This story was originally published on Feb. 5, 2014

Musicians are intimidating. They are talented, spontaneous, often very good-looking, and sometimes a little temperamental. Whether you’re a fan, a groupie, or a journalist (like me), it’s not unusual to get a funny feeling in your stomach when you’re about to talk to a musician because you never really know what you are going to get. Talking to Lydia for the first time was no exception.

Leighton Antelman performing at the Fonda Theater. (Photo by: Rosemary Vega)

The indie rock band from Arizona got together in 2003. They’ve released four studio albums, all with a strong fan following. They’ve played at the Vans Warped tour, Bamboozle and the Zumiez Couch Tour. One could say they’ve accomplished a lot in the last decade, but Lydia has also dealt with its fair share of drama. In 2010 they went on a year long hiatus due to creative differences between the two original band members, Leighton Antelman and Steve McGraw. If you look a their Wiki page it seems like they’ve had a revolving door of band members. A search in Google images will produce photos with six band members and others with three. It’s all a little confusing and — needless to say — I didn’t know which iteration of Lydia I was about to meet. But, since the band had just come off a successful tour with the Maine and Anberlin, I was interested in finding out what they had up their sleeves next.

Justin Camacho, the band’s guitarist, met us at the entrance to the Fonda Theater. He had a big goofy grin on his face and seemed full of excitement as he led us to the backstage area. We walked through a hallway crowded with other musicians and after a few minutes arrived at the band’s dressing room. Leighton and Matt Keller (one of the newer band members) greeted us with handshakes and offered up bottled waters. Each band member pops open a beer. I realized fairly quickly that this encounter was going to be more hangout than interview.

“How has it been, touring with Anberlin and getting to tour with The Maine again?” I ask while looking for a place to set down my microphone/phone.

“Great,” Leighton says as he helps pull out a stool to put the phone on.

“Yeah, it’s been awesome,” Justin says.

Matt gives a thumbs-up and then laughs. “I put my thumb up, but the phone can’t hear me put my thumb up. It’s been a really good time. We get to play to a whole bunch of new people every night. Anberlin are super cool guys. And The Maine- we’re all good friends with The Maine, so it’s good to hang out with those guys too. It’s been a good time.”

“The tour has been over for a month maybe, and this is just a make up show, of course. But the tour was great. It’s fun to see these guys randomly,” Justin says.

“It was like a reunion, a little bit,” Leighton concludes.

“Was there a specific show on tour that you remember that was just really awesome?” I ask.

Matt stops to think for a minute. “I remember Salt Lake City being a really good time.”

“We had a great time in Salt Lake. Santa Ana …at the Observatory. I don’t know if you guys were at that one- it was probably one of the biggest shows of the tour. It was crazy how many people were there, and it was very exciting,” Justin says.

“It gets hard to answer that, because you’re out there for a month and a half… And something like, the venue you played in Idaho, in your mind is the venue you played in Seattle, and everything gets confused. You never know where you are, or what day it is,” Matt adds.

“We love them all,” Justin says, not wanting to leave any shows out.

“There hasn’t been a terrible one, let’s put it that way,” Leighton says.

After a couple of introduction questions, we start talking about the infamous hiatus. In May of 2010 the band announced that their summer tour would be their last. The tour was titled “The Lydia Finale: A Goodbye & Farewell Tour.” Leighton reported in several interviews that him and original guitarist, Steve McGraw, just didn’t get along anymore. McGraw was scheduled to play with Lydia in the farewell tour, but backed out a week before the shows started. Lydia drummer, Craig Taylor eventually convinced Leighton to find new band members and continue releasing music under the Lydia name.

Lydia goofing around backstage a the Fonda Theater. (Photo by: Rosemary Vega)

“When you guys went on your hiatus, there was some drama about why you guys broke up, especially with Steve. How are you guys now, do you have any kind of relationship at all?” I ask Leighton.

“Yeah, absolutely. Um, we just played a festival in Colorado- he lives in Colorado. So he comes out to all of our shows in Denver- that’s where he lives. So there’s no beef there.”

“He got me into the band,” Matt chimes in.

“He’s a good dude, it was just kind of wrong time and the wrong place for both of us. So we kind of had to part ways. We just wanted to do two different things. It wasn’t anything personal. It was just musical, I guess, I don’t know what you want to call it,” Leighton says.

“There was a fork in the road,” Matt says.

“Yeah. That’s really all it was, it wasn’t anything like, I punched him in the face, you know,” Leighton says with a laugh.

A punch in the face would have been more exciting from a storytelling perspective, but the break up was actually pretty tame according to the group.

“That would have been an awesome story,” I say.

“Yeah, that would have been a way better story for sure,” Leighton agrees.

“You should just start telling people that,” Matt says.

“Absolutely should. But no, we still talk, for sure. He’s a good guy. He’s crazy, but he’s a good guy.”

“He is crazy…” Matt says, his voice trailing off.

Originally scored by composer Brad Fiedel, the “Terminator” franchise has one of the most iconic and identifiable movie score hooks in the history of film. DUH-DUN DUN DUH-DUN! So how do you write a movie score that can stand by itself, but still pay tribute to and incorporate the original?

“Terminator Genysis” composer, Lorne Balfe. Photo credit: Peter Oso Snell

That was the task Lorne Balfe (Dark Knight, Sherlock Holmes, Iron Man) had in composing the music for one of 2015’s big releases, “Terminator Genisys.” Balfe has worked on several summer blockbusters and has collaborated with iconic movie composer Hans Zimmer on multiple projects including massive video game franchises like Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, and Crysis –to name a few.

‘To me, the reason I kind of love film and I kind of love TV and games is the whole point of escapism. It’s that period of 90 minutes where you get to forget about your problems in life and just escape and delve into another world,” Balf said about why he likes working on blockbusters. “Critics are always going to have a point of view regarding something, and such is life. But the thing is that just being able to go and have that piece of escapism and have action and have laughter and have fun and feel emotion is surely what this is all about.”

The “Terminator” family of movies has always been considered a dark saga of films –with little to no hope on the horizon for the human race– and the scores for the previous films were created to reflect that darkness. According to Balfe, what always fascinated him about the original score was that, “it was music, but it wasn’t necessarily what we would describe as music, it was more organic sound being manipulated.”

We asked Lorne about another movie franchise, “Superman,” of which legendary composer John Williams did the original score and the decision by Hans Zimmer to move away from that score in his composition of “Man of Steel.” If you listen to “Man of Steel,” very little, if any of John Williams’ “Superman” themes are used during the course of the film.  This is likely attributed to the new look and tone of the film. While the original stories are somewhat similar, in “Man of Steel,” the tone is much darker and serious and the score reflects that.

Balfe decided not to use the same approach as Zimmer.

