In the new comedy Brittany Runs a Marathon , Jillian Bell plays Brittany Forgler, a 27-year-old New Yorker who spends her nights kissing strangers, swilling booze and wallowing in self-pity. Her character is in for a rude awakening, however, when a doctor tells her that such freewheeling life choices arent sustainable and could lead to self-destruction in the long term.

Filmmaker Paul Downs Colaizzo knows audiences have seen elements of Brittany on the big screen before think Melissa McCarthy s Megan in Bridesmaids and Kevin Smith s Silent Bob in Clerks and Mallrats.

With that in mind, he saw Brittany Runs a Marathon as an opportunity to delve deeper into an archetypal character in his own words, the funny best friend, the fat sidekick, the hot mess and give her a proper heros journey.

Im really into characters that society labels as freaks in some way, and unfreakifying them, Colaizzo told HuffPost. I wanted to create an atypical hero [in Brittany] zoom in on her wants, dreams, pains and hopes to hopefully inspire people to have empathy for people who arent like them.