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onlydylanobrien · 3 years

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Finding hope during the monsterpocalypse

Love is explored honestly and equally throughout the film — whether it's the love between Joel and his pup, Boy, romantic love, or the love between found family in the aftermath of the monsterpocalypse. What drew you to this project? And what do you think audiences can take from these stories of hope and love in 2020?

It's a good question. Let me think what a good answer is. [Laughs] That is a big thing for me, and what drew me to it was the positivity of the film. I love genre stuff: the concept ideas within a film like this and the fun within the sequencing. The scary [parts] and the bit of the gags and playing with all that stuff, for me, is really great fun — and I love those sorts of things in film. But then, I also just really liked the honesty of it and the positivity of it overall.

It's a film that doesn't have an ego or something. It doesn't become like Joel is all-important, and he's the chosen one. I don't quite know how to articulate it, but it's not trying to do something or trying to be more than what it is. There's just a bit of an honesty to it and a positivity in the end in the messaging and that sort of thing where it's about caring for each other and about humanity. And it's not like, "I'm going to take what's yours for me, and I want this, and we have to fight each other for each other's resources," and all the usual stuff that you have in these sort of end of the world movies. I just liked that it didn't have that, and it was just this guy who's passionate about something and makes friends with this dog and is trying to get somewhere and kind of grows up in the process.

O'Brien slays every take

What was it like working with Dylan O'Brien?

It was awesome. We really get along well, and I consider him a pretty close friend now. I didn't know him well at all before going in, so I sort of met him for the project and talking about it. And he was the guy from the start that was right for it. And we just chatted and found what we thought was interesting about the character and the tone of it and how we wanted to work together. He's just got really incredible instincts for things in the moment — both a movie genre point of view of what's cool in the moment and what really works, but also just on character point of view in terms of humor, little things, the way he reacts to stuff, all that. It's just really entertaining to watch while you're making the film.

And he would always do different things pretty much every take, giving it a different angle and trying to find something [new]. I think that was what was really cool about it was just trying to find those things. You know, you're not showing up to just execute this exact thing. Obviously, the script is a script, and you're making that movie, but it wasn't like it's just a given exactly how something should be. And so there was always an openness to how to make the most of a moment or how to bring it to life in a different way. And so it was really awesome. It was great to work with him.

Did you have a favorite scene from him?

Probably the boulder snail one, funny enough. Just when Joel's shirt comes off, and then he can't move, and he's stuck in fear. There was just something about it where on the page I sort of had an idea of what I thought, and then just watching Dylan do it in the moment. It's just funny and kind of absurd, and he just did it really well. And at the end there, those were improvisations where they were going, "Thank you, boulder snail," and he's like, "Thank you," and he can't really talk, but he's kind of stuck in this moment. He's like overwhelmed. I thought that was really funny. I enjoyed that day. It was cool.

Dylan O'Brien, prankster extraordinaire

So during the New York Comic-Con panel, Dylan [O'Brien] and Ariana [Greenblatt] teased some on-set shenanigans. It sounded like set was a lot of fun. Were there any other notable moments or funny jokes and pranks on set?

It was pretty much ongoing. Dylan was filling the older brother role, really pushing it quite far. And so she was trying to taunt him all the time with things, and he was just being really mean to her in a funny way — like an older brother kind of way. Or she would do a really amazing take, and then he'd go like, "Come on, get it together," whatever it might be. Or during a scene when it's on his close-up, and she says something, and then he's like, "It's my shot now, this one's about me, it's not about you, so just do your lines." They just had this really funny thing, and she would just say the same things to him when it was her when she was in close-ups, and he wasn't on the camera. So they just had a really fun time. And I think it helped with the relationship onscreen.

Because she's quite mean to him and quite precocious and pushy, and I think him doing that also helped her feel comfortable being like that with him, and being kind of bossy and mean, because he let her be really comfortable like that off-set and they have a good vibe. It was great.

That's fun! While, at its heart, Love and Monsters is a love and survival story, the movie has some brilliant comedic scenes. You touched on this a little bit, but were there any ad-lib lines or improvised moments from any of the actors that stood out?

Oh, that's a tough one. Honestly, there were a lot. From Dylan's point of view, there were a lot. Often, it's in the heart of what the scene is and what's on the script. The work is in the script, so it's not to put down anything in terms of him changing things because it's not good enough or something, but it's just in the moment there were lots of things he changed. I'm trying to think what would be a good example. I don't know, to be honest, there are a lot.

He does that in a lot of his projects, and it's always hilarious. So that's not a surprising answer.

Yeah, and it's great. I love it.

Dylan O'Brien nails it

But it's also a testament to the quality of Dylan in being able to nail stuff. There were never times when it was like I'm sitting there as a director going, "Oh, he's just not getting this right." It's more just a case of if we could keep playing, we might come up with some other things that are really cool here as well. So that was the challenge: knowing if something is funny or not in the moment and going, "We've got that. It's funny, and it worked," but feeling like you're under quite a time constraint the whole time.

But everyone really loved the film that worked on it. We had a really passionate and amazing crew, and my AD James McGrady and John Starke, the line producer, as well as Dan Hennah, the production designer, and Lachlan [Milne], the Director of Photography. They were all very high-level people that I was really fortunate to work with. And we all were an amazing team, super positive and just trying to do the best we could with what we could.

The tween's the boss now

But we did see a lot of different young girls for [Minnow] because it's not as easy with older actors where you love someone from all these movies, whereas we wanted to see a lot of different people and see what the energy was. And she just had a really strong, confident vibe to her that really worked. And then at the same time, with casting, she went from that to turning to then starting to cry, and with Dylan, she actually did it with Dylan there, and was like, "Why you got to leave?" And then these tears just came there, and we thought, "Oh, if she can move between those spaces, then she's awesome."

And she brought a lot. She was super easy to improv little things with Dylan, or if Dylan said something, she would just say something back. She never got thrown by it or anything like that. She was great.

#dylan o'brien #ariana greenblatt #michael rooker #michael matthews #love and monsters #love and monsters press

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