This is the Way... with Emily Swallow

Hi, this is Tom Kane, the voice of Yoda. And listening to Movie. Meltdown, you are good. It's showtime. The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America.

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What's up, and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian. I'm Nora. I'm Phillip. And we're coming to you live via digital recording from the Oddity Studios.

So normally... You two are here for our horror club episodes. But today I'm waiting to hear from a very special guest. So until then, I thought we would hang out and talk about some things that we've seen, what we've been watching lately. Do you have anything outside of our normal horror realm?

My first? Okay. Last night I watched Big Fish. Ooh. I am a fan of it.

I have not rewatched it in a long time, though. I hadn't either. I saw it when it first came out, and I told Pierce I needed to watch a non-horror movie, because I pretty much only watch horror movies. You've been assigned. And he said, I've never seen Big Fish, but I keep hearing about how great it is.

His dad passed away in 2019, before we met. And they had kind of a complicated relationship, so I said. Trigger warning. Just be aware. This movie is going to destroy you.

Are you sure? I asked him like three separate times if he was sure, and he said yes, he was. And we were both sobbing by the end of it. It's such a good movie. It's so sweet.

I have a good relationship with my dad, and I still get all. I know, me too. When I watch it, so. it's it's a weird again being the director it is because it's on that weird like up and down thing of like that was sort of the tail end of that original run but it doesn't really matter i mean visually it's still like super striking and stylistic but like it's all over it's not yeah it definitely seems like one of his but at the same time it's not exactly like beetlejuice and batman either like it's definitely him growing as a director but It's not where he ends up a few years later when everybody was like, I'm done with this guy. So it's right at the down, maybe the jump the shark moment of like before he hits the point when nobody wants anything to do with him, Alice in Wonderland.

And then now he's sort of come back up the hill and people are on board with him again. So yeah. It's a really good movie to be so different than, you know, all of his other stuff. Again, it's just solid storytelling and then works with him. I say that, but it's by the same guy who gave us Pee Wee's Big Adventure, which.

Is epic storytelling. Yeah, I mean. It's true. I won't even go down that road. Well, I had someone try to condemn Pee Wee the other day.

And I was about to get on my soapbox and be like, no. let me tell you what was really going on. Like, I don't know. They just, anytime somebody hears anything, they like go with the worst variation of, and had terrible things to say about him. I was like, first of all, none of that's true, what you're saying. So yeah, I won't go into the details, but I, I, I don't know.

I will defend Paul. I think he seems like a nice enough guy. And, Did nothing wrong as far as I'm concerned. Not out of what every other idiot in that place was doing. The two major things that I can think of that he was accused of doing weren't that bad comparatively speaking to some other people we've heard about.

What many people say about him though is completely different. Like everything gets domino effect and spiraled off into these stories that never happened and that's what people still remember even though it never happened. So again, that just reminded me. I almost got into it with somebody the other day. And I was like, yeah, now is not the time.

Right. I was like, I will fight with you later. Now is not the time. You're not worth it. I'm still, no, I'm still going to fight with them.

But it was just not a good time to get into that. So I will fight with them later. Do you have anything? I rewatched, for the. First time in probably 20 years or more, Fight Club.

Mm-hmm. That's one of those that I feel like every time you revisit it, you kind of reassess and reset your feelings on it. Because I thought it was really impressive the first time I saw it, and then I was like, yeah, it's still good. I like it. But again, I wasn't like, maybe it's not the greatest thing ever, but it's really got some cool stuff.

And then I feel like every time, I'm like, no way, this is pretty awesome. It's a pretty good movie. My only complaint with it is after you see it the first time, You can't be surprised by it anymore. But I feel like it is another one of those you come back to with different things. Yes.

And then you see entirely different things knowing what's coming. You start to sort of... Because, I mean... I will give him credit as a filmmaker. It's not like he just accidentally threw this together.

No, no, no. Oh, and this is the end. From the get-go, it is structured, and he's hinting at it throughout the movie, and the first time through, you just don't know. You don't pick up on it, but when you go back and watch it now, you're like, oh, well, there are many telltale signs of what's coming, and you just don't realize it. I mean, that can be kind of fun to sit there and think, oh, well, if he thinks this is happening, but this is what's actually happening.

And the people around him are watching him going crazy on himself. Which, the more I watch it, the more I'm like, how did somebody that clearly that crazy to beat himself up repeatedly in public get that many people to follow him blindly? I mean, once you get Meatloaf on board, that's all you need. You're all set. I come to him because I've got a tie-in coming up.

Yeah. And Helena Bonham Carter was in that one, too. She's also in Big Fish. She's a witch. Interestingly enough, before she went really crazy.

She was already wrecking homes, though. Oh, yeah. Oh, very much so. I just told somebody that story the other day. They were trying to remember her name, first off.

And I was like, well, not so much these days. But for a while, she was on a run of busting up couples. That was her thing, I guess. I don't know. She did like two for two.

And then she got old and retired on her busting up couples thing. Now, suddenly she just live across from Tim. For a while, they were in opposite houses, even though they haven't been together for years. But like they had bought two different houses, like on next door properties. And it was all one big estate at one point.

And then when they were separated, she went to one house and he went to another. That's the story I heard. I don't know. This is all internet information. So who knows how much is true.

But I thought that was interesting because it seemed like at least it wasn't really hostile. You're not firing rockets at the house next door. I guess you guys are on good enough terms. That's cool. You're like TPing each other's yards.

Have you fired rockets at an ex's house? You can't prove anything. That's true. Legally speaking, that never happens. Allegedly.

So overall, though, what was your take on it? Just as, again, without taking the reveal into account. Well, it's interesting because the first time I watched it was pre-9-11. Oh, yeah. Which is actually what I had issues with it the first time was where it became a terrorist organization where I was like, I don't know about this.

And then now we're quite a bit post 9-11. But with everything going on, you're hearing those arguments of, oh, the banks are evil and consumerism is evil. And so, yeah, really, that end of it kind of held up. It is an interesting observation, just like from where he starts in his whole little narrative of everything. And you're like, okay, you start from that one perspective of him kind of being in the middle of it and wanting to be this character.

And then by the end, when he's destroying everything that even resembles that type of lifestyle. So, just again, it's written really interesting. It's from the book, I know. But still, how it got treated as a movie is equally as interesting, I feel like. I think, too, when I saw it, I thought...

