'Lurker' director Alex Russell and cast Archie Madekwe, Zack Fox, Havana Rose Liu, Sunny Suljic and Théodore Pellerin stop by THR's studio in Park City to talk all about their new film. The cast and crew dish on the premise of this film. Plus, hear why Russell calls it 'Mean Boys' and who he would say is the most like Regina George.
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00:00I think I've always been in some group of male friends and there's sort of this unspoken
00:05hierarchy play going on of, you know, who is the most important and who has the power
00:13and who's sort of playing second fiddle and who's competing for advancement, you know.
00:22And I think typically, I feel like that kind of thing has been explored like in Mean Girls
00:29for women, but I wanted to make Mean Boys.
00:34That's such a valid explanation.
00:38I wanted to make Mean Boys, and this is the cast that plays them.
00:47Regina George is definitely Archie, who plays Oliver.
00:52Oh, you said in real life, the answer is the same.
00:58In the movie, it's definitely Oliver, played by Archie, and in real life, it's definitely
01:03Archie as Archie.
01:05I'm looking forward to it.
01:08I'm coming in for a shoot.
01:11Caddy.
01:12I don't feel like Archie would tell somebody that they can't sit with us.
01:15No, I never would do that.
01:16I don't think he would say it.
01:17He wouldn't have to.
01:18He wouldn't have to.
01:19Somebody would say it for you, I think.
01:20He would just give it a little look.
01:21That is such an untrue description of who I am.
01:28You are very polite.
01:30I'm from Atlanta, so it's the same thing there.
01:33You're all in packs of rappers, and it's like, who's the leader here?
01:39Who's B?
01:40Who's C?
01:41So, yeah.
01:42I felt like that in elementary school.
01:45I haven't really in my adult life, but for sure, while shooting the movie, I was like,
01:50this feels like when I was 10.
01:54Those power dynamics of like, you're friends, but then one day you're not going to be the
01:57friend.
01:58You're going to be the one that's on the outside.
02:00This kind of possibility of always being put aside, ridiculed, but then kind of brought
02:06back in feels very, yeah, my experience with it was really when I was a kid.
02:14That has continued in certain dynamics, especially, I think, in the art industry, I have found
02:20in adult life, especially, I think, I went to drama school, and there's this constant
02:28kind of competitive nature, I think, that some people can have, and there's a feeling
02:33of that, of wanting to be seen, and who's doing good work, and who's exciting, and Oliver
02:40in our film kind of rules that, and everyone kind of floating around him, trying to impress.
02:46That dynamic, I think, that we learn as kids, that starts in school, it continues in different
02:51spaces, and I think maybe we're not as conscious of it always, because we start putting ourselves
02:57in pecking orders, and sometimes we feel quite comfortable in that position, and so we're
03:02not always aware of the dynamic as it's playing out around us, but it was really interesting
03:08for me, even though these people have described me as Regina George, I didn't, that's not
03:14how I feel in my day-to-day life, and I found it really difficult, and for me, a real challenge
03:21to have to play someone so outwardly confident in their position in the group, it's so much
03:26easier to play someone so much more introverted and insular, I think you just want to kind
03:31of disguise yourself, so to play someone who is so self-assured in that pecking order was
03:36fun.
03:38I think that there's an interesting, complicating factor, though, in this film, which is fame,
03:42which I think makes all of these dynamics that you experience when you're younger, it's
03:46just another lens to look at the same thing, but in a way that you can name more easily,
03:51it's like popularity, all of these power dynamics, it's brought into another scale, that I think
03:56is ridiculed as well.
03:58It's kind of removed from now, so it's not in the TikTok generation, where we live in,
04:03where everyone is so close to wanting fame, and it feels so accessible, and it feels so
04:09quick, but we did grow up in that time where you were able to look on Tumblr and see people
04:17that you felt cool and felt, but also felt touchable and felt realistic, and so the idea
04:23of then coming into contact with those people, and feeling like it was in grasp, that is
04:30our currency now, weirdly, everyone, no one really wants to work, people want to be famous,
04:35there's the line in the film where it's like, how do I get, like, what do you do, and they
04:39can't even answer, it's just like, people just want to be famous, people are just stoked
04:44about the idea of being liked and being known, and yeah, I think the film plays with that
04:50in a really interesting way.
