Meet Me Where I Am: Cooper Raiff on Hal & Harper

“Bet you won't click on this YouTube link and email me.” A disarming digital dare, this tweet worked like a charm on its target Jay Duplass, a bastion of do-it-yourself cinema. Posted by Cooper Raiff, a then aspiring filmmaker and confessedly restless student at a liberal arts college in Los Angeles, the tweet impressed Duplass. How to ignore the provocation when his own book Like Brothers (2018), a how-to memoir coauthored with Mark Duplass, recounts their improbable path into independent filmmaking, and counsels precisely the kind of moxie then staring out at him from his mentions? He watched the 50-minute film: an early version of what would become, with Duplass’s close mentorship, Raiff’s breakthrough feature Shithouse (2020), a comedy-drama about two students making a faltering, but meaningful connection on their college campus. (In another bold move, Raiff shot the film at Occidental College without clearance.) Premiering at a virtual SXSW and taking its Grand Jury Prize for Narrative Feature, Shithouse was picked up for distribution. Two years later at the Sundance Film Festival, Raiff, then 24, sold the worldwide rights to his sophomore film Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022) for a reported $15 million.

If Raiff is spirited and spontaneous, he is also sensitive and self-aware. Not long beyond it himself, the filmmaker and actor has made a study of that liminal stage of life between being young and implicitly understood by one’s family or tribe, and being out in the world as an autonomous adult. Each in different ways, and all with penetratively awkward humor, Shithouse, Cha Cha, and now Hal & Harper (2025) explore that disorienting and, for some, ineffably painful coming of age. Shithouse’s Maggie, played by Dylan Gelula, says of her college years, “The agenda here is to figure out who you are, separate from other people.” It’s dialogue that would not be out of place in Cha Cha Real Smooth, which captures the ambiguities and embarrassments of that age of un-making and re-making. Casting himself opposite Dakota Johnson in this original May–August romance, Raiff plays a graduate with no clear notion of where to place himself, but eager to the point of tragicomic desperation to be useful. In a fitting distillation of Raiff’s preoccupations, his character coordinates bar and bat mitzvahs. A self-styled party starter and emcee, he passes as a responsible adult and is accepted by kids ten years his junior as one of their own. It is this duality that makes him attractive to Johnson’s older romantic interest, but—in a perfect irony—she cannot see past his age.

With Hal & Harper, a first and confident foray into episodic storytelling, Raiff scales up his exploration of the interior tug-of-war between the child and the grown-up. Described as “the passion project of his life,” this branching and intimate narrative about a complicated family unit looks anew at the shadow cast by childhood across adulthood. Poignantly convincing as codependent siblings, Raiff and his costar Lili Reinhart play both younger and college-age versions of their characters, driving home that continuity of experience that so fascinates this filmmaker. Over eight involving episodes, Raiff exposes the traumatic roots of an unsustainable closeness, a coping mechanism his siblings cling to even as life cleaves them apart: new contexts, unexpected and exciting opportunities. As well as drawing out the poison, Hal & Harper lingers on the ringing positives of this brother–sister bond: the knowing looks and the inside jokes; the safe harbor of a shared bed. In the same spirit of enjoyment, Raiff cues up a killer soundtrack, filled with the likes of Adrianne Lenker, Frank Ocean, and Sabrina Carpenter. But it is Lomelda’s mantric “Wonder” that stands out. Its refrain like an infinite loop (“When you get it / give it all you got / you said”), this striving cry from the heart is the hero track of the show: a series about two people sparing no effort to care for each other.

Putting in a call to Los Angeles, I talk with Cooper Raiff about music, his onscreen sister Lili Reinhart, and how the series—though not autographical—wears the marks of his own growing pains. 

MUBI: There’s a rich tradition of films about brother–sister relationships. Was Hal & Harper inspired by any existing sibling narratives?

COOPER RAIFF: I don’t know that I’m inspired by sibling stories as such. I think what inspires me is the idea of someone being extremely “seen” and understood by another person, and the unspoken-ness of that connection. I’m obsessed with Kenneth Lonergan’s You Can Count on Me [2000], but I don’t know if I watched it within five years of writing Hal & Harper. A movie that jumped out at me when you asked that, though, is the animated movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse [2018]. I don’t know how the creator would articulate it, but essentially they’re all Spiderman, but they’re in different dimensions. The feeling of them all coming together is one of unique understanding and unique company. So even something like that: That’s the kind of thing that inspires me.

MUBI: How did you end up casting Lili in the role of Harper? 