I was an angry young man. And so I was like, yeah, stick it to everybody. And now that I'm a tired old man, I'm like, who has the time for this? And that's one of those movies that got categorized like that, I think, for a long time. There are those movies that I'm like, okay, I like the movie, but the fan base of the movie, it's the reason you couldn't like Boondock Saints for years.

Because every asshole guy in the world thought that was the greatest movie ever. I'm like, I don't even think you get it. And definitely with Fight Club, I'm like, I don't think you understand the point of the movie. Yeah, Fred Dersh said it was his favorite movie. Exactly.

I don't think he got it. Exactly. You just like guys punching each other in the face. I don't think you're comprehending what they're going. For, really.

So, yeah. That's one of those. There's a lot of those movies that the fan base sort of ruins the movie. But now it's gotten far enough out, I think those guys all grew up or... kill each other or whatever they do. And like now it's back to just being another movie and, you know, Fincher's arsenal.

So you can decide what you think of it on your own now. There is also a lot of obsolete technology featured in it. Like the movie hinges on like pay phones and like real movie projectors. And so I was sitting there thinking, trying to explain this to a person who's... To a kid.

Yeah. To a kid of 20. Who doesn't understand any of this. Yeah. Well, again, that's that turning point of like.

Right, right, right. Technology-wise, so much of the stuff was like, you know, every 10 years or so, you'd get something that would be a new thing and that would be a big change. But now it's every 15 minutes. So from like 9, 11 times on, it's like all we've done is like every 15 minutes, all of technology changes and a whole new thing kicks in. At one point, they're in a video store, which doesn't even exist anymore.

Rest in peace. And they're erasing VHS cassettes, which really doesn't exist anymore. Rest in peace. Yep. Well, mine, and this has been a long time coming because I heard about it on this show.

If you've been listening for a hundred years, you would have heard it. And I guess I can initially refer to it as the title that I've known it as the entire time. I had to remind myself repeatedly over the years what the actual title was instead of just calling it Tiger in the House. Because it was explained to me by Misty. So the title was Tiger in the House, according to her.

Which will make more sense. Sounds like Misty. Yeah, exactly. I was like, if I explain who that comes from, it all makes sense. So I watched the movie Burning Bright.

And I will go ahead and throw out a minor spoiler alert. Because I'm going to describe the premise. And it sort of reveals if there's a bad guy in this. Whatever. Whatever.

But to me, I mean, the whole premise is blown in the trailer, if you've even seen the trailer. Maybe you don't know who. I'll go ahead and ruin who. So if you don't want to hear, just close your ears for a few minutes. But it doesn't matter.

It's not really that big a deal. I think it makes it more interesting knowing it. So basically, the idea is there's a girl. It's Brianna Evigan, who has done a lot of other stuff. But she's like a.

Getting ready to go to college, age girl, I think she's already pushed it off a couple of times, but is about to go start college, who is living with her stepfather, and mom has recently died, and or seemingly OD'd and killed herself, and her younger brother, who is autistic, this may be the most troubling thing, is the kid's just a regular actor, he's still making stuff now, so he's not, so it's hard to, like, especially knowing an autistic child, like, it's like, I don't know, because you also can't do a specific, you can't do a specific performance that's correct, and you can't really critique it, because every kid is different, and every kid processes it different, and is at different levels, and acts different, so it's like, it's hard to say he's wrong, but at the same time, because he's not, it's like, well, does that make this problematic now?

So that part is almost more, like it might be easier to recommend if that wasn't even part of it. The most interesting, well, no, I'll get back to that in a minute. The most, the most accurate part of it comes into play later. But the premise is, so there's this whole little dynamic and it's super awkward between them. She's about to go off to school.

She wants to take her younger brother to like a, a special school that also keeps him there. Like, it's basically a place to specifically treat kids like this. And, um, she gets there to drop him off and the money's gone. The money that had been set aside by her mom before she died to pay for this kid's school or whatever. And, um, it's gone because her stepfather has bought a tiger.

Which answers the question I was going to ask of, is there a tiger. In the world? So... bought a tiger illegally. I don't know. They mentioned paperwork.

But it's sort of the opening scene and I will say the best thing in the movie and it's an uncredited cameo. Meatloaf. Gets out of the truck and I was like, oh, that's Meatloaf. Awesome. He's not listed on the credits.

He's not even in the end credits. I don't think like he just shows up and gives this like amazing little speech about how scary this tiger is. And he's just like, no, he's not scary. He's evil. Don't mess with this tiger. want to buy him okay so.

Why would you buy an evil tiger why are. You selling evil tigers dad is garrett dillahunt who i do love okay but is in this story he plays a dimwit pretty well i mean if you've watched him in his tv series he's he's not the brightest guy in that and this sort of is around that same i guess right before it maybe but kind of that same performance just a little more kind of a jackass Where he's lovable on his sitcom. But yeah, here he's just a dimwit that's also kind of a jackass. So he's going to start a nature preserve kind of a thing on the house. On the land of the house that mom left behind for him, I guess.

How much land are we talking? Like a farm? Not that much. Like a suburb? No, I mean, you see the house.

It's a normal, it's a large house, but it's not like... massive mansion it's just like a pretty good sized house and I guess a couple acres around it or something and he's turning it into some sort of wildlife preserve and he thinks you know people aren't gonna come for regular old animals you need something big and you need something scary you need a tiger that you bought off a meatloaf so all of. That sounds like prose in my book. Now we haven't gotten to the point that a hurricanes are coming didn't see that coming did. You I didn't see Meatloaf coming if I'm being honest. That's what I'm saying.

There's a lot of aspects to this that make you go, alright, I need to watch this. It's insane. Hurricane's coming. They're batting them down the hatches so they're like boarding up the windows and stuff and so it's the, I don't know, the night before the hurricane comes and they go to bed and the girl gets up in the middle of the night and dad, stepdad's gone and They've screwed, closed the windows and the doors and he's let the tiger loose in the house. Wow.

So they are now trapped. Is this a situation where they're like, there's a tiger in the house, but we don't know where? Well, I mean, she sort of walks out and sees a tiger and is like, oh shit. And then like, I have to go get my brother. And like, so in the, Thriller versus horror since, this is a thriller because the entire rest of the movie is her trying to not get eaten in the house with a tiger that hasn't eaten.

