Interview With Emile Hirsch, Star Of FREAKS

When Cannes Film Festival rolled around again this year, a major point of contention came from many featured directors not wanting their new releases to be spoiled; whilst audiences were tight-lipped when the Russo Brothers urged fans to not spoil Avengers: Endgame, it seems that once reviews of Bong Joon-Ho’s mystery box Parasite and Quentin Tarantino’s decadent Once Upon a Time in Hollywood arrived, it was odd that their respective filmmakers needed to plead to us not to spoil their secrets.

Whilst trailers and social media – as well as the fleeting attention spans of a new generation – have conditioned us to be okay with openly dealing with twists and spoilers, it’s refreshing to walk into a film whose script is leaden with twists and reveals that are unexpected, that do spring their surprises like a baited trap to an engrossed audience, which was my experience watching Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky’s Freaks for the first time.

With a structural ingenuity that allows constant layers to be uncovered from just a single scenario, it’s best to go into Freaks knowing as little as possible, with only this brief premise; seven-year-old Chloe (impressive newcomer Lexy Kolker) has only imagined the outside world through the slits of her windowsill, or whatever crack her panicked father (Emile Hirsch) hasn’t already boarded up. Forbidden to walk outside or interact with others, Chloe spends her days being homeschooled by her father, reciting escape plans and being plagued by horrible visions in her basement.

Has she been kidnapped? Is her father telling the truth about it being dangerous for her outside – if it even is her father? There’s a shroud of mystery that engulfs the claustrophobic abode of its central characters, and Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky’s screenplay takes great joy in peeling back the floorboards to see what’s really happening underneath. In the lead-up to Freaks’ Australian release, I had the chance to speak with Emile Hirsch about his performance in the film, working with the young Lexy Kolker, how he approaches his roles and his thoughts on the recent cult fandom for Speed Racer.

Alex Lines for Film Inquiry: How did you get involved with Freaks?

Emile Hirsch: So it’s kinda interesting, like my dad, he has his own little connections, to people that make movies and things like that. And he’s brought up ideas for me to play over the years, but it always seems like, Oh, my dad’s coming up with this idea, I’m not gonna do it, you know, or my dad brought me this script, I don’t know – you know what I mean? Your dad is not your agent, to say the least. Like imagine it, so my dad was like, read this script, read this script! And I was like, I’ve done it so many times before, so here is the deal: I’m going to read this thing my dad told me to read and I’m not going to like it, and it’s going to be this whole thing, everybody’s going to have to be nice and I’m going to tell them no.

But then I read it and I was like, yeah, dad, this is a damn good script! I was really impressed and I really loved the script. I was a happy camper, and then I had a chance to meet Adam and Zach in Tennessee, to see what they had in mind for the film. My biggest question originally was, can you guys pull this off? ‘Cause the way the script read was like a huge action sci-fi thriller, but it read amazingly.

I mean, it really was a great script and I was like “the script’s amazing, but are we going to be able to pull this thing off guys?” You know, this is like a shoestring budget that you guys have got here. They explained to me how they were gonna make it work, and Zach used to actually render graphics by himself. He was like a coder, which really gave me a lot of confidence that they were going to be able to pull their vision off.

I think Freaks is a nice alternative to the juggernaut Marvel and DC films, because it’s focused on its core cast of characters, as opposed to pure spectacle. I mean, would you even consider this a superhero film? How would you define it?

Emile Hirsch: Well, in similar way to how hear how Todd Phillips’s Joker is like a superhero movie, but it’s not really a superhero movie. It’s more of a drama in that vein. I feel like Freaks would probably ultimately fall more into that category of R-rated adult themed stuff with a superhero backdrop, but not really featuring characters that the audiences are customarily used to seeing in that way.

But I actually think that it’s the perfect time for a movie like Freaks in a way. Like with Avengers:Endgame, it felt like that was the culmination and it’s like, okay, well what do we do now? And I think a lot of the audience of those movies will crave a movie like Freaks because it’s something different. But there’s still like a genre familiarity that they can hold onto, but it’s just different. I love a lot of those huge movies and I go see a lot of them, but I do feel like the synapses are a little bit burned, and so it’s the perfect time for something new for when that happens, I think.

Much like The Autopsy of Jane Doe, this film is centered around a great family dynamic, so how was it working with Bruce Dern?

Emile Hirsch: It was awesome working with Bruce. He was such a master improviser, he’d always keep me on my toes and I was just so impressed with how he’d create lines within scenes and we’d kind of go back and forth and the fluidity that he had as he acted was really something else. Cause you know, he’s an older guy. So you’d be like, oh, well maybe he’s an older dude, but then you see him in the scene and you’re like, nah, he’s like a total assassin.

Speaking to that, you share a fair amount of screentime with Lexy Kolker, how was she to work with?

Emile Hirsch: She was great, she’s a little kid. But I also was her age when I was acting. Her knowing that made her trust me in a way, because it was different than like an actor who got into acting after grad school and looked at a kid actor and thought, “man, that kid’s weird” or “it’s one of those child actors” because no, that was literally me. I think that that definitely created a deeper understanding between the two of us, that I don’t know that we would have had if she didn’t know that I had been doing it when I was her age as well. You know, that is definitely a source of comfort I think in a way for the both of us.

