Special Report: Virginia Gardner and Alex Aiono on See You on Venus (2023)

Oh years, it's shoot tie. People pay good money to see this movie. When they go out to a theater. They want cold sodas, hot popcorn, and no monsters in the projection booth. Everyone for ten podcasting?

Isn't boring? Off? Come with me? Come to Spain, Spain ten days, all expenses paid, got out of town for a little while. Okay, well you can think about it.

Why are you smiling? I just got some good news about my trip. You must be crazy if you think that I'm getting this thing with you behind the wheel. I don't know how to drive. It's gotta be a nightmare.

So are you gonna tell me what this trip's about. This trip is about finding my mom. She's from Spain. Over the last two years, I've been doing a lot of research, and I came up with ten mother candidates. Wait that way, that way up.

I was wondering if you had a daughter. I'm moved around a lot, twelve different homes in my eighteen years in the system, and I just can't at up with all the unanswered questions. What happened or what's my family? Like? This is doing me hum and their leaders.

I got a better idea. When you want to where you are. Look at your mom's signature talk marias Jaris what have it said? Maria Ostias And I just found an address. I've died and gone to Venus.

Oh you're certainly not from this world. Hey, folks, welcome to a special episode of The Projection Booth Emriost Mike White. On this episode, I'm talking with Virginia Gardner and alex Iono all about their new film Let's See You on Venus. It is coming out to select theaters on July twenty first, and we'll be streaming on July twenty fifth. Had a great time talking with them.

Albea briefly and I hope you enjoy this interview. Is this your first project working together? Yeah, We've been blacked to be such good friends since then and get to try and you know, work on as many projects as we can together. And so I had to think for a sect and be like, wait a second, and it was this iss together for sure. I'm so curious.

How did the project come to both of you? Esther a company or a film studio called Voltage that I have worked with on two other films, and one of the producers on that movie. This cu on Venus Film is his passion project and his baby, and he's been wanting to get it made for a very long time. It's a really beautiful script. And he came to me and he was kind enough to trust me with the role of Mia, and so that was sort of how I I originally got involved.

And I just fell in love with a script right away and Brian's vision, and yeah, I just felt like a really special script and a sweet story that I felt like deserved to be made for me. Is kind of similar in a little bit. I'd met with Voltage before and and we had you talked about potentially getting together on a project. And when this script came across, and opportunity to work with with not only Voltage, but with Virginia, we are calling you, Virginia. Do I have to call you, Virginia call me ny Okay, okay, okay, okay, sorry, just make it sure.

I was, you know, trying to be grabbing professionally, but I had the opportunity, and I remember I was. I remember the first time I met Jin's we were on a zoom call and I was racing back from like dropping somebody off at the airport or something, and I kept pushing it back. I'm like, I'm sorry. Thirty minutes later, thirty minutes later, we finally got to hop on and and Jinny got to relay that same kind of idea to me that she had in development of the project. That it was it was this, this passion project that we could have an opportunity to tell a story that was exciting and an adventurous and also you got to sneak away to Spain for a bit and have some fun.

So it seemed like a bunch of green lights for me, and I decided it was. I was very lucky that I got to be a part of it. When did you guys actually shoot this? Oh we shot this year ago, maybe a little bit over a year ago. Now, yeah, just I said, you know, it's funny, is I got the snapchat memories that I was sending you and so I started getting it, so it was we're definitely like right around.

So spending a summer in Spain does not sound like a bad thing at all. It was a dream. It was the most fun I've ever had. It was incredible. It's the it was the best thing for every aspect of life except for our allergy.

Yeah, that's so true. We are going crazy with the NUS and X. It was. It was bad how much of your characters were on the page versus how much you brought to the roles. Um.

I think for me, a lot of it was on the page. I mean, obviously, I think every character, at least for me, that I've ever done as always a blend of myself and this other character on some level. But um, what I really had a good time creating for Mia was her wardrobe, which is very specific and she's grown up in the foster care system, so she doesn't have a lot of new clothes, and a lot of it is hand me down, So we sort of tried to find a blend of things that felt sort of childlike and things that felt more and and things that felt like they could have been passed on for a long time. So that was something I got to collaborate with the team quite closely on, and also I think for all of us in the reversal process, we got to add a lot to script and change dialogue and sort of change into what would feel more natural to us.