04:51Something I'm asking everybody who comes in is, if you remember the first time you were
04:54starstruck?
04:552016, I was with the homie Thundercat, and we went to Asanabo in North Hollywood, I had
05:02like $10, I think I was wearing like Tom's or something like that, I was super broke,
05:07I'm the brokest person in all of LA, right?
05:11He'd take me to this restaurant, we went, two members of the band King, they were like
05:15princes, like protégés, pretty much, so it was four of us, right?
05:19So we chill in there, the restaurant about the size of where we at right now, only like
05:2320 people in there max.
05:25I see two Secret Service looking dudes with the wire in their ear pop in behind us, and
05:33I'm like, oh shit, Obama, right?
05:36Jay-Z walk in, right?
05:38They sit him at the table right behind us, this restaurant's like a closet, you know
05:42what I'm saying?
05:43And then I was like, oh shit, this is crazy, like Jay-Z's behind us, and then two more
05:47Secret Service guys walk in, and Beyonce came in.
05:52And then she came over to the table, and she knows Thundercat or whatever, so she was like,
05:57you know, bigging him up on his work, and she said to our homegirl, I love your hair,
06:00and she just busted out and started crying.
06:03Like somebody died, and she's like, oh, that's so real.
06:07Beyonce held my hands and sang Halo.
06:10What?
06:11Sorry to talk, but.
06:12Damn.
06:13Hold on.
06:14Okay, Regina.
06:15Exactly.
06:16A friend of mine rigged a competition so that, she was a radio presenter, and she rigged
06:26a competition, so me and my sisters won tickets to her album launch, so it was like a really
06:31intimate thing.
06:32So we were right at the front, and I'm so tall.
06:34Well, Beyonce, kiss my dad.
06:35And she came to the front, and she kept singing to me, and then she came down and held my
06:41hands, and then I remember her body, I was frozen in time, I was like, I felt like the
06:46power of, I don't know, eternal life was being given to me, and then I didn't want to let
06:50go, and her bodyguard came over and just went, chop, and chopped my arm away.
06:54I was like, cool, done.
06:55But yeah, that was pretty big.
06:58But I do think that that's a big part of the film as well, is how we view celebrity and
07:03people who are like, what position do we give them?
07:07Totally.
07:08And there's this space of, they really, for a lot of people, become godlike figure, and
07:12I think that in this film, for Matthew, there is a big aspect of that, of there is nothing
07:17above that, and that's why it's so incredible and a one-time opportunity that you can't
07:25miss and that you have to go all the way with, because that will never happen again.
07:31It's too big to enter that world in that way, to have such access to someone who is truly
07:39viewed like a god.
07:42So it's, yeah, I think they're really taking the place of religion.
07:49It has, well, it has in our very, people have their own personal religions, but in our general
07:57society, it's a lot less god-focused than it has been back in the day, and so where
08:03people-
08:04Let's go back.
08:05People, people, let's go back.
08:06We need that.
08:07Back with the deities.
08:08I mean, Nicki Minaj has her own defamation league.
08:11She is.
08:13Yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:14Oh my god.
08:15Like icons, that word is really, it's not for nothing, like an icon, it comes from religious
08:21figures.
08:22Totally.
08:23It's also so interesting to think about what people think they will be getting out of proximity
08:27to that person.
08:28Well, you could get nothing.
08:29Right, it's like Icarus and the sun, a bit, too, right?
08:31Totally, it is.
08:32But that's exactly what this film is also, like he really kind of gets disillusioned
08:35being in such proximity, like it's like, oh, it's really not that complicated.
08:40I can, I understand the mechanisms of this, and I understand that everyone around you,
08:45they're not angels, they're just people kind of putting you and protecting you to stay
08:51on that level.
08:52Yeah.
08:53I feel like it's like that part in the Bible where somebody was like, I forget who said
09:00it, but they was like, talking about Jesus, he was like, if I could just touch the hem
09:04of his garment, like, dang, you need to stand up, like, if I could just touch his drip,
09:09like, that's surprising.