“The tricky thing with it is –that it’s always one of the first conversations that happens, really, especially with franchises and sequels– what are we taking from the past? And obviously visually, the characters may be the same, the characters’ names might be the same, but of course it will look different, or there’s a different angle to it,” Balf said of the approach he took in creating the score for the latest installment. “And I think right from the beginning, we kind of all knew that, especially because there are scenes like Griffith Park when Arnold is walking up to the punks, it’s identical and it’s like why do a brand new piece of music underneath that arrival? You lose the whole point of it, it’s an homage, it’s meant to kind of bring you back to that feeling of when you first watched it. If we didn’t do it, we would have ended up cheating the fans really.”

In writing for “Terminator: Genysis,” Balfe made it paramount to stay true to the roots of the original music and in doing so, was able to weave in some synthesizer laden beats that you can hear throughout the orchestral score of the film.  More importantly, purposefully using the original theme at certain points during the movie was a strategy that Balfe employed to “represent the legacy of the original score.”

The latest installment in the “Terminator” franchise, “Terminator Genisys,” is a film that completely turns the original storyline on its head while straddling the line of charming and quirky with some of its dialogue. In the end, the score is an entertaining homage to the original and successfully lays the groundwork for the series going forward.

It’s 1969, during the height of the Vietnam War and Charlie is on his way to Michigan Tech University while his best friend Derek is anxiously counting the days until he becomes eligible for the draft. Before the two friends are forced to face their inevitable futures they decide to take a final adventure as kids. Together they embark on a 1,300 mile bike ride along Lake Superior. Thus begins the epic adventure that is director Edd Benda’s feature film debut, “Superior.”

The film debuted at the Dances with Films Festival in Los Angeles on June 5th. Hollywood Times Square recently got the chance to sit down with Benda, producer Alex Bell and cast members, Thatcher Robinson and Paul Stanko to discuss the film, shooting on-location, and making the world a better place.

So the film is set in Michigan, are you all from the Midwest?
Benda: I’m from the Midwest and one of our producers Steven Halstead is also a Midwest guy, but yeah as the writer and director that’s where I drew my inspiration.

I read that the film is inspired by a true story?
Benda: It is, it’s inspired by my uncle Carl and his cousin who took this bike ride in 1971, this 1,300-mile ride around Lake Superior. That kind of became the backdrop for me to tell a lot of stories within one. My dad is one of nine kids and they grew up, as Paul described it, in the “Footloose” household with no dancing and kind of a lot of restrictions on entertainment, so their source of adventure was to go out and create their own. And so what “Superior” became was kind of a conduit, a patchwork quilt if you will, of all their respective childhood adventures.

 Since the original bike ride was in 1971 was there a particular reason why you set the movie in 1969?
Benda: In setting it against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and the Vietnam War draft, in researching and really beginning to understand that time period, 1969 kind of became an important crux for all of that in the United States. While the film isn’t about that and isn’t singularly dealing with that, it was important to create that environment and that community.

I appreciated that the film didn’t favor the Michigan Tech path, but it kind of paints a bleak picture of both paths, with all the imagery of death and literally sleeping in coffins…
Stanko: It’s interesting, when I got the script I actually saw it as an incredibly optimistic story, where it’s two young men seizing this moment in their lives to either surrender themselves to their futures and just go their separate ways, or you know, to take one last great adventure and really quite literally take their story into their own hands. I think particularly for my character Derek, there’s a big crossroads that he’s at in life and the choice is either a bleak future where people continue to force him in the directions that they believe he’s only suited for or there’s a chance to break free and be his own man. I think that the story and Ed’s directions and Alex’s cinematography really do a wonderful job of capturing those moments that we all have in our lives where we can either choose to continue down the path that’s easy or the path that’s been set for us, or break away and try to make our own adventure in this world. To me it’s a story of optimism and hope and that you’re never locked on to one road, there’s always a divergent path to take.

Yeah, you see that in the cinematography, there’s always literally crossroads and other paths.
Stanko: Crossroads! Yeah totally!

Benda: Alex here is our cinematographer so he certainly had that in mind.

What was the filming process like for you, on location in Michigan?
Stanko: Oh man, how much time do you have?

Robinson: How many bugs can you write about?
Benda: It’s a story that spans almost a month, on June 19^th 2014 we loaded up three sedans, a pickup truck, and a trailer and we drove 3600 miles 3.5 days to this remote region in the upper peninsula of Michigan, where the reward for everybody weathering that journey was the 11 of us then crammed into a tiny little cabin where we got to live for the next month. So then we were in Michigan for 28 days; we filmed for 21 of them. We really built in a lot of time to kind of enjoy where we were, which was important to me and I think reflected a lot in the film is everybody had a strong sensibility of where we were and what we were doing. And then at the end of those 28 days we loaded up our 3 sedans and our pickup truck and our trailer that all had nicknames, and drove back to Los Angeles and I think one of my favorite moments of that road trip and simultaneously one of the most heartbreaking was we stopped in Barstow at a Chipotle to have lunch, and it was an unnecessary stop. We could have continued all the way to Los Angeles but we stopped to have this meal that we didn’t need because I believe, and I think that was reflected by a lot of our crew, is it was hard to come to grips with being back in Los Angeles and being back in the urban sprawl in the city because we lived this adventure for a month and I loved every minute of it, and it was hard to come back to reality.

Robinson: I’d say the buzzword if you need to describe or if you even can describe this whole process, the filming process, the production process in just a word it’s adventure. There’s no part of this film that isn’t an adventure and it continues! Even here at dances with films!

So what are you guys working on next?
Benda: Alex Bell and I have been working together for a while now and we have a few potential films down the pipeline, none of them far enough down the road to discuss at great lengths. Superior has been our singular focus for the last year and a half and will continue to be for the time being, but I look forward to having another Beyond the Porch production for the two of us. And certainly working with Paul and Thatcher a whole lot more in my career. This isn’t the last film. This is just the first one.

Robinson: As of now I have a tiny role in a film in August which I’m shooting for about a day in the bay area and from there on out there’s stuff maybe next year. But right now [the focus is] getting better in acting class. There’s always something to do, it’s never something where you can sit back and wait for the next thing.

Stanko: I am in a Harry Potter fan franchise called “Severus Snape and the Marauders,” and I play a young Remus Lupin in that, so that’s coming out in October. I’m also in a play right now called “Might as Well Live” that’s going up at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. It’s been amazing. That’s one of the great things about being in Los Angeles and I think these guys will agree with me, as an independent artist and that’s very much the circuit we’re a part of, there are wonderful opportunities. Dances with Films is a great one for film and Fringe is great for theater, but this is a city that really allows people to make art and to tell stories and it’s just cool to be here.

Bell: I do a lot of documentary work with the Salvation Army, so when the Nepal earthquake struck, they sent a team out to do disaster relief work and to set up displacement camps and get food distributions and medical aid, so I was part of a team that went out there to document that. Less than a week after the earthquake hit I was on the ground for 10 days getting to capture people making a difference in this world, so that was pretty cool and I’m right now preparing for a big event in London this month.

Stanko: See, Alex is out there making the world a better place while I’m pretending to be a wizard.

You know, everybody makes the world a better place in their own way.
Stanko: Yeah, right? That’s great.