RAIFF: I was just fixated on Lili for over a year before deciding to go ahead and make the series. It wasn’t even necessarily watching her in shows and movies. I’d seen her in Hustlers [2019] and Chemical Hearts [2020], and I’d watched episodes of Riverdale [2017–2023]. I spent more time watching her interviews, and trying to catch her in real moments. So I asked her agent if I could get coffee with her, and I got coffee with her and said, “Will you read this?” And she read it and she was like, “Can I read more?” By that time, I had eight whole episodes, but had only shared the pilot. So I just went ahead and shared all of it. She texted back, “It’s the best script I’ve ever read,” which was funny, because that didn’t mean anything to me. All I wanted to know was: Is it you? Are you Harper? Lili had a birthday coming up, and she was like, “I’m going to Mount Shasta in northern California for my birthday. With one other person. Do you want to come?”

MUBI: That’s so intense. 

RAIFF: Yeah. But I had just sent her the most intense 350 pages that you’ve ever read.

MUBI: So she met you where you were?

RAIFF: Exactly: I was like, She’s meeting me here… So I accepted her invitation, and we got to know each other over this Mount Shasta retreat, where she introduced me to this healer… I don’t know, we just had these magical five days: a really fun experience. Coming back, I was looking through the pictures I had taken, and there was a photo of us looking like Hal and Harper. And from there, we hung out for a year, and I just trusted that she was supposed to play Harper.

MUBI: You’re very natural with each other. I’m interested to know how it was to play brother and sister, and to convey that weight of years of shared experience, shared pain?

RAIFF: When Mark Ruffalo, Lili, and I all got together for the first time, we talked all about how we must have known each other in a past life. We didn’t do much rehearsal… The first day was us playing kids and it was one of the best moments of my life—watching her play Harper for the first time. She’s just so special as Harper. The way I talk about Hal and Harper is, like, I don’t know where they came from…

MUBI: Let’s go to that place: where Hal and Harper came from. Can you tell me about the genesis of the project?

RAIFF: I wrote it over the course of, truly, eight years. The first version I wrote was a web series about a seven- and nine-year-old. It was these kids talking about what their single dad had said to them that day. And you start to understand that they grew up too fast, because he is telling them things that they don’t need to hear at their age. I realized at some point I couldn’t film it, because I didn’t have the means. Later, I was like, What relationship would they have as young adults? What was it like when Harper went away for college? That’s how I started to write their story: little by little. Truthfully, the answer is: These characters were company along my healing journey. 

MUBI: So you would retreat into the world of these characters, and that was therapeutic for you? 

RAIFF: Their experiences were absolutely not mine, but I was dealing with my own childhood stuff. The way I did that was to fall into this world: the world of these funny, loving siblings, who poked fun at each other and could be very toxic, but were filled with kindness and love. It was less about getting their dynamic on camera at that stage, and more about trying to understand why these people were in my head.

MUBI: As you were bringing this story into being and it was gradually taking on shape, was it clear to you that it should be a series, rather than a film?

RAIFF: Everyone wanted it to be a movie, because that’s what I had done before. But I always knew it was a series, and at some point I got it set up… I can say this now: It was set up at FX. But, there, it was so forced into being “a college show” for so long that I ultimately asked them if I could take it away and make it independently. And they were very gracious and let me do that. It was just never a movie, even though it does feel like a film if, say, you were to watch a scene from it in isolation.

MUBI: That’s a really interesting tension.

RAIFF: I talked to Lena Dunham about this, and she was like, “Hal & Harper is like “This" and “This” and “This”.” And I was like, “I haven’t seen any of those…” But she was talking about, you know, Fanny and Alexander [1982], for example. She was like, “You need to start talking about the series like it’s one of these things, because I don’t think anybody really understands what this is in the marketplace in 2025. But there are examples of cinematic, episodic storytelling from the past, if you look.” And I never did really look…

MUBI: I love the motifs in the series: cereal-eating, baths, smoking in secret. Those repeated scenes tie your three main characters together, and lend this lovely family coherence to the show across its different installments. And I don’t think you can do that with a film so much…

RAIFF: Exactly! I’ve always loved the form of TV, because—to me—it’s the most character-driven medium, or it should be. Because you get to show that there are certain periods in people’s lives where they are kind of… flat, or they are depressed. And it can feel real. As opposed to with a movie, where you can show it, but not in any prolonged way. Like, you can’t show your main character for fifteen minutes just being in the deepest, darkest hole.

MUBI: TV and duration: It’s a gift.

RAIFF: It is a gift. And I really wanted to use that. What’s beautiful about movies is that it is this one-seated experience, and it’s meant to be that. But with TV it’s like, Oh, I actually took a three-week break and I’m going to come back to it, and I might have to watch these two episodes again. You find your way through it at your own pace, and I think that’s beautiful.

