‘How It Ends’ tackles last day on Earth with star-studded cast that filmed during lockdown: ‘No one had anything to do’

Filming a movie during a pandemic has its perks, like attracting an A-list cast with nothing better to do and having empty, apocalyptic Los Angeles streets at the ready.

All that created the perfect storm for “How It Ends,” a comedy about the last day on Earth that was dreamed up while it felt like it was the end of the world.

The film, which premiered Sunday at the Tribeca Festival, was conceived entirely in quarantine by Brooklyn, New York-born Zoe Lister-Jones and her husband Daryl Wein.

“It was very much born out of what we were feeling and what we were all collectively facing in this very unprecedented moment in history,” Lister-Jones told the Daily News. “Daryl and I tend to process these big overwhelming, existential questions through our work. So we started to outline a story that could speak to a lot of the stuff we were facing while not being COVID-specific, but still being in an emotionally resonant atmosphere, which is the last day on Earth.”

Lister-Jones not only co-wrote, co-directed and co-produced the film with her husband, but stars as Liza, who’s faced with figuring out how to spend her remaining hours before an asteroid hits.

Glued to her side is Younger Self, a walking, talking inner child-version of Liza that’s played by Cailee Spaeny.

Liza’s initial plan for the day involves little more than wanting to get “really high and die,” until Younger Self convinces her it’s time to face all her regrets and turn them around.

This kicks off an adventurous walk around L.A., where the pair run into characters brought to life by stars such as Olivia Wilde, Fred Armisen and Nick Kroll.

“I don’t think that we would have gotten the cast that we had if the pandemic wasn’t happening because no one had anything to do,” Spaeny, 22, tells The News. “So everyone was so excited to do something with themselves. And everybody’s comfortability was different. For example, the Fred Armisen scene, he wanted to do it on his balcony. So we had all these fun obstacles that lent itself to the scene and that challenged you to be creative.”

After bumping into a former boyfriend, Liza and her Younger Self decide they’re going to end the night at a big end-of-the-world bash thrown by Mandy, played by Whitney Cummings. But first, they want to confront their neglect issues with Zoe’s parents, portrayed by Helen Hunt and Bradley Whitford, and clear the air with a former close friend played by Wilde.

“Olivia Wilde is a friend of mine, and we had never acted together before and so that was just really fun to have that opportunity,” Lister-Jones, 38, explained. “And it was the first time she had left the house, so the electricity of that scene and us both just being genuinely excited to see each other was so much fun. We were all so desperately craving that even though we were afraid of it.

“So many actors were like, ‘Am I going to be able to be funny right now?’ And so here was this huge relief with so many of us when we were able to let go a little bit.”

Besides all the kooky celebrity distractions, “How It Ends,” which hits select theaters July 20, offers an intimate look at healing your inner child.

“In quarantine especially, we were all facing our most vulnerable selves, or our younger selves,” Lister-Jones said. “So I started to do more research into inner-child work with my therapist. Daryl was doing some of that too. Cailee was doing that too. We were all trying to figure out how to quell these deep anxieties and fears that we were feeling at this time, and a lot of that had something to do with how we talk to the younger person inside of us.

“So that spawned the idea. And because of the existential nature of the movie, we liked the idea of there being a metaphysical representation of Younger Self that we could play with in dialogue.”

Not having to obtain permits to shut down streets was another bonus to quarantine filming.

“It was very guerrilla-style shooting,” Spaeny said. “The streets really were that empty. It was right when everything was starting to get crazy. So no one was out. It’s a really cool time capsule of this moment and also a love letter to LA because I’ve never seen LA so still in a movie before.”

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