There’s a scene where you, Paul, stop by the river and you leave something there and the camera pans on it but then it never really cuts back to what was left.
Benda: Earlier in the film they talk about being pragmatic with what they pack and we have kind of a brief little joke where Paul as the character Derek has severely overburdened his bicycle so when we stop by the stream it’s Derek acknowledging, ‘Alright I packed way too much stuff’ and he had to leave some stuff behind, he had to leave a lot of what he brought and really simplify his ride.
Stanko: It kind of was like in my mind, that was the moment that I let go of all the comforts and the things that I think I need to be successful and to survive, and the reality is all you need is a best friend and a bike and a hell of a lot of gumption. So that’s Paul Stanko’s esoteric and philosophical answer, that was the burden of life that we left behind.
Benda: That’s how I wrote it of course.

What do you get when you combine filmmaking, social media and 15-year-old girls? Well there are a lot of things you can get from that combo, but in this case we get “Fan Girl.”

“Fan Girl” follows Telulah Farrow (Kiernan Shipka), an ironic high school sophomore who decides to bring her two passions together for a final project: making movies and her favorite band. In typical high school fashion, Telulah put off her film class project for too long –she was too busy trying to get All Time Low’s attention on social media– and ends up with just a few days to create a killer final project that could bring festival fame. As she scrambles to put her project together Telulah also gets a once in a lifetime chance to see her music idols in concert. So she formulates a plan to bring the two together. Accompanied by smart mouthed wing-girl Jamie (Kara Hayward), and her underachieving, super senior film class partner Darvan (Joshua Boone) she sets off to create the ultimate “fangirl” video.

We got a chance to talk to Shipka and the rest of the cast about the film and their own fangirl moments at the L.A Film Festival premiere for the movie. Check out some of the clips below (you can find all of them on our YouTube channel).

Emily Ting’s name has shown up in movie credits as a producer for years, but it wasn’t until recently that she decided to take a stab at directing. In her directorial debut, “It’s Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong,” Ting examines the concept of emotional cheating and the parameters that define exclusive relationships.

Jamie Chung and Bryan Greenberg star in the romantic indie flick, as Ruby and Josh.  Chung plays Ruby, an Asian American woman whose visit to Hong Kong is shaped by a random encounter she has while trying to meet up with her friends.  Greenberg portrays Josh, an American expat who leads Ruby on a seemingly romantic journey through the streets of Hong Kong. After spending the night getting to know each other and strolling through the cityscape, a miscommunication between the two sends them each on their own way, but it’s not the last time the universe puts them together.

“It’s Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong,” premiered at the LA Film Fest on June 12th, and Hollywood Times Square got to sit down with Ting and the cast to discuss the film and the inspiration behind it.

So the film is pretty autobiographical, right?
Emily Ting: Yes so, on one level I am a toy designer so Ruby’s job is very much my day job and I was also able to plug a couple of my favorite toys, Justin Beaver and Moos Like Jagger. But in addition to just like having the same job, I channeled a lot of myself into the Ruby character in terms of what I was feeling when I was living in Hong Kong as an expat, you know the irony of being Asian, being a fish out of water in Asia, so all of that was very autobiographical. And you know on top of that the whole thing was inspired by a real life encounter. So there’s so much of me in this film for sure.

So how did you, Bryan and Jamie, get involved with the project?
Jamie Chung: Bryan worked with Emily on two different projects, I met Emily on one of the two that she was a producer on, and this is the way I remember the story, you [Bryan] tell it differently, but–
Bryan Greenberg: We’ll let Emily tell it
Ting: So we were at the Kitchen premiere in LA, and I was chatting with Bryan and he’s like ‘Oh are you working on anything new’, ‘Well yeah I have this script about this Asian girl who goes to Asia and its like an interracial love story,’ and Bryan’s like, ‘Did you know my girlfriend’s Asian?’ I was like ‘Yeah I think I do,’ so I did that very like sly Hollywood thing like, ‘Do you mind passing the script along to Jamie.’
Chung: See!
Ting: But that’s only because it was written as a British expat originally, but then when I sent it to him I said ‘Look, if you guys wanna do it together, its so easy to re-write the part’, and to cast a real live couple, that would be the dream.
Greenberg: I guess we’re both right.
Ting: It’s a dream come true to be able to work with a real life couple. Like I know its difficult for you guys, but for me as a director I’m like, ‘Oh they already love each other,’ like they don’t have to pretend to be falling in love because when you’re making a romance chemistry is like the biggest factor, and you can’t engineer chemistry you either have it or you don’t. They clearly have it cause they’re getting married, so for me I just like turned the camera on and they just exuded so much chemistry it was like ‘Oh my god this is like rom-com gold.’
Greenberg: And the first time we read it, when she gave us the script we just read it because we were like ‘I dunno, I don’t even know if she can write’, because I’ve only worked with her as a producer.
Ting: You were reading it as a favor.
Greenberg: We’re like, ‘Let’s just read it, lets just read it out loud and then we’ll know what to tell her.’ And honestly we were like, this script is good, like we loved the concept, the dialogue was really smart and the characters were refreshing, the setting was refreshing and interesting and real and honestly, I think Jamie is an unbelievable actress and shes never really gotten the chance to be like this romantic lead. She always talks about like ‘Man I really wanna do one’ so I was just really excited for Jamie to really get chance to shine because I think she’s so good in this movie, so charismatic, and audiences haven’t seen that side of her so it was really an honor to be able to work with her and see her. She’s so good in this movie.

What I loved about it is like, in other romances they kind of fast forward through the part where they’re actually falling in love until they get to a conflict or something, but the whole movie is just you guys, and the moments that make you fall in love with each other.
Chung: I really do think the hardest part about this film wasn’t anything towards the ending, like the second act was easy for me personally, you know emotionally but the hardest part was unknowing each other, that moment when they first meet. I do think there still is like a hint of familiarity, you know what I mean? But I think that was the most challenging part.
Greenberg: Yeah we got separate hotel rooms.

Did you? I was going to ask!
Greenberg: Yeah no, we stayed in different rooms.
Chung: He was totally fighting it in the beginning. But he was like, ‘This was actually a good idea.’
Greenberg: I didn’t want that! I was like ‘What, we’re going to Hong Kong together and you wanna get separate rooms?’ That sucks!
Chung: But I looked at it as like, we’re working 12 hours.
Greenberg: And she was right, because honestly we needed a break.
Chung: I don’t know any couple who works together and then goes home.
Greenberg: And it was a rough shoot because it was hot, and we were shooting on location, and it was hot.
Ting: Did he mention it was hot?
Greenberg: And you know with the crew, not everyone spoke English, not everyone spoke Cantonese so it was not the easiest shoot, so it was nice to have a little downtime. And maybe it did build the chemistry a little bit.

