Non-traditional married couple Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke (Google it!) are on a roll with the queer noir film “Honey Don’t!” (Focus/Working Title).

The second installment in co-writer/director Coen and co-writer Cooke’s lesbian trilogy, following 2024’s “Drive-Away Dolls,” “Honey Don’t” also stars Margaret Qualley (who also had a lead role in the aforementioned “Dolls”). While “Honey Don’t!” has a similar comedic tone found not only in its predecessor but also in numerous Coen brothers movies, it also takes a much darker and more unsettling turn at the end. Nevertheless, it’s worth watching for Qualley’s outstanding performance, as well as seeing Chris Evans half-dressed for most of the movie. Coen and Cooke were kind enough to make time for a Zoom interview in early August.

I’d like to begin by asking you both to say something about the inspiration for “Honey Don’t!”

Ethan Coen: We were inspired by all those noir movies and all the kind of hard-boiled literature that all those movies were based on: Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler. Those writers and the movies that are associated with them.

Tricia Cooke: We were inspired by all the 1950s and 1940s noir and thought there should be more queer noir.

EC: And one more thing. There's a John Houston movie called “Fat City.” It's about the kind of hardscrabble California. Not glamourous California. It’s kind of bare-assed, depressed California; in the case of that movie, Stockton. In the case of our movie, Bakersfield. But it's a great movie, it's very different, generically, from our movie, but it made an impression on us.

TC: “The Long Goodbye” was [also] a huge source of inspiration for us. How Robert Altman used the score throughout the movie. That was something that we had written into our movie, (that the Carl Perkins song) “Honey Don’t” would play throughout, although it didn't [laughs]. But there were other ways that we borrowed from “The Long Goodbye.”

Margaret Qualley, with whom you both worked on “Drive-Away Dolls,” is playing the titular character in “Honey Don’t!” What is it about Margaret that makes her appealing to work with more than once?

TC: She's a great actress. She can take, from what we've seen, any part and really run with it in a really interesting way. She makes interesting choices, and she's easy. We all get on really well. She's playful and she's playful when she approaches a part. I think she's easy to work with. She's easy for other actors to work with. 

EC: She just brings the stuff to life. You don't catch her acting. It's just like, “Oh, wow, cool.” 

The queerness in the movie extends beyond Honey and her various lovers, including MG, played by Aubrey Plaza. Please say something about why you also included the cuckolded Mr. Siegfried, a queer male character played by Billy Eichner.

TC: I have a lot more gay male friends than lesbian friends [laughs]. They're familiar to me. We wanted someone to be emotional in a way that it felt like if it were a male couple, that would be interesting. You don't see that so much in noir. We wanted to change the gender norms in noir. We thought that having him there would be interesting.

EC: Not that we said this to each other when we were writing it, but I think we just imagined a queer world. The private detective is queer; that's not a big deal. One of the clients is queer, not a big deal. People are queer. Not universally, but the world is almost all queer. 

Tricia, Honey constantly must remind the flirtatious, obnoxious Marty, played by Charlie Day, that she’s queer. Is this something you’ve dealt with in your own life?

TC: [Laughs] Sure! I mean, not over and over again. But men are constantly…I'm an elder now, but certainly back in the day, guys hit on you and you're constantly having to say, I'm queer. No, I didn't have someone like Marty in my life who just didn't get it. But different men throughout history. I have an unconventional private life. Ethan's my partner, Ethan's my husband. So I kind of live in this world where people aren't sure what's what.

Reverend Drew, played by Chris Evans, who, to the delight of many gay fans, I might add, has an extended scene in a jockstrap, is a drug dealer, in addition to being a preacher. Is this a play on “religion is the opiate of the masses” being taken to another extreme with the addition of actual drugs?

EC: I don't think we were literally playing on or thinking about that expression.

TC: I like it!

EC: We were just making him sleazy.

TC: I think Jim Jones and maybe Jimmy Swaggart were two people in the back of our heads. Jim Jones and the Kool Aid and all that. Cult leaders tend to influence their flocks in so many different ways.

One of my favorite relationships in the movie is that of Honey and her assistant Spider, played by Gabby Beans. Their exchanges reminded me of the noir movies from the past. Fast-talking and talking over each other. Was this your intention for those scenes?

EC and TC: Yeah!

EC: [In] those movies, frequently, the private eye has the wisecracking secretary...

TC: …assistant who often helps solve the crimes and often is as competent, if not more competent, than the detective. That’s definitely what we wanted to do. I'm impressed that you knew Spider's name because it's never mentioned. Honey never refers to Spider as Spider, but we liked the name.

Ethan, in the past you’ve talked about how you and Joel couldn’t have made “Drive-Away Dolls,” and likely by extension, “Honey Don’t!” because you’re both straight. And yet, Coen Brothers movies, such as “Miller’s Crossing,” which you co-wrote, and “Hail, Caesar,” which you co-wrote and co-directed, had queer characters. 

EC: That’s true. They weren’t central characters, and they were kind of broader characters. In our movies, the central characters are a little more grounding, in stuff we really know, and the peripheral characters less so. In our movies, Trish and mine, in these two movies the gay characters are definitely front and center. It's kind of a different thing.

Without giving too much away, it’s been a while since we’ve seen a fictional queer serial killer. At this time, when the LGBTQ community is at risk and under scrutiny from conservative forces, are you at all concerned about a backlash or the response to this character?

TC: It's make-believe. It's not real. Maybe when we're writing it, we were like, “Do we want to make it about her hatred of weak women? Does that say something about lesbians?” But I don't think it does. I think she's just off her rocker, and anyone can be off their rocker. I think the far right or conservative Christians want to paint us as demented and not stable, but that's just not the truth. I hope there's no backlash.

EC: The story says her craziness is connected to her victimhood; she's an abuse victim. It's not related to her sexuality.

Is there another Coen/Cooke collaboration in the works?

TC: We're writing different things together. Ethan's writing his own stuff. He writes with Joel. Hopefully, one day, something else will get made. Ethan and I wrote something with our daughter. All those things are out there, and hopefully they'll get made soon.