I I barely recognize what was on it, but it very much sounded like me. I was like “What is this?” She says, “I think this is your list of what a perfect partner is.” And that was never really my thing. And then I was, and I remembered. I’m like “Oh my God, I totally made that list!” It was totally embarrassing. It is also totally my husband. That’s the weird part. I must have written this thing I don’t know how many years ago and I’m looking at it going “Yeah I think I got him. I got what I asked for.”

Here is the epic trailer for Cobra Kai, starring Tanner Buchanan, Jacob Bertrand and Courtney Henggeler.

The second theme was Danica getting ‘kind of’ catfished in the movie. And for this generation that’s a thing, misrepresentation online. As a mom that has to freak you out a bit, right? Because your son and your soon to be born baby are going to really step into that.
Henggeler: I mean it’s terrifying. Right? I guess it’s just social media as a whole. I mean that obviously has grown a place in the world but it is terrifying to me that that is the new norm. That like these altered kinds of realities of like how people are presenting themselves and how they present their lives are taken at an ethic value now. How people feel the need to present themselves and how they think that other people are living, That scares me. I think that’s going to be the bar with my son, that he’s going to think that you have to live up to this standard that’s not really accurate. Although he’s only two. So I think we have a few years before that. There will be something else even scarier that pops up we’ll have to deal with.

Well I find my partner and I communicate a lot by text. I mean I’m 50. I don’t really like it that much because I’d rather, you know, have a dialogue.
Henggeler: You remember the good old days.

I do remember the good old days.
Henggeler: Where you just call people. Yeah, me too.

So, I have not watched it yet, but I do want to watch Cobra Kai because I am old enough that I went to see a Karate Kid cut in the theatres back in the day.
Henggeler: Oh, you have to watch it. I mean obviously I’m a part of it, and I’m biased. It just a really good show. It’s just good. I haven’t met anyone who hasn’t liked it after they’ve watched it yet. So like you said, if you liked the Karate Kid, check it out.

Well I read about it. And I saw a trailer, and I remember thinking it looked like it could be good. And now a season is out, so I’ll try and find it somewhere. I dug the premise.
Henggeler: It’s a really good premise. I mean, I think that, check it out. It’s great. I love that it’s got the part of Johnny as the bad boy.

Here’s a photo from Nobody’s Fool, featuring some of the film’s key stars.

So what do you think was your take away from working with Tyler Perry? Is there something that as you left and you were flying home that you reflected on and said “I got this. I learned this from working with him?”
Henggeler: So, we had a joke, me and Jon Rudnitsky who plays my co-worker. That if Tyler Perry had a book he’d call it ‘Pray To Wrap.’ Because he works that fast. We started off with a prayer. We got there, and the whole entire set and a bazillion people are working there. Tyler Perry has a presence to him. He’s a big man. A booming voice. He’s a presence. He walks in and says “Everybody lower year heads, we are going to say a prayer.”

I don’t know if he made it up either. It sounded like he just improved a prayer. I started to cry a little bit. I was like, “What is happening to me? I’m tearing up at a Tyler Perry pre-shoot prayer?” And then it was all overwrapped. I was leaving and thinking I want to be that man’s personal assistant. I want to be that person that gets to follow Tyler Perry around and figure out who exactly he is. He’s such an interesting man. That’s kind of what I took away from him, that he was the world’s most interesting man.

I’d love some of your picks for what you think is going to clean up at the Oscars this year. What have you seen and what are you rooting for?
Henggeler: Oh God, the Oscars. Oh my. Well, my life was changed by A Star Is Born. Bradley Cooper didn’t get the director’s nod which I think is so crazy because I thought what he did with that movie was well done. I also loved The Favourite. Have you seen that one?

I haven’t seen it, and I haven’t seen A Star is Born either, I didn’t get out to that.
Henggeler: What?? Dude. Cobra Kai? A Star is Born? You need to watch these things!!

I’m a Rami Malek fan. I’m rooting for Bohemian Rhapsody. That blew me away.
Henggeler: And he’s brilliant. Queen is like everything to me. I’m also nine months pregnant, so when I saw A Star Is Born, I was kind of pretty pregnant and hormonal. And so everything really spoke to me. It blew me away. I couldn’t even talk about it to my husband the next day. I actually had no interest in seeing it. I was like OK, sure. Lady Gaga. Bradley Cooper. It fucked me up. Bradley Cooper’s performance fucked me up. I was so impressed. So that’s the movie that I’m that I’m rooting for. And it’s my favorite because it’s got a powerful women’s message that’s cool.