When you guys were acting were there moments where you forgot it was supposed to be Ruby and Josh and it just felt like Bryan and Jamie?
Ting: I will say in the Temple Street Market there were definitely moments where you were like ‘Hey Bryan, look at this!’
Chung: Oh I know! And I was like ‘Oh shoot are using sound?’ But that moment was like, literally us, like we were trying to shop.
Greenberg Yea, that was cool because she would just let us go and we were improv-ing a lot
Ting: That was all improv.
Chung: The haggling part I am genuinely terrible at, but I was really trying to buy a selfie stick.
Greenberg: And you did, you bought that one.
Chung: I did, I bought it. I took it home.
Greenberg: It’s a little dated now ‘cause selfie sticks are so big.
Chung: But back then you could only get it in Asia.

Another thing I really loved about the film was how it plays with time, and even in the title obviously, the film is concerned with timing, were there ever moments where you tried to intentionally play with the time or did you just let the pace of the city do that for you?
Chung: It was super intentional, you were like ‘Jamie needs a watch, you need to be looking at it.’
Ting: Because the whole thing takes place over the course of two nights and we shot it over two weeks,  [we needed] to keep everything consistent throughout like this is one night. And the thing with shooting everything exterior in the start of typhoon season is that you can’t control the weather. And it rained every single day that we were there but somehow when we would roll cameras it would stop.
Greenberg: Well we had a blessing ceremony
Ting: We did! We slaughtered a pig.
Chung: We didn’t slaughter the pig
Ting: The pig was already slaughtered.
Chung:: We ate the pig.
Greenberg: So you know you show up on set and usually you get your call sheet and its like where you have to be for rehearsal, and then we got the call sheet and its like ‘Okay you have the blessing ceremony’, and we were like ‘what?’ And this is something that they do for every film, it’s a blessing ceremony ceremony with this pig–
Ting: That’s slaughtered beforehand, and roasted, and then we get it.
Greenberg: It was a very interesting experience but apparently it worked ‘cause it did not rain.

What are you guys working on next? Do you have any upcoming projects?
Chung: Do we? You [Bryan] have some stuff in the works that you cant really talk about. I have some stuff that I don’t wanna jinx. We have Flock of Dudes at the LA Film Festival, and he just put out an album.
Greenberg: Yeah I just put out an album two weeks ago called Everything Changes, yeah I’ve got a couple things in development.
Ting: I have a couple scripts that I’ve been attached to to direct that we’re trying to go out to cast soon and find financing, but I feel like wuth a lot of these indie projects, they’re not real until you have money so there’s almost no point talking about it. We’ll see what happens.

Writer/director Patrick Brice’s second feature, “The Overnight,” is a painfully funny relationship comedy that explores thirty-something sexual frustration and parenthood.

The film centers around Alex and Emily, a young couple who recently moved to Los Angeles from Seattle. The pair are getting used to life in a new city and are desperate to find new friends. After a chance meeting with Kurt at the neighborhood park, they agree to join hist family family for pizza night. The night starts off as normal first dinners do –slightly awkward, with small talk, but as the night goes on and the wine flows, things devolve to a point where both couples start to question who they are and what they want out of their relationships.

The film features an A-list cast that includes Taylor Schilling, Adam Scott, Jason Schwartzman, and Judith Godrèche. We caught up with them recently to discuss the film, L.A. stereotypes and some serious full frontal nudity that’s seen throughout the film.

On the nudity in the film:

Jason Schwartzman: It’s prosthetic genitalia… Adam Scott and I, after the movie screened, and we’d done a couple post screening type things… He always says, “So these prosthetic penises that we wore…” He casually gets it out there that it was a prosthetic. He’s always the one that brings it up. It was at South by Southwest that I realized- he wasn’t at that Q&A – and I was talking to this woman who was like “I just want to say, big shout out to male nudity and your penis.” And I was like, “Thank you!” I knew- I hit a moment in my brain where I knew. I’d tell her that this is not real, or I just go with it that it’s real. And I just went with it being real because she was so happy about male nudity in cinema and my penis and I just couldn’t break her heart. I realized that if unprompted or unasked, I will let it go that it’s um- like if you hadn’t asked that question I wouldn’t have brought up that it’s a prosthetic. I can only answer that if I’m asked.

When I spoke to Adam Scott before we did the movie he said, “You know we’re going to have prosthetics.” And I was not worried about wearing the prosthetic, I was more worried about the process of applying the prosthetic. Because I started thinking about those people who would work on a crew that would have to apply it, and what that would be like… To put the prosthetic on, they’re seeing it all- they’re seeing so much of you in so many ways as a person, but it was fine… But spiritually it was nice. If you had said to me that I was going to be in a movie about a pool party, and everyone was in a bathing suit I would be way more nervous. Cause you know, I’m not like in great shape from a distance. Or maybe from a distance I am in great shape. But I have like little wisdom handles. All that kinda stuff, and just in a bathing suit I’d be way more nervous. But because I was naked with this prosthetic on, it actually was like so much more extreme, that I felt way more relaxed being naked with the prosthetic than I would if I was in swim trunks the whole time. And I can’t explain the psychology of that, but that’s sort of like. It was very wonderful- it was just very liberating.

Jason and Judith at “The Overnight” press day

On the LA stereotype portrayed by Kurt and Charlotte:
Jason Schwartzman: I love that line in the movie where Adam says, “Maybe this is how dinner parties are in LA.” I just think that line is so funny. I’ve never been at a party where it felt, I mean when I was in high school there were a lot of parties with people that felt like things might be happening. But I’ve never been in a situation where it felt it was going to go to a place where it was maybe uncomfortable for certain people. I’ve never been in a swingy situation. Maybe I have and I just didn’t realize.

Patrick (Bice) kept talking about these types of people, like Kurt, these kind of dads and I just couldn’t– But I live in the valley, so it’s a different type of dad. He kept talking about this east side dad and I didn’t know what he was talking about. I went to this birthday party just a month or two ago with my daughter and literally everybody was this character. They looked like him, they were talking basically about water filters, and I was like “This is so crazy!” Patrick really was on to something.

On real life party experiences:
Judith Godrèche: It’s kind of horrible because I don’t think I’ve been to a lot of parties. Been working super young, I started working when I was 9. So, I was never kind of a teenager. But I guess, that like the most amazing thing that happened to me at a party was when Mick Jagger sang Happy Birthday to me. It’s kinda like I’m showing off a little bit, but it was of course here in Hollywood. I was 20-something. I had a movie called “Ridicule.” He liked the movie, and I was at a party and someone must have said it’s her birthday. So he started singing “Happy birthday.” At that time, cause I’m extremely old, we didn’t have like cameras. I would have never like filmed- you know today, you film everything, right? Nothing can escape from you. There’s no evidence of it.
Jason Schwartzman: I’m not a real party person. I was in a band at a young age and I was uncomfortable at those parties. I just wasn’t comfortable at any type of party with lots of girls. In many ways you got to say, “Oh wow grow up and just move on past your high school experience. How long can it scar you for?” But I think there’s a residue always. Everyone in my band was really tall and really handsome, and like always swimming and I was always pretending to fall into the pool with my clothes on so I didn’t have to take off my shirt. I was more awkward so I didn’t really go to a lot of parties. I would just go play our shows and then eat soup somewhere.
Taylor Schilling: I’ve never been to party… (laughs)

