Jenn Harris On Embracing Curiosity and Celebrating Intimacy for ‘She’s Clean’

I have always been drawn to Jenn Harris as an artist, because she exudes an intelligence and curiosity with the characters she plays. Whether she is playing a woman looking to have a child with her gay best friend (in Gayby, naturally), trying to be a thorough ally in last year’s American Fiction, or even popping up in small cameos like in 30 Rock (“Who doesn’t want to be a one-legged prostitute under a bridge?” she says), Harris’ presence inspires for her pointed sense of humor and game attitude. With She’s Clean, Harris turns her attention to how we connect, how we surprise one another, and how to maintain a genuine, spirited enthusiasm when it comes to entering the realm of dating and intimacy.

She’s Clean centers on one woman’s pursuit of an honest bond with the men she brings home as she tries to take a shower with them. Think about how vulnerable we all are in our showers. We are naked, wet, and, most of the time, we take for granted that ten or fifteen minutes we have by ourselves. I needed to know what inspired Harris to want to dissect this personal journey.

“I wrote this film back in 2021 after starting it in 2019,” Harris says. “There’s the film you write, the film you shoot, the film you edit, and the film that audiences see. I tend to have a hustle that will follow through on an idea when it’s done, and I like to discover along the way. I love to dive into things. Originating a character in theater is kind of the same way in terms of jumping in and finding things out as you go along. I’ve been finding that my filmmaking has that same pattern.

“After New York Is Dead with Matt Wilkas, I was ready to make something else, and it was during COVID and I couldn’t shake these stories of dating that I had just plummeted into. I found myself deeply fascinated with the dating scene on the apps that didn’t exist before, and I was so fascinated with meeting someone and that intimacy. I was surprised with myself in what I was learning in terms of emotional intimacy. It surprised me. My boundaries were down and my doors were open, and I found that this space was fun to be curious in. Behavior around intimacy around men, for me, is one of the most fascinating things I’ve ever observed. I find it funny and interesting, and I find it different than what I see on film. I wanted to capture what I was experiencing which wasn’t necessarily falling in love or being in desperate danger or exploitative. In film, I find a lot of intimacy is either exploitative or they just end up happy and in love. There is a spectrum in dating that I am not witnessing, and I wanted to explore that. I also wanted the challenge of one location to try and tell a story that is surprising.”

As this woman welcomes other people into her space, we realize that she isn’t just extending sexy time, but she is starting a dialogue. She doesn’t even let language barriers get in the way when she spends time with Louis Cancelmi’s character. Do we always have to have an endgame? Have romantic comedies and porn spoiled our ways of thinking when it comes to interacting with someone we have spent hooked up with?

“I tend to be that way, but I wish I could take a page from the book of this woman,” she says. “We explore a lot of nuance with things like death and politics in film. With intimacy, it’s almost too romanticized or it’s a full comic explosion. If the characters are not in their teens or in their twenties, it can be played as a joke. I can’t stand that. I hate when I see an adult being filmed in a romantic or sexual way, and it’s played for laughs. Or when a woman goes out dancing, and she just does the robot. What about other people’s experiences where there is more nuance around getting to know someone?”

With dating, we get into routines or settle into things we like to do, so I couldn’t help but wonder if this woman was even more excited to hop into the shower every time she has an encounter with someone. Maybe she only invites people in when she feels that intimate connection and wants to further it. In one of my favorite moments, a gentleman is peeing while Harris tried to lure him into the shower. She wiggles and presses her rear on the glass, but he’s not into it.

“She’s trying to turn him on and he’s done,” Harris says. “I did not want to make a film that implicated any one person’s gender, and I didn’t want to make a sketch about dating. I didn’t want to say that men are horrible or women are terrible in another way. I was not interested in a one-joke setup or standup. I didn’t want to get stuck in just one thing. She’s embracing the variety and maybe that’s to her own detriment. She’s definitely responding to whoever is there, but she still has an agenda of connecting. This is all post-coital or maybe just a dinner–it’s after something happens. There is an internal objective and need to try to connect to these men.”

Not everything goes to joyous plan. Harris includes an interaction with a young man where, after she nuzzles on him and tries to entice him, he flatly and sternly asks, ‘Are you a whore for the night or something?’ It’s a shocking moment dropped into the film’s breezy nature, but it serves as a reminder at how we don’t know how people are going to react. Harris’ character is taken aback and we realize that this safe space can unexpectedly bring forth emotions from people that are unwanted and gruff. It’s another example of how Harris is interested in uninhibited honesty.

“That is the point of the film where we grow a little bit,” she says. “As an audience, we get to move forward. I wanted to capture a moment where it’s cloudier when someone is stepping over a line or boundary or says something that could lead to something dangerous. You don’t quite know what to do, and you don’t know what’s okay. She could’ve pressed forward and everything could’ve been fine, but sometimes with these awkward moments you don’t know how to process it. I wanted this character to stand up for herself, and I wanted to explore one of these areas where the woman is, for a lack of a better word, the aggressor in that moment. She’s trying to kiss him and going after him, and he was struggling with his attraction go her. Maybe he had someone else at home? Maybe it was religious with a whore-Madonna complex? He put his conflict with himself on her, which is still very prevalent in heterosexual dating.”

This cast is full of beautiful people who are so game to play in Harris’ curated playground. Becca Blackwell, Eric Tabach, and Ryan Czerwonko all make appearances, but I was thrilled to see Randy Harrison pop up as a friend of our eager lead character. We have seen intimacy play out that share similar shades, but this friendship is also intimate. It’s something we don’t always associate with friends or people close to us, but even fixing a showerhead and talking about your favorite singer lends itself to closeness.

“Randy is one of my dearest friends, and I will always put him in something of mine. I love that scene with him. The film is about intimacy, so it felt natural to me to have these two people in that space. That scene is one hundred percent true, and it’s me talking to Randy. We are talking about Björk–we both love her for obvious reasons–and we are talking about her ability to be vulnerable after one of her albums came out. We are singing one of the songs, and I had to cut it down. There’s a director’s cut of this movie somewhere. We are talking about how this artist and this woman can be so open and honest and not care what anyone says. I find that fascinating. Elements of me wanted to do that and be bolder than I knew I could be. I wanted to be bold like her. I check in with my friends all the time, so it makes sense that this woman does to. If there is one thing I have done right in this world, it’s my choices in friends. They challenge me to be a better person to myself and to other people.”

She’s Clean is available to watch for free via Vimeo.