Like, that was one of the things. The only way that you can become boss over the tiger is just don't feed him. That'll show him. That doesn't make any sense at all. He hasn't eaten in like weeks, according to the story, which I don't think you can do.

That seems like he'd be even more likely to eat you. Exactly. So he's starving in a house with these two dumb kids and they're screwed in and can't escape. That's the entire premise of this. And it's like amazing that they made it more than anything.

And. As you get in, because this is not, again, I talk about how long ago we talked about it. I think it's 2010 it was made. Effects, not really great. Oh, boy.

I was about to ask you, real tiger or CG? I mean, at some point, there was a real tiger that they took photos of. Is it in the room with Brianna? I don't know that it ever is. I'd like to think they pull a Night of the Lepus and they just paint a house cat and put the camera really close to it.

I mean, there's probably a little of that. That's what's interesting. There are a million different versions of how they fake it out badly. Because there's times when I'm like, okay, I think that's like a bad CG thing that they're doing. There I think they're in front of a green screen.

There I think they're just superimposing image. Like it's just a plethora of variations on how can we shoot this so it looks like she's about to get eaten by a tiger, but she's not really going to get eaten by a tiger. Here's a picture of a tiger who's clearly at the zoo. Yeah. He's wearing a little party hat.

It's cut out of a wire. I want that to be there. It's kind of amazing. At a certain point, they just take a box of Frosted Flakes across the street. See, there's a tiger.

It's great. That's my review of the movie. It's great. Was it an enjoyable watch? I mean, it was because of how ridiculous it was.

It's like Life of Pi, but in a house. But in a house instead of a boat. At least you have more rooms. The thing that I was going to say is probably the most realistic, clinically speaking, is at one point, like the whole time, and this is, I guess, again, if you deal with a child like this, this is the most frightening part because a normal kid, you'd be like, Tiger, go hide. This kid doesn't care. so like at one point they're hiding there's many a time when she's like come on over here and he just wanders off oh boy that's kind of realistic too but my favorite is at one point she's hiding the tiger's right over there the kid walks in the other room turns on the tv and sits down and starts watching And I'm like, no, that's pretty accurate, man.

In all fairness, if you told me there was a tiger loose in your house right now, my response would be, I get to meet a tiger. Is he nice? I wouldn't even care about that. Yeah. Part of me wants to meet an evil tiger.

If you like fake tigers. And I do. Tense situations. This is the movie for you. Apparently I do, based on the story I told you guys earlier.

Yeah, yeah. This does sound like a Misty movie. Yeah, yeah. That's why, like, forever I've been like, I still need to watch that, because I remember her describing it kind of like I just did. And yeah, I was just like, huh, I got to look for that movie, Tiger in the House.

And I'm going to be honest with you. I'm much more likely to pick up a movie called Tiger in the House than Burning Brightly. I mean, her name's way more accurate. Yeah. Granted, Burning Bright is from the poem and Tiger, Tiger, blah.

Blah, whatever. I don't have time to be smart. Exactly. That's why I was like, I don't think the group of people who know that reference are the ones that are going to want to watch Tiger in the House. i'm just saying i don't know i'm. I think i'm proof of the crossover.

Well you're the you're the little bit of that venn diagram i'm just saying the majority that's over here are like i want to see tiger in the house that sounds like a good movie and then you know so you're you're just a sliver right next to that i went to college. Bragging i took a romantic poetry class thank you I. Took one of those, too, and I may have not slept through every single class. I don't remember. At any point in there, did they mention a hurricane a-coming and buying a tiger from Meatloaf?

Because I feel like that would make you stay awake in that class. Yeah, sadly, no. You know, come to think of it, I don't think Meatloaf was ever brought up in any of my college courses. Well, I mean, there should be an entire. That's another reason why I want a refund.

The writing of Jim Steinman needs to be its own. I agree with you there. Yeah. I mean, you do not mistake a song that is written. I will hear them on there.

It was years later before I started realizing he wrote for other people too. Right. And I'd be listening to this and be like, man, this kind of sounds like, wait a minute. I'm like, dude wrote for Celine Dion too? That's insane.

Bonnie Tyler and Meatloaf, you crazy bastard. So yeah, Jim Steinman. What a weird guy. Genius. In his own right.

In his own very particular right. In his own very teen angsty, very wordy, overly dramatic, sound effects included. He is a very specific writer. Yep. Jim Steinman.

Duh. Wait. I'm getting a text. Oh, man. Well.

I have to go. It's the armorer. And she wants to have a theological discussion about the religious overtones of the Mandalorian. So I'm going to go do that. But you guys stay here.

And then we'll finish up the episode when I get back. So I'm out of here. But the dog's in charge. So whatever happens, do whatever she says. And otherwise, yeah, I'm going to go talk to actress Emily Swallow.

I usually kind of start at the beginning and get an idea of like where everybody sort of comes from and how they end up on their path. Um, So I guess originally, where did you grow up? Well, there's two answers to that question, because I was born in Washington, D.C. My dad was in the Army and worked at the Pentagon, so I lived in Northern Virginia in Sterling. That's a lot to deal with already, yeah.

For him, not so much for me. We lived there until I was seven, and then we moved down to Jacksonville, Florida, so that's mostly where I grew up. That's a very different change there. It is, yeah. I mean, they're both pretty Southern.

Yeah. Because North Florida is more like South Georgia. It's definitely the South. Yeah. Florida's its own little world.

It is. As we keep seeing news stories and I'm like, only in Florida. It's fascinating. So were you at that point immediately kind of drawn to artistic stuff or was it, you know, I always try to figure out if you know from the get-go that's where you're headed or if it's just kind of finding your way? I did not know that was where I was headed professionally.

Everyone who knew me growing up knew that I loved performing. I loved singing. Both of my parents were wonderful musicians. And I remember being an angel in the church choir and then a caterpillar. I was a pretty amazing caterpillar that turned into a butterfly.

Yeah. In the school play in fifth grade. Metamorphosis. Yeah. That's a performance.

My mom made me this incredible costume. And my cousins and my friends and I, we would always make these videos. Of course, I'm VHS back then. I did some of that myself. Oh, yeah.

And I was not necessarily upset when some of those videos got worn out and we could no longer view them. Accidentally don't work now. Yeah. My one attempt, I guess, at making a go of it when I was younger was I... sent in a video audition to Star Search. I don't know if you remember Star Search.

