Max Greenfield Is That Dad

The first thing you may observe about the dad in Netflix’s upcoming teen drama Don’t Say Good Luck is that his hair looks perfect. That’s only the start of the aspirational cues coming from this character played by Max Greenfield. In this funny — and, yes, tear-jerking — family drama, Greenfield’s character juggles work, elementary-aged twins, a big-feeling teen, and his wife’s cancer diagnosis. While he is at times off-kilter from all that life throws his way in the film, this dad does not bumble his way through it. In every scene, he finds ways to be the emotionally available parent and partner. Greenfield says that understanding the character was easy. “There’s so much of me that’s in that movie,” he tells Fatherly. “I felt so close to what we were doing.” It could be, perhaps, because his daughter, like the main character, is a high schooler; she has mutual friends to the lead actress, Sunny Sandler; and her experience — at least onstage, navigating high school life — just resonated. We sat down to give Max Greenfield the Cool Dad questionnaire , and then talked about the movie, finding patience, and fighting parental anxiety — and why LA’s bagels are seriously underrated. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. I finished watching Don’t Say Good Luck today. I definitely did some crying. They keep playing clips in these interviews that I’m doing for press, and they’ll play it before the interview, and I’m constantly like, “I need a minute.” It’s intense. I…