- Hi, I'm Rosa Salazar, and I'm In Studio
with The Hollywood Reporter.
- Within the first few minutes of watching Undone,
I was thinking, this is the role
that every actor wants to play.
This person is complex and interesting
and we're in for kind of a roller coaster ride.
So how did it feel to land the role of Alma?
- It felt like that.
It felt like the first time I could lend
100% of myself to a role.
I mean, she's a mess, and that's like,
that's such a dream for an actor.
You know, there's so many layers there.
She's, you know, on the one hand
sort of like a sardonic, jaded millennial,
and on the other hand, she is completely,
she's very, very deep, there's a lot of depth to Alma.
And in many facets, I mean, she's always
going on these philosophical rants, these political rants.
She's someone who, I think, was,
I think she was disappointed.
She like, found out that the world can be very disappointing
at a very young age after losing her father.
So she has this scar that she's always dealing with,
which means that she's really funny, because--
- Right, the cynicism is funny.
- The cynicism, the humor is borne
out of this defense mechanism to cover up pain.
So, I mean, we have a lot in common, I'll just say that.
- Yeah, and, you know, the amazing creators
of BoJack Horseman and writers of BoJack Horseman
are writing this character.
I feel like there's no depth to the existential dread
that is Raphael Bob-Waksberg.
- Yeah, exactly.
- It's amazing, 'cause he's such a kind, friendly person.
And then he creates these characters that are, I wonder,
does this person, this person we all identify with,
'cause we're like, hey, I feel just as jaded
and just as cynical, and I can be just as much
of a jerk to my family or selfish or whatever.
But I wonder like, where does this person come from
that he creates, you know, BoJack and Diane.
- Well, none of us are immune.
I mean, that's what makes this,
that's what makes my job a job in the first place.
I'm telling stories, I'm telling our stories.
And it's really nice when you can tell a story
that is so immensely relatable
that come from the minds of writers
who have a way of expressing that.
I mean, we're all trying to articulate
what we're going through, and some of us
are just better at it than others.
And they're geniuses, you know,
Kate Purdy and Raphael Bob-Waksberg.
They're geniuses, and like I said,
they're not immune to the perils of being human.
- How would you describe the predicament
that Alma finds herself in at the beginning of the series?
- Which one?
- Yeah, there are several, there are several.
- I think there are several, there are a couple layers.
You have this person who is,
she's on the cusp of an existential breakdown.
She's seeing the monotony in life, and she's over it.
She's, okay, I wake up,
I eat the same breakfast, I go to work.
What else is there?
She's sort of asking, you know, like, is this it?
Because if this is it, I mean, that's really depressing.
She's also dealing with this trauma that has,
her father died, and she never really got over it.
It stays with her.
It's something that is so present,
and she wants to talk about it,
but no one in her family wants to talk about it.
They've sort of moved on, and she really hasn't.
She's stuck.
She's stuck in life, and she's stuck
with this traumatic event that happened.
But this show is so rooted in reality
even though it's rotoscoped.
And it goes on this surreal adventure.
It's so rooted in reality that it accurately,
I think, portrays what would happen
if you were able to go over the rainbow.
It would be scary as hell.
So she gets the chance to experience the, you know,
the other side of things, peek behind the curtain.
- So I see a lot of kind of companion pieces to this.
You see a lot of kind of, if you're a fan of The Matrix,
you're going to like where this show goes.
- Yes.
- Also Russian Doll. - Yeah.
- If you're a fan of Russian Doll,
you're gonna like the way this show goes.
Like, there are a lot of parallels.
There's, you're sorting out everything
from like, mysticism and shamanism
to astrophysics and, you know, what happens when you die.
- I'm loving all of these comparisons,
'cause I'm a huge fan of all of those.
And also we got compared to Fight Club,
and I was like, I guess I just quit.
Just quit now.
And I think because of the whole mental health
versus, you know, shamanic abilities
question that we put at the forefront of the show.
There's a, there's this ambiguity.
Is she crazy, or is she a wise one?
Is she a seer, or is she just a schizophrenic girl?
And we don't shy away from that question.
We put it right at the forefront of the show,
and I really, I really enjoy that
is she or isn't she storyline.
- Yes, I enjoy it, too.
Although I always root for the magic.
- Of course, of course!