And I'd say the same, Yeah, I'd say, do my best to blend the character that I read when I first kid a script in with my own experiences who I am as a person. I think the biggest challenge for me in playing this role was that, you know, Kyle deals with a pretty heavy thing, which is, you know, dealing with taking the life of somebody else, albeit in an accident, and so I think that that's something you know as much as you have things you can relate to in life. With characters on the page, sometimes you find yourself being like, how would I deal with that? That is such a precarious situation to find yourself in, and there's a lot of emotions that go along with that. So I think that's what makes it fun to makes the job fun.

It's also very fun when you have other actors with you who are doing the same thing, and so getting to bring ourselves and have fun and play on set while also trying to bring in things that neither myself or Virginny have like actually had to deal with in the literal sense. So it's a real fun challenge. It makes every day of work fun. I know, you haven't killed anybody as far as I know. Yeah, where do you go to tap on that grief?

Because both of you are very damaged characters. Yeah, I give a huge shout out. I'll shout him out right now, the big dog, James Munarski as an a basic acting coach who I got to work with closely, and I think for me as an actor, it's always fun tapping into resources for information on things that you don't really know a ton about, and so James was super helpful, not only and kind of helping me connect to my own internal mindset that I will be able to or that I would have if I was in that situation, but then also just reading a lot of articles about people who had to deal with with the unfortunate situation of being in an accident of any sort and that resulting and something like that. This is getting real dark, but it was very fun.

I had a lot of fun taking myself somewhere where I'd never been, which I think as an actor, as twisted as it sounds, that's kind of what makes the job fun. Yeah, I completely agree with what Alex is saying on all of that, And yeah, worked with a fabulous coach James Narski, that just really allows you to be able to In my opinion, I've so much deeper into a character. But yeah. You know, when creating Mia, I watched she has a pretty serious illness, so I watched a lot of documentaries information on things with people that may have a similar illness. We never have an exact name for it in the film, but I kind of decided on my own what that looks like and what it would be.

And Yeah, for me, whenever it's an emotional scene or what have you, I always draw from kind of from personal experience to just tap into that feeling that the character is feeling in that moment and then just kind of let the scene take me from there. Virtune, you have to tell you you're making me feel very underdressed. I didn't know I had to dress up for this interview, so a T shirt in a card. Again, I didn't realize it's the meta. I'm like on location in Canada right now.

This is all This is the best I could do. Is this to pajamas. I've picked it off a middle ground right now. So, yeah, what are you two working on now? I'm not allowed to say yeah, because we haven't released anything, but it's fun.

I couldn't say that much. How about you, Alex. I'm only allowed to say I'm working on the second season of the Pretty Little Liars HBO Max reboot. This evening is called Pretty Little Liars Summer School, so I'm very excited. We're actually getting close to to wrapping it up the next couple weeks, which is exciting.

Well fantastic. Well, thank you both for such great performances and see you on Venus. It was great, great movie and really enjoyed it, so thank you both for that and for your time today. I appreciate this. Thank you, and Mike is a great talking me.

Great talking with you. You have a good rest of your day. Good luck with these any queen joins to dream chees my head still queen, the words the same, I am blessing, chuse my head. I was sad. Is all right, love, it's what you want?

Drives has to take me away? Daughter, Well, it's all right, love, it what you wants has to take me away? Doaughter? Dragging head? She getting like king daughter and my dragging head.

Dan you queen to dream? She used my head. The woman said, what is all right, love, it's what you want light sous to take you away? And the daughter, what is all right, it's what you want? Sustake you daughter.

We dragging head machine and then getting a in the midnight daging head Danny queen my chance to dream, and she used my head. They need clean. But it's all right. Love is what you want. It sous to take you away, to give me your daughter when it's all right, that it's what you want.

I am so to take you away, give me your daughter, daughter when it's all right. And never what you want, I sus to take you away. You don't, don't, don't give me, give me, give me, not enough to me that