On shooting such an intimate film in just eleven days:
Judith Godrèche: We didn’t rehearse at all. Like we really, you know, shot the movie in eleven nights and had no rehearsal. We did a bit of improv, especially this guy (Schwartzman) who comes with crazy ideas which are always fantastic. But no we didn’t rehearse. It was shot so quickly, like we just met and did the movie. We didn’t even really know each other, at all.
Adam Scott: Well it was really fun to work that fast, I thought. And we shot the whole thing at night…We would come to work at 6 pm and go home at 6 am. We shot at 1 location, essentially. So it was kinda cool because we were making this movie when the rest of the city is asleep. We’re up in this house at the top of this hill doing this thing and it felt like we were doing- like we were doing something we weren’t supposed to be doing. And we were doing this secret project. You could literally look out on to the city and everyone’s asleep but we’re up making this weird movie. So it was kinda fun. It was a fun, familial atmosphere, and there was few of us, so it was kinda intimate.
Taylor Schilling: It is an interesting thing though, when you meet somebody and the chemistry… Chemistry is very, did I already say this? I dont know if I said this already, but it’s a very nebulous thing. It is kind of a cool thing, and I like that about my job. I get a chance to meet people and when it works it ends up being like “Oh! There’s a kindred fellow on this path.” Then you just sort of have this necklace of people that just stort of- you just have this connection that I think is quite intimate.
Adam Scott: And it’s weird because Taylor has a necklace of just the fingers of her costars and she brings it to work.
Taylor Schilling:Yeah it’s just a part of my process. They were all very interesting, so…

Director Ben Chace‘s new movie “Sin Alas,” isn’t just a film with a dreamy look into an aging writer’s past, it is also the first American-directed film shot in Cuba since the revolution, making the story behind the production just as intriguing as the movie itself.

The film starts off with 70-year-old author, Luis Vargas as he discovers the woman he had a brief affair with as a young adult, has passed away. That night he can’t sleep and is tormented by pieces of a song from his lover’s famous dance performance in 1967. Luis is unable to forget the song and soon sets off on a mission to complete the melody as a way of letting go, but is led even deeper into a world of memory he has spent decades trying to forget.

Chace uses Luis’ predicament as a way to send audiences through different periods in Cuba’s history and it is a visual treat. We sat down with the director to discuss the film and what it was like filming in Cuba.

Tell me a little about the inspiration for the film; the thought process behind it.        
Well, I really wanted to shoot something in Cuba, but I didn’t know how I was going to do that as an American. As an outsider, what story could I tell and make it real and make it meaningful? I had been down there a couple times before with my friend who is Cuban-American who was like on a roots discovery mission, and I always loved Cuban music and was just fascinated, I wanted to check it out. We ended up filming a little, very homemade documentary that was just me and a camera kind of visiting the places his father grew up. I fell in love with the culture and the country and I was thinking about how to capture it, and I went back to New York and spent a few years making other movies, but I was always thinking like ‘Ok I want to get back to Cuba and shoot something’ still wondering how to do it. And then I was reading Jorge Luis Borges, he’s a short story writer. All of his short stories fit in one book, from his whole career, and I always just go back to it and I was reading it again one day and I read the story of “El Zahir” which is about an old man. In that one he becomes fixated on this image of a coin, but it starts off when he goes to a woman’s funeral that he was in love with many years ago. So it’s about the idea of something being unforgettable and its also this kind of like labyrinth, a psychological labyrinth. I thought that was a great starting point to try to build a story in Cuba because Cuba’s all about memory and the past is always present when you’re there. It’s unavoidable because things haven’t changed, and you’ve got the reminder that you’re living in the revolution, like it’s always there, it’s inescapable.

Ben Chace

I really liked the stylistic choices that separate the time periods, with the 60s shot in a hazy light and the 40s in black and white. When you were choosing to make them so clearly different was there a thought behind which era was going to look which way?
Yeah, well, there was definitely planning. We wanted to make the 60s stuff look like… I was trying to recreate in a way or illustrate the way memory works. And kind of how in some ways you stylize your own memories, you make things more grandiose. This affair that he had, he thinks of it like a Hollywood movie and he was like this young telenovela star in a tuxedo and that’s how he thinks of himself, in his heyday you know? And now he’s this kind of washed up old man trudging around in this gritty environment, but we wanted to really polarize that and add contrast to that because it also illustrates the difference of now and then in Cuba. So we shot it all on the same film stock, but we always knew that we would treat it differently. We shot the 60s stuff all on tripods and dollies, its smooth and we’ve got the fake rain machine behind it and we did all this lighting and stuff to try to make it look like a 60s Hollywood film as much as we could with this low budget –and the current day stuff it was mostly just natural light handheld in real locations. We did set dressing, but the sets are as naturalistic as possible, and we wanted it to have the rough and tumble feel of central Havana. Then in post-production we were able to push it a little farther, I actually found looks from those bold eras and we just emulated them. The look of the 60s is actually something called Magenta Fade, which is what 16mm which was shot in that year looks like now if it hasn’t been preserved. The greens disappear so all of a sudden things become kind of red and blue, I found some old footage from like the Soviet Era, I don’t know where it’s from but it was Eastern European stuff and when you see it you know.

So you shot it on location in Havana?
Yeah, in Havana and Hershey.

What was that like?
It was incredible, it was really amazing.

Was it difficult to get everybody out there or did you use all Cuban actors?
Yeah, yeah, everyone was Cuban, the only Americans were myself, my producer, and the cinematographer. So the crew and the cast were all Cuban. But you know you run into different things. It’s hard to move people around, move anything around. Cuba functions completely differently to America, but it’s a challenge to make any low-budget film, it was just a different set of challenges.

Do you speak Spanish?
Yeah, I mean pretty well. Well enough to get myself there, make it happen and get back.

I always wonder what it’s like to direct someone when you don’t speak the language the film is in.
I don’t know how that works exactly, but you know what I’ve learned just talking to other directors and making move movies, the key to direction is to do as little as possible. Just get the right people there and you know, make them like the script and cast the right people and they do their thing, you know. My one direction I gave usually, because one of the challenges as a director was to try to make a movie that could play to an American audience using Latin actors, and these actors are used to working mostly on stage and in telenovelas, so it’s a much more melodramatic thing that they do, that the kind of non-Latin audience, you know they don’t get that. So all I was doing was telling them to just bring it down a little, but, because you know they want to throw fireworks into every single line they deliver in a way so I was just like, bring it but a little less.

I also really liked the way the revolution is constantly present in the film without being touched on too explicitly, I was wondering if you had more to say about that, like how the revolution affects daily life in Cuba.
Well, it’s just, that’s the system that you have to contend with. And its unusual from our perspective, you know it’s hard to understand when you first get there because, I don’t know, it’s unique. It’s unique even to other parts of Latin America. I’ve traveled around Latin America pretty well and I don’t know it’s hard to describe really. It’s really hard to paint the full picture of it because it’s a holistic world that they inhabit and have to deal with and it manifests in the most grand philosophical terms and also in the most mundane daily stuff and it touches everything.

