Are the Dating Misadventures in 'Good on Paper' Based on Iliza Shlesinger's Real Life?

Many of us have been in the type of relationship where we think we've met the person of our dreams, only to find out that they're the complete opposite of what we had expected.

Netflix's Good on Paper – written by and starring Iliza Shlesinger – sees the comedian play Andrea Singer, a successful but lonely stand-up who meets the man of her dreams ... or so she thinks.

While the movie is earning early praise for its hilarity and extreme relatability, viewers are most of all curious to find out whether the plot is based on Iliza's real-life dating experiences. The comic has been known to mine her own life for stand-up material, but is Good on Paper also a true story?

In Good on Paper, Iliza plays comedian Andrea Singer, who has always put her career before her personal life. All of that changes when Andrea meets Dennis (Ryan Hansen), a Yale-educated hedge-fund nerd who charms her into letting her guard down. 

However, when Iliza starts to fall hard for Dennis, her best friend Margot (Margaret Cho) points out that her new boyfriend might not be all that he seems, which prompts Andrea to go on a hunt for the truth. So, is this wacky love story based on real events?

Yes, Good on Paper is based on a real-life relationship that Iliza had the misfortune of experiencing in her thirties. The comedian told ComingSoon.net that every single lie Dennis tells in the movie is a lie that was told to her by the real-life Dennis, whom she also met on a plane. 

Iliza pointed out that the first two-thirds of the movie are pretty much a beat-by-beat replica of her experience with this person and that “the weirdest stuff is the truest." "It happened,” she revealed. 

This isn’t the first time Iliza has spoken about this ill-fated relationship in public. She previously discussed the relationship on a 2014 episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, as well as on Comedy Central’s This Is Not Happening.

She told the Daily News that she and the guy were good friends for about a year before they dated for three months. It was around then that she discovered he had been lying about practically every detail of his life. “I started to put together he had lied about every single thing since the day I met him,” she said.

While the storyline might seem outlandish to some, Iliza insists that there are plenty of people who’ve had similar experiences. She aims to create a discussion around “these sort of lying sociopaths that walk among us, because it was only in sharing the stories that so many people reached out to me and said, ‘Oh my God, I know a guy like this. I dated a girl like this. This is my roommate. This is my cousin.’”

Good on Paper is available to stream on Netflix.