We all do, don't we?
- [Marya] Yeah. - Yeah.
- Now, another piece of brilliant casting,
Bob Odenkirk as your father.
What was it like to play scenes with him,
and did you play scenes with him?
'Cause I'm not familiar with the rotoscope process.
- Yes, we did play scenes together,
and it is the highlight of my entire career.
He is, he's someone I grew up,
well, I'm gonna make him feel old.
But he's someone I grew up idolizing and watching.
Mr. Show with Bob and David.
He's just, he's such a genius, he's so incredibly talented,
and he's a good dude, he's a really, really nice,
great person, so it was such a joy to play with him.
He's so quick, so it's like, sparring with him in a scene
is like a master class in being in the moment.
Yes, we did perform scenes together.
So rotoscoping is the technique that,
it's tracing over live-action footage.
So we are acting, we are being filmed.
They just take that footage and then they trace over it
and then they hand paint it.
So if we were doing this scene
and we were gonna rotoscope it,
all we would have here are the cards you're holding
and these two chairs, and all of this background
would be hand painted by a classical oil painter.
No big deal.
And we would be filming it with cameras on sticks like this
with harsh lighting like this, and so we can get
all of the nuanced expressions on your face.
We don't miss anything, that's why we light it so,
in such a bright way, and then they'd take those cameras
and they'd move them wherever they need to to get
all of the different angles and shots they need to.
Then they take that footage, they cut it together,
and they rotoscope it, they trace it,
then they hand paint it,
and then they project it onto the oil paintings.
And because there's minimal setup, minimal lighting changes
and you just need to move the cameras on sticks,
you're working a lot more than you normally do
because if we needed to do this setup
and then they needed to move a camera or the lights
for my setup or your setup or a wide or a closeup,
it would take time, and we'd go to our trailers
and we'd smoke cigarettes and we'd play on our phone.
But that's just not the case with,
when you're doing rotoscope,
because there is no downtime, and we would shoot
anywhere between 10 to 23 pages a day.
- And as an actor, how do you, do you like that?
Do you find yourself kind of staying in the scene more?
- Absolutely.
I come from a theater background.
I didn't do as much theater as I wanted to
because I started getting paid to act.
And I was like, goodbye!
'Cause you know, there's an economical side to this, too.
But I love theater, and I love black box theater,
and it really felt like black box theater.
And it had the momentum of black box theater,
and you do get to stay in the moment.
And I don't like sitting around
and putzing around on my phone.
I like to be used.
And I remember telling my agent,
I just want a job where I can be used,
where they use me, all of me.
And I got my wish, yeah.
- And now, you also did motion capture
animation with Alita: Battle Angel.
So is there something about you,
the way you act or your physicality,
that lends itself to these
kind of special effects driven animation CGI worlds?
- Yeah, I think so.
I'm overly expressive.
I have a very expressive face.
I'm bad at poker.
There's a lot going on here, and I think that that's,
I think that's really what they're looking for.
I don't, I didn't seek out to just start doing,
to start animating myself, but God I love it.
And another thing animating an actor does
is it frees the actor.
I feel like it, for performance capture, it freed me.
Rotoscoping freed me from this mess, you know?
I didn't feel confined within the 3D limits of my body
and I felt like I could bur the character,
an entire character, from the ground up,
someone completely other than myself
who literally exists within another dimension.
And that sounds pretty damn cool.
- Does anything come to mind
like a strong memory of the actual filming process
with the rotoscoping that you can remember?
Like a particular scene that stands out to you.
- Well yeah, the car crash is very, it's extremely memorable
because it's a very emotional scene.
And it felt so good to be expressing that,
to make, to take this very intimate moment
we'd never admit to having, to take that moment
and put it as the catalyst to everything felt
so exciting to me.
That being said, it was one of the most depressing days
of the whole shoot because, you know,
you have to get yourself to that place.
- [Marya] Yeah, so you're-- - So you're there.
- A tear-soaked moment.
- Yeah, and it's not just a mechanical thing.
You don't just go, okay, I'm just gonna like,
make myself cry now and then I'll be there.
It comes from here.
It comes from your heart and your soul
and that's why actors are crazy.
- Well Rosa, thank you so much for being here.
- Thank you.
- The show is, the series is Undone, and it's on Amazon.