I do. Yeah. There's a handful of people that actually came from there. Yeah, I was not one of them. Could have reached the heights of Sinbad, you know.

I was obsessed with Debbie Gibson. That's, you know. Still kind of am. No downside there. She's an amazing writer, yeah.

And so I sang Electric Youth, but I sang it, like, I didn't know how to audition for, I did not have, like, a showbiz family. So I sang along to the recording. My dog was barking outside the door because she wanted to be let into the rec room. And I never received any sort of response for that video. I don't know why.

This sounds top notch. I'm sure it just got lost in the mail. But yeah, I was just interested in so many things. I didn't know that, and also I had nobody in my immediate family circle who was in entertainment. So it just didn't seem like a viable option, but there were so many other things that I loved.

And, uh, I honestly thought I was going to go into, um, diplomacy and foreign affairs and I loved travel. I loved how looking at how different systems of government work or don't work together. Um, and so I, I was a middle Eastern studies, foreign affairs major in college and, uh, interned at the state department. but I remember this one moment when I had been interning in, in DC at the state department. And, uh, and I went to see some friends in a summer theater production where I went to college, university of Virginia. And I was sitting there in the audience and I just had this feeling of missing out.

And, uh, and I think that started the sort of the emotional shift in me that realized like this really was what I wanted to do instead of the other thing. Um, And I had some wonderful acting teachers in college. I took acting classes and did theater even though I wasn't in the department. And they encouraged me to go for it. So I did and auditioned for a bunch of different graduate programs because I knew I wanted more tools in my tool belt to draw from.

And got into NYU and figured that was probably a pretty good school. And so I decided to go there. Yeah. And I have not looked back since. I mean, there's been plenty of times when I have groaned and cried and thrown temper tantrums because of how unrelentingly.

Seemingly punishing the industry can be sometimes because, you know, it's just rejection is part of it. It's more than, you know, the majority of what you deal with is probably rejection versus the handful of like, oh my gosh. I tell people I audition for maybe a hundred things a year and get, if I'm lucky. Two or three of them. That's a lot of rejection.

Yeah. It is. It's a lot to deal with. And I'm, you know, I'm making a career of it. It's working out for me.

So even with that, it's still, you have to... Have to have a tough skin. Well, it seems like at the beginning there did a good amount of theater. Was it always kind of a plan that you specifically were more interested in television and film? No, I thought I had.

I had no reason to attempt that when I started out because I loved theater so much. And then I found out very quickly you can't really make much of a living doing only theater unless you're doing Broadway all the time. And my first TV gig was on Guiding Light, the soap opera. And we're losing those these days that. Was very fun i know it's yeah.

That's such a like training school almost for people it's just non-stop work so like you have to. Learn shoot so much so quickly there's no time to mess up you don't get multiple takes. So everybody that came from that is like just trial by fire like they are ready to go do you Looking ahead, do you think because we don't have that now, like, are kids coming up not really going to– they're going to be thrown directly into the fire? I don't think it matters. I think people learn in different ways.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, improv is tremendously helpful for that kind of thing. And really just I think the more you do it, the more comfortable you get with it because every single set is different. Yeah.

And so you really do– I mean, you learn quickly, I think, whether you're doing a soap opera or something else that you have to have done– the majority of your work before you get there and then you get to play. Yeah. Well, we usually go into a lot of film where there are movies growing up that you were like attached to and, and sort of helped push you along. And there was like, I definitely want something like this. I always loved, definitely loved fantasy.

Um, I loved the never ending story and I loved the princess bride. Um, yeah. And, uh, and Goonies. Um, And I guess looking at some of those, well, especially like Goonies, I love stories that were about unlikely people coming together to accomplish something together. And I absolutely loved the Disney animated movies.

My dream was to be a voice in a Disney film, to be, you know, I listened to The Little Mermaid on repeat and now I've gotten to meet Jodi Benson several times and get to know her at conventions. And it's just, I mean, she's as incredible as I thought she was. Yeah. Um, and Aladdin. And although in Aladdin, I really wanted to be the genie because.

Robin Williams, he steals the show. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I would, I remember like sitting in my, in my closet. I don't know why I went in my closet. I think it was because.

Even though I love performing, I was also very shy about it. Um, I had to summon up the courage and I hated, for example, my parents would ask me to play the piano for guests and that kind of like direct intimate performance was always like so nerve wracking to me. So I think I probably hid in my closet so nobody would know I was singing along. I can see that. I would sing along to all these soundtracks and, you know, have these dreams about being in one of these Disney movies.

So, um, I guess those were the things that captured my attention early on. Um, And now, I mean, a number of people have said that the armorer is her own Disney princess. Oh, she definitely is. Sort of got that in a roundabout way. She's got a lot more to do than most Disney princesses.

Yeah. So she's got a lot to deal with. I guess before we get to that, I did, I recently watched The Haunting of Mary Celeste. Oh, thank you. I don't know how that went for you, but I was just going to ask about it as far as the shoot itself.

Yeah. Trying to figure out how much you're shooting on the water because they do a good job of hiding it. I'm watching and I'm like, there's a lot of this that I'm like, you can't necessarily see the ocean. Right. But they do a good job of even putting in the sound.

So it's like, how much of that did you actually shoot? That boat was always in the water. Yeah? Yeah. That was, I mean, that was an adventure, that shoot.

Yeah. I had a great experience with it and it was incredibly challenging because we were shooting, it was, you know, it was really low budget and we were shooting up in Sausalito, Sausalito just near San Francisco and they had purchased this completely ramshackle we're lucky it didn't sink kind of boat. It was not fancy looking even in the movie. Yeah, that was completely authentic. And our incredible crew made themselves fit into every, I mean, our DP would be in these tiny little crevices, corners trying to get a shot.

And I really liked working with Shauna Sosin, who was the director, because it was It was also a very challenging film for me emotionally because I'm playing this woman who feels responsible. For her daughter's death. And we were shooting at night a lot, a lot of night shoots. And so I was sleeping during the day. You know, that just turns you upside down.

Yeah, definitely. And I remember at the time, like, renting a car while I was there was just not an option. It was out of my budget. So I felt sort of stuck at times. But then I did get to explore– the Marin headlands up there, the, the, the nature, beautiful nature that's all around all the mountains and the forests.