And I think American audiences especially don’t know very much about Cuba.
That’s the strange thing, and no one gets it. No one knows what the hell’s going on down there. I wanted to just show what people were going through and hopefully show that there’s just a lot of culture and humanity and great stuff there that in a way is suffering because of our ignorance of the situation. You know if we knew how fucked up it was down there we’d try to do something to change it but no one understands that we’re just given propaganda on all sides. We’re given this very thin and shallow idea of what is going on in Cuba you know? It’s like some woman dancing, Fidel, and what else do we know about it? A couple old cars. No one really knows what the daily struggle down there is like for people and my film I think touches on it, I think I did an okay job with this one character, but it goes deeper than that. You kind of have to go, and even if you go you have to spend a lot of time to get to the truth of it because people won’t say things out loud, there’s so much implicit stuff and there’s so much that you can say out loud and stuff you just have to witness. To me, it’s a labyrinth that’s why when I was like Borges, I was like what can I do to describe this, I need like a labyrinth blueprint to like tape images to and collect this thing and hopefully it will come close to representing something about the reality of that place.

Do you have any upcoming projects?
Well, I’m a musician, so I continue writing a lot of music and I’m trying to develop a documentary show that follows the development of rhythms over history. There’s just a lot of fascinating history and you get into it in Cuba. The guy who I’m hoping to work with, the composer, who did my scores, is this great Afro-Cuban guy from New York. There’s just all this great history of boats traveling from Africa to Haiti and from Haiti to Cuba, to New Orleans then to Chicago and New York and back down to Jamaica. If you learn about it you can actually hear how these beats slowly shift. I’m trying to develop a show that follows these musical currents.

Sin Alas premiered at the LA Film Festival June 11, 2o15

Amy Hargreaves may be best known for her role as Maggie Mathison “Homeland,”  but she’s a veteran who’s appeared in prestige films like “Shame,” and last year’s indie thriller “Blue Ruin.” This year, Hargreaves was given another chance to take center stage in Marc Meyers’ “How He Fell in Love,” a restrained drama about infidelity told without the melodrama and Scarlet Letter-type punishments we see in similar films.

The film starts with Travis (Matt McGorry), a young struggling musician who crosses paths with Ellen (Hargreaves), an older married yoga teacher who is trying to adopt a child with her husband. Travis and Ellen begin an affair that slowly turns into an intimate and profound love. As their encounters continue, Ellen must come to terms with what she wants out of her marriage while Travis must face the consequences of his actions.

We caught up with Hargreaves before the L.A. Film Festival premiere of the film to discuss her character and how she was feeling about the premiere.

The premiere is tonight- How are you feeling?
Excited. I’m excited. I was nervous last week and now I’ve gotten past that. I feel really pleased and really excited to share this with everyone. We did our work, and it’s out there for everyone to see it.

How did you get involved in the film in the first place?
…Casting wanted to meet with me for the role, and Marc the director, and Jody his wife, which is the producer, liked my work and were interested to meet with me for the role- in me for the role. So I went over and met with them, and it was kind of love at first sight for all of us. We really connected about the material, about the character, about the story, about the tone. They offered it to me. They had held out actually. I knew that they were really feeling me early on, like right after I auditioned. But I think they were gun shy to just offer it to somebody right away, because it was kind of early in the process. But then after like sleeping on it for a few days, apparently Marc was just like “You know what, Amy’s the one.” and just kind of called and said “That’s it, let’s make the offer.” So, I was happy.

What was it that drew you to the film initially when you read the script?
I love where this character Ellen is in her life. I feel I can really relate to this story, and I know a lot of women my age can relate to that moment in your life where you wake up and you look around and say “My gosh, I’m already kind of in the middle of my life. Is this everything? Is this- the love that I have for my husband, is this what it’s supposed to be? Is it enough? What does love mean? What does marriage mean? What does it mean to be a mother?” It looks into, it asks all these fascinating questions that I know a lot women my age have and that don’t always get addressed in film or on TV. So that initially, but it was also the fact that this is a character who embarks on an extramarital affair and I think that that’s something that in American cinema, you don’t really get to see addressed with that kind of organic and natural nature. A lot of time in movies like “Unfaithful” with Diane Lane the character that’s cheating has to be punished in some way, like beat up or killed, or some awful thing that’s happened. Whereas, we know, you know, and I know that people cheat and it just kind of happens, as a course of people’s lives, a lot of times. And this [film] addressed it in a really natural and organic way. It doesn’t approve of it, it doesn’t disprove of it, it just shows the story of these two people living their life this way. And I loved that about that, I loved that.

I agree. The way the film was made, you can really picture this happening to regular, everyday people.
Yeah, and it does happen to regular everyday people. So you know, it’s nice to present that in a natural way.

You mentioned that you really connected with what the character was going through in her life. Tell me a little more about that. Did you bring yourself into the character, how did you connect with the things she was going through?

Well, that’s a good question. You know, I’ve- for me, I always go back to what’s written on the page. So, um, I’m obviously, you know, the same age range as she is, and I’m a mother, and I know how much that means to me. And I’ve been through marriage and divorce and all kinds of big life changes. And I have a lot of good girlfriends who are in my age range too, that- you know, we go through a lot when we’re you’re in your early 40s. It’s either, you know, you’re coming out of motherhood or you’re just finally having a baby, but also at the same time your parents are starting to get older and starting to get sick. So everywhere I look, every one of my girlfriends has an emotional life thing happening and you can call it a midlife crisis but it’s not really that. It’s just kind of a natural progression of life. So, for me, it just kind of jumped off the page at me that it’s just so- such a real kind of story. That’s not specifically relatable to my life, but just relatable to the women I have around me and the things that I hear and the things that I have experienced in my friends’ lives and my life.

Were there any scenes when you were filming that were really memorable or particularly difficult for you?
Sure, there were a lot of difficult scenes. There’s a lot of emotional stuff and for me, that’s always difficult because it’s- it’s just, you’re going there. And you’re going to deep dark places so. Off the top of my head, when I come over to the Travis’ apartment in the middle of the night- I mean it’s funny cause when you see a still of it or you see a clip of it it looks kind of like this erotic, kind of sexy scene, but it’s actually kind of like a fight scene, when I come over and we start kissing against the wall. That was, really, that was difficult because it was very emotional, emotional point in the movie, and um. And Marc had decided to shoot that, very loose, very handheld, which we all loved. We’re like, “Let’s do it!” So, we kind of just broadly choreographed the idea of what was going to happen. And then we just kinda went for it. By him allowing us to shoot it that way, it really allowed Matt and I to really carry emotions through the beginning and end of the scene. There weren’t cuts, there weren’t pick-ups. It was just like, “Let’s just do this.” So that was very emotional. Another difficult scene was when I come back at the end of the movie, and visit Matt, like a few months later, and we talk in his kitchen..(?????) That was difficult for both Matt and I, we really had- it was just emotional. It was just really emotional to play. Those were the most difficult parts that I can remember at the top of my head.

I read an interview where you said you cried when you watched the movie. What made you…
Oh really? I said that?

