Filmmaker Chris Roberti on His Clever New Time-Travel Romantic Comedy, Same Boat

In the new film Same Boat, writer/director/star Chris Roberti plays James, a time-traveling assassin who comes back from the future with his assistant/protege Mot (Julia Schonberg). The pair find themselves on board a cruise ship, where they are tasked with the murder of a lawyer whose clients would do immeasurable damage to the world. Unfortunately for James, things don’t get off to a great start: he loses his paperwork, and Mot gets incredibly seasick and spends most of the film confined to their cabin with her head in the toilet. By the time he finds out that he’s supposed to kill Lily (Tonya Glanz), James has already encountered her on board the ship and is in the process of falling for her.

The result is a funny and smart romantic comedy with science-fiction elements, and a talented cast of characters, most of whom you won’t recognize (although both Roberti and Glanz have done some TV, and might look familiar at least). But that was actually not the original concept. You see, it all started with the concept of telling a wild story on a cruise ship and evolved from there. The film was actually shot on a working cruise ship, without authorization from the crew or the cruise line, which meant that certain things just wouldn’t fly.

“We had this idea for a Naked Gun-style farce where James — the name was the same — with James, on the run from some bookie or something, runs to the docks and climbs up the boat,” Roberti told ComicBook.com, adding that once they got to the cruise ship, “it’s like, ‘this wasn’t possible.’ So then we found this quiet lounge, a bar, and everyone else is out doing cruise stuff, and we’re planning a movie. So we were on a different schedule from everyone. So we had a little writing meeting and we’re like, ‘Okay, we can’t make that big movie because that made certain promises.’ I think one would be an all out…whatever. A food fight or something like that, and that would totally just be impossible. Then I think Josh was like, ‘I think it would be crazy if someone dumped their partner on the first night of a cruise.’ Then we were like, ‘Oh man, that would be funny. You’re trapped in close quarters.’ So we just kept that and put the Rob and Lily, and then I was like, ‘Oh, it could be an assassin.’ And I don’t know where the time traveling assassin thing came, but it was not a long time. It was maybe a day where we had those three ideas and we were like, ‘Let’s just put it all in there.’ I think that’s something I like too, is just to put a little bit of everything. I feel like the movie does have that; there’s sweetness and philosophy and broad humor and I just liked the idea of just, because I think life is like that.”

The breakup, then, is one of the first things the audience sees, and that puts you on Lily’s side almost before you even realize that she isn’t the technical lead character. Somewhat surprisingly, though, even her ex-boyfriend is a pretty decent guy who never gets vilified in the film.

“I think one of my great teachers was comedy is about connection, not conflict,” Roberti explained. “I think this is a big part of my improv mind. We want people to connect. I think more funny things happen when people are compassionate and generous and curious. I also think, before Rob figures out what’s going on, I like the idea of people who can fall into friendship fast….I’ve had experiences like that in my life and I just like people like that who are right away we’re really familiar, and we can get down to stuff.”

What’s probably more interesting to anybody who has seen the film is that Schonberg’s character was originally envisioned as an intimidating thug, rather than a small, lovely girl who spends the whole movie in discomfort.

“I think that there was a big conflict with [Rob and] Mot, who originally was some overlord, was some heavy, who would not have arrived on the boat until the end,” Roberti explained. “I think there would have been some chase. I had this whole scene written where a chase through Cozumel and the death scene happens in some abandoned building that we had scouted. Also from the old movie, the heist movie, one of the characters was someone who was on a honeymoon, but his wife was just always sick and we never see her. She was just always sick in her cabin. And I thought that was really funny and so then, ‘Oh, let’s just have Mot be James’s friend.’ Again, keeping everyone getting along, and she can be on the boat the whole time and I think that also adds pressure to James, not out of fear, but out of loyalty and out of friendship to make his betrayal more juicy.”

You can get Same Boat on streaming video on demand platforms right now, available for both rental and sale.