And, and I would. Go just kind of get lost in the woods, um, on my free time and, and go on these really, really long hikes. And, uh, and I loved that tremendously. Um, but yeah, that movie, we, we actually shot it. I think it's been nine years ago now, and it took a while for it to get released.

In indie films, it's a lot of fighting to get it done. But I consider it a point of pride that nobody seemed to notice when it was released that I have. Aged several years. I don't know what you're talking about. I guess that means I'm doing okay.

Yeah. Well, and then you get into, because you're kind of dealing with a lot of, it's like she seems like she's hiding a lot from the get-go, and then you're also dealing with Supernatural. Do you... get into any of that? Did you work that into like prep work as to like how much your character is going to buy into this? And then how much do you believe in any of that?

Yeah. I mean that, you know, one of the things I love about acting is, is the, what I get to learn for a character. And for Rachel, so much of it, I could really relate to her outwardly being attracted to the science of it and the seeming logic of, okay, here's how this kind of phenomenally happens. And here's how this could be possible. And yet underneath all of that, you know, I think she had this deep heart need for it to be true because she was trying to connect to her daughter somehow.

And I definitely lead with my intellect and trying to figure things out sometimes to a fault. Um, and oftentimes that's in service of, of an emotional thing that that's a little bit deeper. So I could relate to that with her. And, and I did, I mean, we, we talked a lot about, you know, the quantum physics and, and I love all that. And in college, I almost minored in astronomy, um, just cause I find it so interesting.

And now, I mean, I'm fascinated lately with these, um, this, I don't know if you call them a whistleblower who said that we, the FBI said that we have. Had contact, or not contact, but we find... We keep having run-ins. They won't say UFOs anymore, but we don't know what these are. They're not planes, but they're not officially aliens, but we saw something.

Yeah, all of that is fascinating to me because I think that it's, I mean, our perception is so limited and to think that we that we're bound by this time and place, um, I think is, is, you know, we, we might feel that to feel safe and comfortable, but I wouldn't be surprised if it weren't true. Yeah. I mean, we're, we're in such a specific perspective and like all it takes is one thing to change all the rules and like, yeah, we're going to be caught off guard probably. Yeah. Well, then I guess we definitely have to get to the armor.

So as you're coming into this, I mean, you've worked on a lot of different shows, you've done a lot of different projects. But when you get into something that's that huge a property, just the universe that is Star Wars among, you know, any of something like that, do you take that into consideration when taking this role? I mean, obviously, it's a great opportunity. But at the same time, in the past, sometimes that sort of takes over someone's career and I don't think it's as much anymore. I feel like that's definitely changed even in the last 10 years or so.

But I don't know. Is that the kind of thing you have to factor in when looking at new jobs? I don't because I mean, I don't feel like I... Well, first of all, I trust that the right projects come along at the right time. Yeah.

But I also don't feel like I have the luxury of being... that picky. I mean. Star Wars, no thank you. Yeah. And it's funny because people very often ask me, how did you decide to do Star Wars?

And I tell them what I told you at the beginning of this. I had auditioned for dozens and dozens and dozens of things that year. And this was just another audition. And Yes, it was intriguing to me because it was so vague at the time. There were very few details, so I didn't really know what I was getting into.

But I knew it had something to do with Star Wars, and that was intriguing to me. But I really didn't put any more or less weight on it because of that. I approached the audition as I do any other. And my audition process was pretty low stress because they did not act like it was an important role at all. That's what I was going to ask.

Was it specifically for the armor or just something to do with Star Wars? It was for the armor, but I think maybe at that point they didn't quite know how much they were going to use her. They didn't know, you know, what kind of impact she would have. And so I never auditioned for anyone that was part of the show. I just had one audition with the casting associate and the information I had was very limited.

And he sort of gave me a few more morsels that would help me shape the scene. And I remember he asked me to do it. He asked me to do a few takes. I did it normally. And then he asked me to do a few takes with a British dialect because they were mostly seeing British women in their 50s and 60s.

Kind of always Star Wars. There's a lot of British accents in this other universe. So it is a particular point of pride that I, as a good old American, was able to please them enough with my British dialect. Yeah. And yeah, I started to understand more and more of what it was as we got closer to shooting it.

But there was still just, I mean, quite honestly, there was so much, so much energy I was putting into trying to understand who this character was and how she fit into this very top secret script because I had so little information. They have to be so secretive. Yeah. So I wasn't really thinking about like, oh my gosh, this is Star Wars. I just wanted to do good work.

And that was plenty to focus on. And it wasn't until, honestly, until I finished shooting all of my work for that season that they even announced the show. So I had the luxury of not having any of that pressure of people anticipating, you know, what is this going to be? And I'm so grateful for that. That first season, I guess you can get it under the radar and kind of complete the whole season and be done with it before anybody even knows what you're in the middle of at that point.

Yeah. Well, and then how far into it before you found out you're completely encased in metal or something that appears to be metal? Well, I knew from the start she was going to be masked. Yeah. They said that in the audition.

And. It was, I mean, honestly, that my first real grasp of the character came with my first costume fitting when I saw the sketches. And I, it was so, I mean, it was just such a bizarre experience because I wasn't getting to really talk to anybody creatively involved with the show at this point. I hadn't spoken with John and Dave yet about, you know, what was going to happen, who this was going to be. I just was told to drive out to legacy effects, which is this, you know, amazing, um, costume builder out in, in the Valley in LA.

And, um, and then they take me into this room and they tell me that I need to put on, um, essentially like yoga pants and this tight shirt cause they need to do a body cast. And I was like, body cast, this is weird. Um, And, uh, and so we did all that. They took like a cast of my torso and, and they're talking about all these different things with this costume, which I still hadn't seen. Yeah.

But they didn't know that. Were there even sketches at that point that you saw? There were, but I didn't see them. Sure there were, yeah. But then at some point in this fitting, they said, they said, you do know what we're talking about, right?

And I said, no, I have no idea. So they said, oh, would you like to see it? And I said, yes. Yeah. And I saw this magnificent.

Costume that I was going to be wearing and it just blew my mind. Um, And so that finally I started to get a better grasp not only of who the armorer is internally, but also kind of the world that she would be living in and how she portrays all of that externally. And so that was tremendously helpful. And yeah, I just had a number of fittings where I would go back and it was looking more and more awesome. And it definitely informed how I started to think about her.

Well, and how much does it weigh? Just basic question. It is not that heavy. It's not. And, you know, I say, well, she's the one who makes all the armor.