Yeah!
Oh, I thought that was my secret. Yeah, I did. It’s funny cause I was in South Africa last year for “Homeland” in Capetown, and Marc had sent me and Matt a link to the finished film on like a Vimeo link, like a protective link and I literally had an iPhone. I was sitting in my bed in Capetown, watched the whole thing on an iPhone, and I was like crying! I finished and I texted Matt, “I saw it, you were so great. I’m really happy, and I cried, I feel like such a dork.” And he writes back to me, “I cried too!” So, it really shook us, and I’m happy about that. Because obviously we know what’s going to happen at the end, and if we’re crying, it’s meaningful.

If I talk to him I’m going to tell him you spilled the beans about him crying.
Oh no.. He’s a sensitive dude. He’s sweet and he’s got a good heart.

How was it working with Matt?
It was a pleasure. I have to say, going into a movie like this, if you don’t trust- you have to have an insane amount of trust in most importantly the director, but then secondly the actor that you’re standing across from for a month or six weeks or however long it was, and doing these kind of- not just the emotional stuff, but the physical stuff too. If you’re working with someone that you don’t trust, or that you don’t feel comfortable with, it’s a game changer. So, I was lucky enough to read with Matt when I- I had been been cast in the role and there were two different guys that they were considering- and I read with Matt, and I knew during his audition that he was somebody I could feel comfortable with. He was very- I’m going to say something that he did that was very respectful and was really interesting to me. We had, in the call back, so I’m reading with a handful of different guys, there was some physical stuff that was happening in the scene. And you can play that a lot of different ways in an audition. You can half ass it, you can go for it, but Matt was the only one out of the guys who spoke up before we started and was like, “Hey, where are we going with the physical stuff? What do you want to see.” And then looking at me and looking at Marc and saying, “Where are we going to go?” So then none of us would be surprised or uncomfortable with anything. And I thought, This is a guy- I can go into the trenches with this guy on a tiny low budget independent film where we’re half naked in this hotel room, sitting in Staten Island, shooting at three in the morning– I can trust this guy to be respectful and be a gentleman and be professional. But can also be a really charming, interesting actor, giving me great moments to play on. I felt really good, I was really thrilled when Marc and Jody chose Matt because I felt like he was really great, he’s going to be a great partner for me to play in this film.

I was looking at your Twitter earlier…
OH GOD! I’m so bad at Twitter. I don’t know what I’m doing.

Oh no, it was funny! But I saw that Matt tweeted at you that he’s a Yoga master. So I was wondering- who’s actually better at yoga, you or Matt?
I’m better at yoga! I play a yoga teacher in this movie, you saw it. Matt is a fitness freak. He’s really good at all that stuff. We’re total opposites. So, he’s like- lifts weights and knows the food to eat and is thinking about it, talking about, he’s very… I admire that… He’s very… He knows what he’s doing. I am like, kind of lazy, and I walk my dog, and I’m a New Yorker, so I walk all the time. But I don’t technically work out. The one thing I do do, is yoga. He’s not that flexible, not as flexible as I am, so I’m definitely better at yoga. He might argue with that. He was kind of annoyed with me cause I don’t really work out that much and he was pretty annoyed that I was in pretty good shape for not working out. Ask him about his ice cream obsession.

The next season of “Homeland” is coming out soon, is there anything you can share about the upcoming season?
Well, they just started filming so it’ll- they’re coming back full on around September, beginning of October. So right now- you know, the writers write the season as they go along. So, and they keep their parts very close to the vest, so what I can tell you is, I’m alive, my character. They’re flashing forward three years. Claire, that’s Carrie, is living in Berlin, not working for the CIA anymore. So I’m kind of like waiting to see what they’re- what the cards hold for my character this year. Maggie is always around to pick up the chips when Carrie Mathison screws up basically. So I’m sure that I’ll have to come in and save the day at some point.

Other than Homeland, do you have anything else planned. What’s next for you in the next few months?
Honestly, right now, my next big exciting thing is I’m taking a road trip with my family, including my 82 year old dad to Niagra Falls, for like ten days. We’re driving from New York to Niagra Falls. So I’m super excited about that and then, I have a couple other independent films that are in can, and I’m going to be starting to promote those. So there’s one called The Preppie Connection with Thomas Mann. Thomas is coming out in “Me, Earl and the Dying Girl” like this week, and he’s amazing. I play his mother in this, it’s a great great great indie. So between “How He Fell in Love” and “The Preppie Connection” I’m kind of excited to see where these movies all pick up…

Have you been to Niagra Falls before?
I was in Niagra Falls when I was 10 years old. I’m a little nervous, because– I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but there are two prisoners– like two murderers, who escaped from maximum security jail in New York, and we’re going to be driving through that area. So I’m hoping that they catch these guys before we drive through, these insane murderers– I actually tweeted that at Matt…

“Orange is the New Black” star Taylor Schilling recently ditched the show’s signature beige jumpsuit to star in the summer comedy “The Overnight.”  In it, Schilling plays one half of a couple who move to LA and end up having an overnight adventure with another couple who wants them to take part in some group sexual antics.

It’s a far cry from what she does on “OITNB,” but even when she’s doing something completely different, it’s hard to get away from talking about Piper. We spent some time with Schilling at the press day for the film where she talked about staying the night in prison. Ok, she hasn’t actually stayed overnight in a prison, but Schilling did tell us about her experience visiting a prison and a little more about what’s to come with “OITNB.”

When do you begin filming “Orange is the Black?”
Taylor Schilling: Middle of June, I think. As of now, we go back for the 4th season. I just- I’m really excited to see everybody spreading their wings. I think Jenji [Kohan] is just so brilliant, and just keeps pushing all these characters to their whits end.

The book “Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison” was just the one year in prison, so the show has gone way beyond that.
Schilling: I think the book really- I mean, sort of almost mid way through the first season, the book played its part. And it really just- the mind of Jenji and the writers…

Did you ever sleep overnight at a prison?
Schilling: No, I’ve visited. Before we started the first season, I made a decision to not go to any prisons.  Then, before shooting the second season-  around the time I think we finished our movie [“The Overnight”], I spent some time at Rikers with Piper [Kerman].

Where did Piper serve?
Schilling: She was in Connecticut at Danbury with Martha Stewart. I don’t think they actually overlapped. Yeah, it’s very powerful. The interesting thing about the time that I spent in the prison- and I’ve spent some time with the Women’s [Prison] Association now- and they just do such magnificent work. But the parallels between what our show is doing and what’s really happening even aesthetically, like being in Rikers, and the women’s camp- is so spot on and its bone chillingly accurate. It’s exciting work.

As a first time writer and director you only get one chance to make a first impression and for many the outcome isn’t pleasant. But director Oliver Thompson managed to make a visually beautiful film with a unique plot in “Welcome to Happiness.”

The film follows Woody, a children’s book writer who is also the gatekeeper to a mysterious door in his apartment that changes the lives of those who enter it.

We were recently given the opportunity to sit down with Thompson and other cast and crew members during the Dances with Films festival in Los Angeles, to see what they had to say about the striking film.