She was great. Adam and Zach showed me these interviews that Brie Larson did where she talked about her process on Room with Jacob Tremblay, the Lenny Abrahamson movie, about how they would let Brie navigate for the director in a way where she would be working with him in this really tight space and help guide the flow of the scene. And that was something that Adam and Zach wanted me to do.

So we sort of practiced that, where unless there was something super specific, they’d seed their ideas through me and then I would work with Lexy. It helps because we’re in a really small space a lot of times and otherwise it’s like, there’s two of them and one of me and it’s like, three adults giving notes or something like that. It sounded lame, and so we’d be really chill and I would always just keep it fun and we had a great time.

Sometimes I’d be like, let’s go back to that part again. And you know, there was never like a, Oh, you got to hit this line or you got to get this right or anything. There was nothing like that. It was moreso… I knew we had were shooting on digital, so we had time to burn, so it’s like, yeah, let’s just play around with it. It was funny because it was a super fluid process that I did with Lexy, but it was funny, I found that that process actually worked better for me as like an adult actor. When I watch the movie now, there’s a spontaneity and a freshness to the performances, which to me is a result of that process.

Did you draw on your own parental experience for this role?

Emile Hirsch: Absolutely. I mean, my son is almost six years old now and I think that as a very protective parent, you can’t really help but make that the single most identifying characteristic that you identify with the character. In a way that is such a strong feeling that like parents have, I read that script and I’m like, Oh man, I identify more with this guy than any I’ve ever played. You know what I mean? Because it’s just such a unifying feeling that you instantly identify with.

It’s a role that constantly requires your character to always be on edge, always be afraid of the outside world and his daughter discovering it. Is that level of constant exasperation quite taxing as an actor?

Emile Hirsch: In a way? It was taxing but I was doing things during the shoot that would really gave me a lot of energy. Like we are shooting in Vancouver, so I would constantly go do the Grouse Grind, that crazy hike and do a lot of weights. So I was really like keeping my energy levels pretty high. And I felt like the fluid nature of the way we were shooting it let me be in this intense place.

For me, it recalled your work on Killer Joe, with you’re constantly being put through the ringer.

Emile Hirsch: Yeah, like a less evil version of the Killer Joe guy. That was a funny, ridiculous character in Killer Joe, wasn’t it?

Yeah. I love Friedkin, so I had to bring him up at some point.

Emile Hirsch: Yeah, I loved working with Friedkin. He was so much fun. 85% of my performance in that movie is the first take. We didn’t even do a second take.

It must be so pleasing as an actor not to do the same thing over and over again.

Emile Hirsch: Yeah, it was amazing. It’s also kind of like a high wire act, where you … “This is what’s going to be in the movie right now.” It’s kind of exciting.

With the recent news of The Matrix 4 finally happening, what are your current thoughts on the massive cult appreciation for Speed Racer?

Emile Hirsch: I mean better late than never. Certainly at the time, it was a colossal bomb and panned by a lot of people. It’s kind of interesting how it’s suddenly this revered, cult, kind of comic booky manga adaptation. It’s just kind of wild. I always really liked it, so I was kind of bummed when it was received negatively because I was like, “I actually thought it was really good.” I was like, “Man, you guys are wrong about this.”

It’s pretty satisfying, seeing everybody come around and being like, “Oh, man. The injustice of the way Speed Racer was treated.” I was a huge fan of the cartoon, so it’s nice to see it getting the status of cool that the cartoon had for so long. It’s cool to see the movie get that, and it’s kind of cool that it’s a standalone movie in a way. There’s not five of them. There’s just one.

Also, it doesn’t set itself up for a sequel at the end, which I feel like a lot of these sort of old reboots tend to do.

Emile Hirsch: Yeah, absolutely. I think if it had made a billion dollars, they probably would have made a sequel, but they would have found a way.

Oh, definitely. Over the years, you’ve played a number of biographical roles. Milk, Into the Wild, Alpha Dog, Lords of Dogtown, Lone Survivor, and now obviously this year, you’ve had Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. For you, do you feel like this is just a happy coincidence or is there something that continuously draws you to these types of roles?

Emile Hirsch: Well, I definitely find the specificity in the real life stories of people. Sometimes it’s more interesting even than – Perhaps truth is stranger than fiction in a way. But at the same time, I do enjoy fictitious characters as well. I think that they’re different. Sometimes you wouldn’t apply the process you have with a real character to a fictional character, but then sometimes when you apply your process that you would have with a fictional character to a real character, it actually could end up being better.

Do you know what I mean? Sometimes people who are too precious perhaps about the way they go about certain prep of these historical characters end up maybe being a little too precious, you know?

What are you working on at the moment?

Emile Hirsch: I’d love for people to check out my electro-pop album called Mnemonic. My songs are on YouTube and Instagram now under Hirsch. The songs are Love is Real and The Year 2000, but the album is coming out October 4th. It’s a weird thing. People will probably be like, “What the hell is he talking about?” But it’s pretty cool.

What are some of your favourite Emile Hirsch roles? Let us know in the comments.

Film Inquiry thanks Emile Hirsch for taking the time to talk with us.

Freaks will be released in Australian cinemas on September 12, 2019, with a US release on September 13th.