So she's, you know, she's smart. She's not going to put herself into anything too cumbersome. Because, oh my gosh, I look at Tate, who's wearing Paz Vizla's armor. And I look at our various Mandos and wearing the Mando armor. And it's a lot heavier and a lot hotter.

Mine is. You know, I wouldn't say it's comfortable, but it's not uncomfortable. And it can get hot when it's hot on set or when we're shooting out in the direct sunlight. But other than that, you know, I'm not complaining because I look incredible. It is awesome.

No joke. But I guess then also you have to, being the actress you are, you have to emote through that. So how... I mean, how much extra of a challenge? Because, you know, normally you can at least, you know, if you're not using, you're still using dialogue, but you can't use facial expressions.

Your gestures are going to have to be pretty big. So it's like it's almost back to theatrical again. You've got to go to the back rows to be able to get the message out there with this one. In some ways, yes. My theater training did help because I did mask work on stage.

The difference, though, the biggest difference is when you're on stage, you do... you can have bigger gestures because you're trying to get to the back rows. But when you're on camera and there's going to be shots where the camera's right on you, we pretty quickly found that if we moved too much, it was really distracting. And, you know, it is not ultimately a hindrance to me for this character because I came to understand that she is somebody who, first of all, she doesn't need everyone to understand what she's thinking all the time. Um, I would almost question the office. I'll get that in a minute.

Yeah. Um, and she is somebody who is very patient and I found that stillness was, was helpful for her. You know, I think that she's always observing. Um, and also, um, you know, to the, the point of, of wearing a mask, it can actually be helpful, I think, because I, I feel like, um, you know, when we're trying too much to show what we're feeling, it can be distracting or it can take you out of it. Cause you feel like the actor's working too hard.

Um, and so I had to really learn to trust that if I did my homework on the scenes and I knew where she was emotionally and I knew, you know, what kind of influence she was trying to have on the people that she's in the scenes with, um, and I really just trusted that the right amount would be communicated. And it was very, very, uh, man, that was such a gift for me because I am, I tend to be somebody who I, I feel like my tendency can be to push because I want to show, and I'm always being told, you know, trust it, trust it, trust it. And, uh, and with this character, I really do have to. And so then it, it serves her better and it, it, serves me better, honestly. I get a lot out of that.

Definitely. Well, and then do they let you do a lot of stunts? Because she kicks ass. She does, doesn't she? On many a time, she really gets into it.

More than you would expect from somebody who's making the armor. She has no problem using the same tools to beat people down. Oh, yeah. But I love that she saves it for when it's really necessary. I mean, I think it took everyone.

Including me, by surprise, to have that incredible fight at the end of season one with the stormtroopers. Oh, yeah. And I do what I can. Season one, I had not really had any fight training proper. I mean, that kind of fight training.

I'd done boxing, and I'm a very active person. But I remember we got that script about... or I got that script about two weeks before we were going to shoot it. And I approached Ryan, our stunt coordinator, and I said, I want to do this fight. Put me in coach. And he said, okay, do you have any martial arts training?

I said, no, but I'll work really hard. And he was like, oh, that's really cute. Because, you know, when you're doing TV, you don't have the months and months to prepare. So he said, well, it's based in Cali. see what you can pick up in a couple of weeks and, you know, we'll try to use you for some transitions. And I was like, all right, great.

And I started studying that and training in that and really enjoy it as I am still doing that. Um, but I didn't actually see the fight until the episode aired. Nice. And, um, you got to experience it with everyone else. Yeah.

And I saw it and I said, Oh, that's yeah. You would have seen me working really, really hard, uh, And it would not have looked as magnificent. And that is Lauren Kim, who is an incredible stunt woman and performer and who has been doing this for years. And I actually train with her now so that I can, so as the show has gone on, I've been able to do more and more when they let me, because sometimes they just won't let me because of insurance or, you know, we're shooting like three different episodes at once and they need me over here. And so they're going to use this person over here and, Um, but it, it, it's so enjoyable because I consider any kind of movement as part of the, the character's language, you know, language of expression.

And so the more I get to learn about how it is that she picks up those tools and fights, the more I understand her and the more I can influence the decisions that we make and, and how those fights go. So that's, that's tremendously fun for me. This has to be a different kind of a shoot just in general though, because aside from being encased in metal, um, You're, you're also dealing with like you're shooting on the screen. So sometimes you're not even in a physical set. You've got, you're planning for effects that are going in later.

You've got puppetry going on. Yeah. So I don't know how much is, is that you kind of have to work through to kind of work around all the technical stuff that is being thrown into this versus, you know, you early on, I'm assuming didn't have to plan that much for all these different aspects. It's so technical. And it is definitely challenging sometimes because it can be really tedious.

And I don't say that in a disparaging way. It's just part of what has to happen to make it look as good as it does. And we have such incredible people in every department who work so hard and who put in hours that they shouldn't even be putting in. I mean, you know, according to contracts and unions and everything, um, to make it look the way it does. And so I, I learned early on that things would be a lot more enjoyable and I'd get more out of it if I just trust that every single piece of the process can be helpful to my own process instead of feeling like, oh, now I have to wait for this thing and now this is going on.

And And so I do try to think like, okay, why is this happening right now? How can I use this? And, and I mean, the, the tremendous silver lining is that we have such charismatic and generous people who are working on it. So even if we have a day where we're only going to be shooting like half a page because it's, there's, you know, Grogu doing all this stuff. And so the puppeteers have to be very involved.

And then there's the volume might break down and, You know, all the different, I can't tell you how many times we were like tracking fake things in the sky and we had to make sure we all knew that we were looking in the same place. And everyone is just so game for it. And so the ensemble that, you know, that thing that I have always longed for in performing, and I think one of the reasons I'm inclined to enjoy theater is more is because you get more of that like non-stop just collaborating as an ensemble you're not stopping quite so much for all of the different pieces yeah um but our ensemble on every level is so generous um and so it it makes it way more enjoyable than than i imagine it would be if you had a bunch of people who were you know just stressed out about like getting all the special effects right and everyone kind of sticking to their own department but everyone collaborates.

Yeah When you mentioned Grogu, I mean, how is he to work with? Such a diva. Grogu won't come out of his trailer today. He doesn't do interviews. He doesn't go to conventions.

