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- When I read the script, I sort of was intrigued
by every single aspect of it.
One, the first thing was A24, you know was,
that they've put out so many good movies.
They have like an almost spotless track record,
so I thought, well there's gotta be
something very interesting about this,
and usually I'm not a horror guy, acting-wise.
I watch every horror movie.
I'm actually obsessed with horror movies to watch,
but I always felt like, well what would I have to do?
Sometimes the characters are not as well-drawn
as in this particular script, and then I read it and I just,
I thought that even if there wasn't horror,
the horror elements of it,
just the character of Peter was one of the most nuanced,
well-drawn portraits of a teenager I've ever seen.
I feel like most teenagers
in film and TV
handle grief in a way that's sometimes unrealistic
and sets kind of an unrealistic expectation
of how you're supposed to handle tragedy.
And I loved watching someone not be able to deal with it
and shut down and internalize it
and put it in his stomach and sort of more
emulate a PTSD type of situation.
When it happens, I think as a young person
your first instinct is to avoid it
and to not let yourself feel all the things
that are happening and then,
it's more interesting, especially in a movie,
when it catches up to you.
You know, after you've tried to internalize it,
it kind of brims to the surface.
And I just, I thought that was so cool and so ballsy.
So automatically, I was just super excited
in the first 20 pages, and then by the end
I was just terrified and shaking,
and I felt like I just had to go in there and,
yeah, get down and dirty.
I think that there's this connotation of a horror movie,
where it's really more about the blood and fear
and not as much about the characters' arcs
or the dynamics between the characters.
And horror has almost become a dirty word,
and I feel like now we're in a
generation of movies that are not like that,
and it's sort of like a reinvention of the genre
with movies like Get Out and The Witch and this movie.
And I feel like it's just a little bit
of a simplification to call Hereditary a horror movie.
Even if the horror wasn't in it,
I think it would work really well as just a family drama,
and it would be dramatic enough,
but it just adds another element
of making you sick to your stomach
that it curdles into this nightmare, you know.
It just smokes crack halfway through and just is relentless.
It's like emotional terrorism, is what Ari calls it.
With a movie like this, I mean,
it's impossible not to be an open wound.
I think if you're not doing that,
then I don't know if you're gonna serve the movie.
I think me and Ari both decided
that I had to really feel all this stuff
or I don't know if Peter could be a fully-fleshed person.
You know, he's just, there's too much going on
to be able to fake it so I kinda just let it all come out,
and then after just tried to pull it all together.
It's sort of the process.
So, I felt like everything emotional fell into place
if physically stuff was tolling.
(bang)
(screaming)
But yeah, like the desk thing I said to Ari,
I was like "I'll do a real desk, man,
"give me a real desk. I'll do it."
Ari was like, "I really appreciate that,
"but I probably cannot legally let you do that."
So I was like okay, so I thought
that he was gonna give me this like nice foam desk,
is what he said, and then I showed up,
and it was like a foam top but it was a hard bottom.
And I was like, (inhales) "Okay let's do this."
and it hurt so bad just slamming
but I wanted to nail it.
So I mean, but automatically, I mean
if you slam your face against something and really hard
and you hit your nose really hard,
automatically you're like, you know, revved up.
So I tried to, at every single scene be doing,
something physically was bothering me.
I mean like, after that scene I remember
I had fake blood streaming down my whole, you know,
chin and my nose and all on my shirt
and then real blood gushing down my knee,
and I couldn't walk 'cause my ankles were all swollen,
because I had launched back into the chair,
and everything was all bloody and messed up, so,
yeah it's pretty easy then start crying and screaming
when you're literally in writhing pain.
But it was fun, I mean it was like exhilarating,
but wouldn't recommend it, wouldn't do it again,
not with this schnoz.
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