MUBI: The music in the series is great! And music seems to play an important role in your work as a whole. Does the track precede the project—the scene, the montage—or does it follow after? 

RAIFF: I really like this question, because I don’t really know the answer. But I will say this: Music always changes what’s written. Maybe I’ve written the montage, but when I find the music all of a sudden the montage becomes unlocked; everything gets clear. As I listen I realize, Oh, you don’t want to see that, you want to see this. I can listen to a song truly 40 times and write as much as I can while I’m listening. Sometimes I’ll randomly hear a lyric and that lyric will tell me a very specific thing to write or focus on, and it feels like an intervention: whoever the Art God is, my spirit guide… So in terms of what precedes what, music or montage, it’s always different. But music always gets the final say.

MUBI: I’d love to talk about audience, and also influences. Sometimes we’re not only interested in the work of other filmmakers, but we like the idea of their audiences and want to reach those same audiences ourselves. How do you imagine your audience, and have other filmmakers influenced your sense of who you’re creating for? 

RAIFF: So many thoughts are coming into my head. I used to think along the lines of: This person has an audience, so that means there’s an audience for my work. Cameron Crowe has an audience, and Kenneth Lonergan also has an audience, therefore I could have a big audience! There are so many movies and shows that made me think, Oh my God, what a miracle this movie was made. Like, Manchester by the Sea [2016]. One of the things that struck me was how Lucas Hedges understood this humor. He could make me laugh and at the same time I would feel the weight of the world on my chest. That gets me really excited about what I do…

MUBI: And by that you mean, this mix of light and heavy?

RAIFF: Yeah. It’s two sides of the same coin. Lonergan understands that the more emotional depth or realness you put into something, the funnier it is. I’m talking about when Casey Affleck and Lucas Hedges are screaming at each other: how funny their dialogue is, but also the scene ends and you’re just crying. Laughing so hard out loud, almost in this desperate laugh, because Lonergan has made the hard parts of life accessible through the humor. With Hal & Harper, there’s a “joy” element. They experience such joy together those nights when Hal’s like, “Can I spend the night at your house?” But it’s fleeting… Their closeness is born out of this deep, deep darkness. But there’s light at the end of the tunnel. A light that isn’t so fleeting, I guess.

MUBI: That’s the optimism of Hal & Harper, right? To come back to audience…

RAIFF: I’m always thinking about an audience. They’re always on my mind and I’m telling the story for them. I’m not just, Every night for ten years, I wrote a little scene about Hal and Harper and I filmed all of those. I’m creating this experience for people to get something out of it, and every frame is to help them do that better and better. So while I’m no longer able to be like, I want to be like Cameron Crowe, I remember how crucial saying “I want to be like Cameron Crowe” was to me getting to this place of being confident in my sensibilities. 

MUBI: Is that why there’s a scene in Hal & Harper where they, Dad, and Kate [Betty Gilpin] see a Tom Cruise movie?

RAIFF: Probably, yeah! I actually just saw Cameron Crowe talk about Tom Cruise in a very “Hal” way. He was like, “I’m so excited for Tom Cruise’s next phase in his career.” And I was just picturing Hal looking up at the screen, being like, Oh God, it’s Tom Cruise inventing acting again! It’s so similar! 

MUBI: Unadulterated enthusiasm! Is there anything about the series you suspect no one’s ever going to ask you about, but it’s something you want to discuss or you’re hyped about?

RAIFF: I guess the only thing I would leave you with is: Hal & Harper isn’t about my family. I thought about this recently, because I was texting my youngest sister about it. I was walking her through what Hal and Harper are to me, and I told her they were my friends. They’re these two people that kept me company. I don’t remember when it was—six months ago probably—but I had this moment with my partner Addison where I was sobbing, and she was like, “What’s going on?” And I was like, “I’m saying goodbye to my Hal and Harper.” And it’s this very real goodbye. They were so real to me. Not in the way that a friendship is real, but in the sense of… I didn’t simply control them; I just spent all of my time listening to how they were going to help the world, if that makes sense? I came to feel that Hal and Harper needed to be in story-form, on camera, to help people see things in themselves and to find a certain sense of healing that the characters do by the end. I wasn’t up there on my computer trying to control their narrative, but was really trying to listen to what these two characters were getting at…

MUBI: What they wanted to be? 

RAIFF: Yes, exactly! And how they were holding each other back. I mean, that’ll make me emotional. They really did end up loving each other… They end up loving each other enough to let the other be who they want to be, separate of each other. Harper believes that Hal can do it without her. And Hal says, “I love you so much that I don’t want to hold you back anymore, even though every ounce of me is telling me to hold you right here…”