We're all doing all the work for him, but we wouldn't have a show without him. Well, that is what I was wondering, though, is like reading that on the page, because he became such an important part of it as it went on, especially the success of it, but even just the story itself. Reading that, you're like, if this doesn't work, this– it all kind of hinges on, you know, are we going with this character? We have to be invested in this character. And if the technical end of it doesn't click, like, we're all in trouble.

Well, and at first they were vacillating between using the puppet and just using CGI. No CG, no CG. Yeah. I mean, you can add a little CG, but puppets are the way to go. I mean, I think we've seen that that is the case.

And my understanding is that Werner Herzog had a strong influence in encouraging them to stick with the puppet and not do the CGI. But we do, you know, every single scene that we do with Grogu, we have to do, we have to work around all of the incredible puppeteers who are puppeting him. And it's so much fun to watch them work and to see how much skill they have because they There's, at any given moment, there's probably four or five people who are operating him. To do one move and one look. And like, especially those little looks, they just orchestrate those so beautifully.

And we get, I mean, you forget that he's a stinking puppet. Yeah. I mean, even watching it, I'm like, I'm pretty sure I know he's not real, but. Yeah. It's so good.

It's incredible. It's so good. But yeah, I mean, they are artists, like more than people will ever acknowledge. Like they don't get the recognition they should because puppetry is its own levels. Yeah.

Yeah, it's amazing. Well, the only other main one I wanted to get to, I've certainly as an adult, I've grown more distrustful of organized religion over the years. And we sort of get to that, I mean, as you get further in, because we knew very little about Mandalorian culture. So the more we get into this, it's very religious stuff. at least in overtones. Yeah.

So I don't know, do you, cause a lot of it seems to come from you or your character and, and how much of that do you take in? I mean, back when we had writers, I know it's all written, but I mean, you still have to kind of deal with like how much she's influencing things and how much she's setting these rules. Even when it's like, sometimes you're, you're almost puppeting the other characters of like, okay, this is what the law says and you have to do it. And I don't know, sometimes it, Again, I know it's fictional, but just, I think there's overtones of like- No, I love that question. Things that go on in the real world.

I think there's a lot of that. And of course there's overtones. Yeah. Because, I mean, the stories that we, I think, are most attracted to are the ones that do resonate on that level, that feel like, wait, this is something that I can relate to. And, oh man, I love the.

Way that they've explored it, especially with her. And I love the journey that she has taken. And- You know, the way– my personal views are that religion itself is not the problem. It's that we are all human. That's my take.

I'm fine with the concept. Yeah. It's the people running it that I worry more about. And we can get into– I think that there's ultimately laws come out of– I mean, and this is a very general statement because– because there are laws that are not, I would say, you know, I believe there's good and there's evil, and there are laws that I would say are not necessarily good. But ultimately, we hope that they come out of a need to help steer us in a way that enables us to interact as a society more peacefully and more fairly.

And so for me, I just look at the heart of what The way is, as I understand it. And I feel like we had this society here within the Mandalorians where perhaps the way that included leaving on your helmet, staying hidden, there was something when that was first starting to be enforced that was good and that nobody abused. Yeah. And then it feels like as the Mandalorian started to get more fractured and started to lose sort of the inner expression of the way, they started latching on to those kinds of things, these external things, which is what we do. The law, I think, should never be carried out.

Or not never, but hopefully your heart is moved to follow the law. And it's not just because you don't want to get in trouble. And it's not just because you don't want, you know, God to get mad at you. Yeah. I think that that got lost for the Mandalorians.

And so then this, you know, it started to feel sort of arbitrary in some ways that the helmet would be on or off. Yeah. And I think that she was able to see that with, started to see that with Mando and definitely with Bo-Katan. And could see that this one thing, this external show of having a helmet on or off was dividing more than it was doing good. Yeah.

And that there were things that were being prevented that were good because of that. And so I think that's what opened her to the idea of, okay, maybe we try to see what happens if we have someone like Bo-Katan who has walked both worlds. Yeah. Maybe everyone could be open to it. And I love that it didn't go either way, that she's saying, if you don't want to wear your helmet, that's okay.

I'm going to keep mine on because it still means something to me. It's still like there is something internal that's being expressed with the external. But I love that they found that compromise. I was so happy to see that turn because when we came back into season three, it seemed like she was just locking in. I'm like, okay.

And Mandalorian was back in, you know, so I was like, okay, now we're, steering away from this. That was kind of my favorite thing, and I don't really hear people talk about that very much. As many other things as people want to talk about on the internet, on Star Wars in general. But how much this as a whole, these last three seasons, have been just almost an examination of religion in a whole. Not just the Mandalorians, but also you see all these downfalls from the Jedi, and it's like they're an entirely different school of thought, and theirs wasn't perfect either.

And you're watching, I mean, you even see, I love that decision that Drogo makes. It's just like, you know, no, I don't think what you're doing is right. It may have been, you know, history and tradition, but it's not going to work for me. And then that's the same thing we see with her by the end of the third season. And like, make your own decision, do what you need to do.

And that's, again, I wish we had more of that in organized religion, but do what you want to do. Don't hire other people. Yeah. Yeah. Unless they start a fight and then you pick up your tools.

Well, and I mean, like I said, I think that the fault is not with religion. I think it's with those of us who are trying to interpret it. And I think we need to be more forgiving of each other when we mess up. And yet we're so quick to, you know, we see someone in a position of power. within a religion and if they do something wrong, oh. My gosh, like how dare they?

But we're human. Religion doesn't make us perfect. It's from both ends too. Then they, people that get in that position of power are then like cut and dry. Oh no, this is damnation for you because you've, you know, you've not followed the way.

And so, yeah, it's. I just love how much they've really kind of looked at that over the last three years. Yeah. Three seasons. I love, and that's definitely deliberate in John's writing.

Um, and I, I, I love that. That's one of my favorite things about it as well. That's awesome. Well, uh, that's, that's most of what I had. Do you have outside of that new stuff coming up you want to tell people about or, or places that you're going that people can find you?

Well, since we've been talking about the way, I feel like I would be remiss in not mentioning that, um, I have started– so on my Instagram and my Twitter, which are both Biggie Swalls, B-I-G-E-S-W-A-L-L-Z, I have started– every Wednesday I'm posting something with the hashtag ThisIsTheWayWednesday. And the goal is to highlight those people that we know in our community, in our church, in our schools, and are just people we've read about who are– going above and beyond to be selfless to help somebody else to reach outside of themselves and walk what i consider to be the way i think what most of us have embraced is the way at this point um so i definitely want people to keep an eye out for that and to tag people that they appreciate um and let other people know about it especially because you know we it's so easy for us to see what's negative about social media these days and there's plenty plenty So it's nice to have these positive things out there.

