'The Hollars' Scene That Nearly Brought John Krasinski And Margo Martindale To Tears

You may know John Krasinski as the hilarious, quick-witted Jim Halpert from “The Office,” but his new film is giving him the chance to flex his more dramatic acting chops.

“The Hollars,” a dramedy that features Krasinski as director and actor, follows a dysfunctional family dealing with life-threatening illness, divorce and pregnancy. Krasinski sat down with The Huffington Post alongside his co-stars Margo Martindale and Sharlto Copley to discuss the film last week and applauded the film’s screenwriter for portraying such raw emotion.

“The writer Jim Strouse can navigate emotion and comedy so well with these hairpin turns that very few people can. So it felt very real to me,” he told HuffPost Entertainment’s Lauren Moraski. “And I came from a loving family. This is about a dysfunctional family, and yet at the end of the script, I was crying. It just felt very much like my family.”

Martindale, who plays the family’s ailing matriarch, said the film was “so real” that it felt more like a “home video” rather than a scripted movie. One scene in particular, where Krasinski’s character shaved his mother’s head, was especially moving.

“It really happened and it was an incredible [moment]. I was very vulnerable in that moment,” she said. “And it was a very touching thing that my lovely son here said, ‘I’ll do it for you.’ I mean really, we could barely get through that scene.”

“We could barely get through talking about it.” Krasinski chimed in. “We’re big criers.”

Hear more about the film in the video clip above and check out the full conversation here.