Night Owls is an American romantic comedy drama film directed by Charles Hood. The film had its world debut on March 13, 2015, at the South by Southwest festival and stars Adam Pally as workaholic Kevin who has a drunken one-night stand with the beautiful train-wreck Madeline, Rosa Salazar, whom he is horrified to realize is actually his boss' jilted ex-mistress. When she takes a bottle of sleeping pills, Kevin is forced to keep her awake all night, over the course of which the two begin to fall for each other.
Filming for Night Owls took place over a seventeen-day stretch in March 2014. Almost all of the movie was shot according to plan with the exception of the pool scene. The weather had been very cold and the pool had no heating so the scene needed to be reworked. Director, Charles Hood, said in an interview with RogerEbert.com: "There's the scene in the movie where they hug in the hallway and he gets an erection. In the script, that was supposed to be happening in the pool. But we never could get the pool to be heated and we were shooting in March and it was freezing cold. Our AD told us that the actors were only allowed to be in the water for ten minutes at a time. Each time they went in the water for ten minutes, they would have to go inside and warm up for half an hour... Those are the actual rules so they don't get hypothermia. The pool scene was looming for a week.... I was living at the house during the shoot and so were Adam and Rosa. So, Adam, Rosa, Seth and I went into Adam's room, and the four of us talked it out. We came up with: what if they jumped in the pool and then immediately ran inside to get warm and then have that scene in the hallway. Seth and I had to run off and write it. But doing the scene in the hallway ended up working out way better. Because I think the scene in the pool would have been kind of a cliche. We've seen it before. But to have them jump in and out of the pool is so much more fun."
Casting
The director originally had Adam Pally in mind for the role of Kevin and Hood's agent sent him the script. Pally was drawn to the film with the excitement of new challenges: "I really wanted the chance to play a romantic lead. In my brief career I’ve been playing a lot of best friends and goofballs and comedic sidekicks. I know I can do that, so I wanted to give this a shot. So, it was very fulfilling on that level." Pally then suggested Rosa Salazar for the part of Madeline. The director had this say about how the initial casting went: "I know this sounds funny, but it really was one of those things that magically came to fruition. My agent knew Adam Pally, who was on our wish list for the role of Kevin. She sent him the script, and within days he came on board. He then suggested Rosa and a similar thing happened. It really worked out – I think Adam’s comedic flair brought the best out of Rosa’s more dramatic background."
Reception
Critical reception for Night Owls has been predominantly positive and the film currently holds a rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 14 reviews giving an average score of 7.9/10.