Producer Bay Dariz, actress Chauntal Lewis, and director Oliver Thompson attend the “Welcome to Happiness” premiere in Los Angeles

The film is so visually stunning, the set design and art direction are so beautiful, I really loved it. I heard that Woody’s apartment is actually your apartment?

Oliver Thompson: Yeah, Woody’s apartment is my apartment. The mural idea came to me pretty early on. We needed something visually compelling and I’d just been seeing a lot of murals, and I thought ok this would be cool if this is just something that’s there and becomes part of the story and part of the fabric of the story. He doesn’t even really know the story behind the mural, and then the mural seems to shift and grow and change but I knew how extravagant I wanted it to be, that it would take a while to do. And that was painted primarily by Bay, we designed the whole thing and I was like his painter apprentice, so he would just tell me like paint this whole big chunk blue and then he’d come in and turn it into waves you know, and I guess we knew that would take a long time, so I thought the only way to really realistically do this is to sacrifice my own place. We didn’t have the budget to rent someplace that we could just go work. That would have been ideal, to be able to rent a place and be working on it for three months of pre-production and then go home to a place that’s not a set.

Bay Dariz (producer): It was about 200 hours of painting.

Thompson: Yeah, , and then during the shooting I was sleeping on [Bay’s] futon, at his house, because my house was a hot set, it was not usable, it was not functioning as a home. Once they put all the gear in there you couldn’t even walk. So my house now is fun because clearly the mural is still there. It’s a fantastic hybrid now, it’s Woody’s apartment and mine, we kind of cohabitate. A lot of his stuff is still there because it was sort of just gifted to me after the film.

Paget Brewster (cast – Priscilla): I have a quick question, who was the art director? Was it you guys? Like did you do most of the decisions with the colors and the furniture?

Thompson: Yes I did that. We’ve credited my brother as production designer because my brother is an interior designer by profession, not in movies, in the real world. So what he was able to do for us was he would take my designs, my ideas that were all just sketched and then he put them in a CAD then you have a 3D rendering of the room. But I mean yeah I was the one on Lowes and Home Depots websites looking at wallpaper.

Brendan Sexton III (cast – Nyles): Good. It paid off.

Thompson: My pre-production time was primarily art direction. [Bay] was crazy with the business aspect of things and pulled it together, I can’t do that. I don’t have the brain to do what he did, so I was spending that time working with my bro and being our production designer. And then we had Heidi Koleto as our art and she was very instrumental. Once she came on board it was so great because I could say “Nyles needs to have one of those small mini fridges with faux wood paneling”, then I’m not the one who has to go find that now. Because for the first few months that was me, it was really nice to work with someone else who was just so good at knowing “Oh yeah I know I go here and I know that there’s this auction happening where we’ll be able to get his desk for $7.”

Dariz: I was gonna say, Nyles, his apartment, most of his furniture came from this old woman in San Dimas.

Thompson: Yeah Woody has an awesome little cassette deck, I found that cassette deck on Craigslist and so I drove out to the house and I was like “No actually I want everything that’s in here, this all needs to be in the movie” and she’s like “Well this is a woman who’s now in hospice and we are just auctioning off all her stuff” so Bay and I just drove back out there with the van and got Nyles’ awesome TV, and a bunch of weird 70s stuff for the walls and it was just that kind of thing you know, finding things piece by piece and storing them. It was really fun.

In terms of the storyline what was your main inspiration?

Brewster: He very eloquently earlier said that it grew out of these sort of discussions about the meaning of life at 4 o’clock in the morning, where your brain can kind of go maybe down a rabbit hole.

Thompson: Yeah I mean, I’ve been having those kinds of discussions since I was like 13. My mother is hugely influential for me in talking about those kinds of things, so I come from just a world of people who enjoy talking about “deep things” I guess for lack of a less stupid way to say it, so I think it’s just in me to write something like that. We were trying to make this horror flick that was a little simpler, as a genre film. And ultimately that just wasn’t going anywhere and I sort of had a little inner voice, that sounds so ridiculous to say, but it was just kind of like, “Hey, stop slitting people throats, how about all that stuff that you believe and you have in your heart, say that, Oliver.” And so that’s’ when this idea came to me and it was actually able to turn into a movie, so there might be something to that, I dunno.

In the film I noticed a bunch of pairings, like Woody and Ripley are both orphans, and the Monet book from Ripley’s past shows up in Proctor’s house in that first scene where Nyles is drawing the cat. So with all the different mirroring things, was there an underlying metaphor there?

Thompson: Oh, I don’t know. Woody, Nyles and Ripley are all orphans, I think its just about all these similar connections you know. Bay do you have any thoughts on that?

Dayriz: I think its just sort of that that is such a thing that makes you sort of question everything, and puts that character in a position where they are sort of having trouble moving on in their lives because they sort of missed something or they’re stuck in something, they can’t let go of something. That’s just such a thing that stifles people.

Brewster: What I took from it as an audience member watching the film, if you ask the question “could you change what happened in the past”, that’s the one thing that I would want to change, if I had lost my parents I without hesitation would desire the ability to change that. So I think that was really compelling to me, that it’s not a cut and dried answer and it’s not easy to say “oh everything happens for a reason”, no, there are things that we would respond to deeply, emotionally, if we had the ability to change that.

Yeah I could see that, without your parents I would think that’s where you feel the most lost, because they know you, they know everything about you.

Brewster: They’re responsible for your survival! You’re more dependent on them than anyone.

Thompson: It’s a theme I keep coming back to as I write. The idea of them all being orphans also sort of levels the playing field for all three guys, so like what Bay says, they each have an obstacle so it’s like “ok how is each one of them going to overcome it?” and hopefully they all do, right?

So about the button, when everybody is actually confronted with the button they realize they don’t actually have to push it, but when Woody meets Leah on the street it kind of implies that she did push it? Or do you feel like she did?

Thompson: No I don’t think she did. But what makes you think that?

Just in the way she phrases it.

Thompson: I think she’s just saying, you know you have the option. I think that she’s being a little coy I suppose. She’s not gonna say the whole thing, like this gives you the opportunity to do that, and they’ll talk you through this long winded thing and convince you not to. But it leaves you with the idea, which I’m glad it did. Because [Nyles] asks “Does anyone ever push the button?” and their response is weird. It’s totally ambiguous.

What are you guys working on now? Any upcoming projects?

Thompson: I think we decided today that we’re all going to work together again.

Sexton: Yeah we’re pretty adamant about that.

Brewster: Yeah we’ve been talking to these guys all day about how we want to form an ensemble troupe and keep making movies with Bay and Oliver.

Dariz: Oliver and I have a bunch of projects we’re trying to get out right now. We just finished this one like seven weeks ago so it’s trying to get this thing sold and get the next one going. Paget’s got a new show.

Brewster: I started shooting this show called Grandfather for Fox, that’s gonna start in the fall starring John Stamos and Josh Peck, and then hopefully next hiatus we make another movie.

Thompson: Welcome to Happier-ness