I'm doing a lot of conventions lately and need to get better about posting when I'm going to be where. And other than that, I mean, there's things I've been involved with that I can't say anything about. Everything's sort of on hold now anyway. Yes. And that is also true.

But yeah. Well, thank you for talking with us. This has been great. Thank you so much. All right.

Thank you. How are we going to tell people that they need. To join. The Meltdown Horror Club? I think you just did.

Damn it. This is a good plan. Well, did they know that if they join the club, they can get exclusive episodes? Well, that's so cool. Who wouldn't want to join the horror club?

That's the only way you can hear all these cool horror movie episodes is if you join the Meltdown Horror Club. For as little as two dollars. Two dollars. Two dollars. American dollars you know.

I mean if you go online they can transfer that stuff and yeah switch it out and i don't know wherever it comes from as long as eventually it gets to american dollars i'm good with wherever you can send us foreign monies from the other end just as long as when it gets here two dollars fair enough plus you can help us pick out the movies we're gonna watch we're trying to decide every week we're like what the hell are we gonna watch now We wouldn't have to do that if you joined the club and then you can just give us a movie to watch because that's how we get this list of movies that we're going through. That's one of the perks of joining the club. You get to give us a movie and then we put it on the list and later we talk about it and you can inflict horrible movies on us or when we're talking about movies that you're like, why?

Why are they talking about that movie? You probably have a much better movie in mind that we should be talking about and you could give us that one. Get on it. $ 2 to waste two hours of our lives. I mean, that's a good deal. And it's only 6.45 cents per day.

See, I figured that out. I was trying. I'm fighting really hard to not put together some sort of starving children's tone. That's why I'm trying not to do that every week. But I'm like, anytime I have to pitch it, I start feeling like, For only pennies a day, you could keep these poor idiots from watching a dumb movie.

You could make them watch something good. Or vice versa. Yeah, or something dumb. Or make them watch something really terrible. We're fine either way.

We just need to know what to watch, but we need your help to make that happen. And especially we're trying to get a whole community going. We've got our fan page. Nobody cares about that. So then we set up the discussion group.

And now we've got a decent amount of people on there, but I still feel like the discussions aren't flowing as much as they should be. So once you join the club, go over. It's on Facebook. I can't help it. They won't make anything better to replace it.

But then you can join the discussion group on Facebook and we can talk about these ridiculous movies we're watching. Do it. Do it today or tomorrow, but in the relatively near future. That's our tagline. Yes.

I don't think we've got to fight Nike over that one. I hope not. Just do it sometime. I don't know, man. Look, whenever you get around to it, we understand.

Get your shit together and do it. Nike. Somewhere that was a pitch meeting, probably. Do you really think we should curse? Yes, goddammit, George, curse!

So anyway, go to moviemouthdown.com, support the show, become a Melkateer. This is Billy Dee Williams and you're listening to Movie Meltdown. Okay, I'm back. Wait, what the hell are you two doing? Put that...

This is why... See, I knew I should have put you. You put that box back in the closet. I should have put you in the dungeon. I knew it.

Anyway. Well, why didn't you? You keep threatening that. And yet, here we are. Last time, Nora got upset.

Yeah, she got upset because you expected her to shave her armpits after. She was there for a week. I mean, she was just mad because you didn't have anybody to do it for her. I was trying to remember what happened in that dungeon. You don't want to remember.

I blocked it all out. That's the only thing I remember. Anyway, all that aside, I do want to say thank you to Emily Swallow. She is awesome. And if you see her out there making an appearance somewhere, go and see her because she's super cool.

Uh, I also want to say thank you to not only her staff who were really good to work with, but also, um, PopCon Louisville because they were instrumental in putting this together. And, uh, we've worked with them before when they were just out of indie and, um, actually put together one of my favorite episodes at one of their indie PopCons. So, um, yeah, they were really useful and helpful in this process. So thank you to them. Uh, They've got more coming up out of Indiana and Louisville, so go to popcon.us and it's got options.

You can pick whatever city you're interested in and go see what they've got going on. But otherwise, thank you for joining me for our talk about important stuff like tigers and blowing up buildings. I didn't really have anything else to do. No, actually it was quite enjoyable and it was refreshing to talk about. A non-scary movie.

Yeah, every once in a while. It's good to mix it up and do something else. All right. Otherwise, that about does it. We will return next time.

Same Geek Feed. Thanks for listening. Bye. Bye, everybody. They made up their minds And they started packing They left before the sun came up that day An exit to eternal summer slacking.

But where were they going. Without ever knowing the way? We drank up the wine and they got to talking We now had more important things to say. And when the car. Broke down they started walking Where were they going without ever knowing the way Anyone can see the road that they walk.

On is baked in gold. And it's always summer. They'll never get cold. They'll never get hungry. They'll never get old and brave.

You can see the shadow of water being lost on you. They won't make it home but they really don't care They wanted the highway They're. Happier there today Today Children woke up and they couldn't find them Left before. The sun came up that day They just drove off and left it all behind them. Where were they going without ever knowing the way?

Anyone can see the road they walk on is painted in gold. It's always summer, they'll never get cold. You can see the shadows wandering off somewhere. They won't make it over. ¶ ¶ ¶. Anyone can see the road that they walk on ¶ ¶ ¶ It's always summer, they'll never get.

Cold ¶ ¶ ¶ They'll never get hungry, they'll never get old ¶ ¶ ¶ You can see the shadow wandering. Off somewhere ¶. They wanted the highway They had me there today. It's about 16 hours there. Yeah.

And it's so weird because you, uh, I never had Wednesday, May 31st because you just skip a day. Yeah. That's somewhere in the world. There's a, you're slipping into another universe. But then get this on the way back.

We took off at six in the morning on Monday and we landed earlier than that on Monday. So my Monday was interminable. This is a sci-fi adventure you're having. This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and edited by The Oddity Studios, with the opening music performed by The Empires. For more on how to sponsor or support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com.

Talk hard! This program is a proud member of the Battleship Pretension Fleet.