Being fired and viciously insulted by the iconic Woody Allen was perhaps the best career move actor Annabelle Gurwitch could have made. After the requisite vodka and ice cream binge, Gurwitch’s harsh dismissal inspired Fired, a documentary that explores the plight of the involuntarily jobless. Speaking with once-canned showbiz folks and corporate minions alike, Gurwitch entertains and comforts us with tales of hellish jobs, idiot bosses and the eventual bounceback to working life.

Do you have any idea if Woody Allen’s seen your film?

Oh god no, I can’t imagine Mr.Allen would be interested in my film and I have never contacted Mr.Allen, honestly, I don’t think he’d remember the incident, he didn’t even know my name! Being fired from that play was the inspiration for this project, at this point, I’m much more interested in everyone else’s story.

Was this your first experience producing a film?

This was the first film I’ve produced and I hope it’s just the beginning .I am in pre-production for another documentary. I am following the same pattern as Fired, using myself and an issue that affects me personally that has larger social and political implications. This next film concerns some property I found out I inherited from my grandmother on Dauphin Island, off the coast of Alabama. DI is a barrier island whose future is in jeapardy due to global warming and rising sea levels, and serves as a example for the issues many coastal communities in this country will face.

I loved how you wove in the fictional scenes with real interviews. Were you inspired by Christopher Guest-style mockumentaires at all?

I love documentaries. I thought Super Size Me was great and I was attempting to do something in that vein. Of course I love Christopher Guest’s films, but I wouldn’t dream of talking about my film in the same sentence. I was just looking for ways to translate my original essay about being fired ... and then the project grew into a documentary. My goal for the film was to ask the question: Is being fired the worst, or is it possibly one of the best things that can happen in your professional life, and I thought by bracketing it with comedy it would be more enjoyable than asking people to come to the theater and see a movie about labor issues in America.

When you re-enacted being fired, who played Woody Allen? That scene seemed fun to shoot because I think it’s a fantasy that so many people have: portraying their boss as this horribly rude, unlikable character, and making it into a movie that thousands of people will actually see. What was it like for you, writing and shooting that scene?

It was horrible shooting the Woody Allen scene with Ed Crasnik, who is a very funny television writer and producer. Right after you get fired, I think most everyone has the" fantasy revenge" scenario. However, I was striving to just present the scene as I remembered it and didn’t take into account how I would feel to replay that moment.

I asked Ed to say the actual things I had written down that Mr. Allen said. Being a comedian, Ed improvised and was cracking up the crew, but I instantly was tranported back into that moment and began sweating and thinking, " This is a huge mistake — what was I thinking!" Ed was mortified by saying those things and kept apologizing the whole time.

How did you recruit so many people to tell their stories?

[All the people in the film who worked] in the entertainment industry are people I have worked with or good friends of mine except for one, Bob Saget. We have friends in common who said, “You have to speak to Bob; he has a great story.” I asked friends if they had been fired, and as that saying goes, they told two friends and they told two friends. The funny thing is, at some point people were telling me other people’s stories. So by the time I’d get someone on the phone, like Jeff Garlin, I had already been told his story by Andy Dick. It’s a small community.

I watched the film with my friend who was recently fired, and it really made her feel better to see other people who had been in her position and how they coped. Do you hear stories like that often?

I’ve continued this project because the feedback has been so satisfying. One of my favorite nights was when I screened the film at the Loft Cinema inTucson. Several people came on stage and told their fired stories: One had been fired for his inability to stop crying at work in a factory on the day John Lennon was killed, the second person had been fired for being a whistle-blower in a government job, and the third was a Sikh with anger management problems. The film seems to give people permission to speak about situations they have carried with them shamefully, and I am thrilled that this one incident in my life has resonated in this way. It was the most unanticipated consequence from being told Mr. Allen "wanted to go in a different direction."

Is there one story from the film that you like the best?

I love all the stories people tell in the film. I am partial in a comedic vein to playwrigth Stephen Adly Guirgis’s recounting of being fired for "failure to be awake," and have been extremely inspired by chef Walter Scheib who was fired from the Bush White House. His forthrightness and can -do attitude are extremely unnuerotic and when he says in the film that he doesn’t drive past the White House and get morose, he means it!

One thing I’d like to offer: there are many ways in which the entertainment industry has parellels to other businesses, and I offer this piece of advice if you find yourself out of a job and you’re over 40. Actors have learned that you need to update your resume and take old credits off that date you. Even though I personally am proud of the stints I had playing prostitutes on Miami Vice and The Equalizer, every year I remove the older credits. This is much the same if you work in the corporate world. It’s awful; you want your resume to reflect your years of accomplishment, but chances are the person hiring you is half your age. So don’t be precious about it; keep it current.

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