[tps_title]Part 3: The Most Genuine People You’ll Ever Meet[/tps_title]
The third set of interviews brought us Nathan Cress, Max Deacon, and Alycia Debnam-Carey; the brothers and the crush with a cause. And, no joke, they were probably the most genuine people I’ve ever met. I didn’t know what to expect going into these interviews but what I didn’t expect was any of the cast to be truly interested in and completely devoted to the questions we were asking. These guys were.
At first, Nathan walks in by himself. And if you’ve ever seen iCarly, this guy is exactly as fun and silly as you’d expect him to be. Alycia got held up entering the room and he called out to her in a hilariously shrill tone. But this is an interview after all, so let’s get to the questions.
For some reason, an interviewer felt the need to ask if Max’s British accent is in fact a British accent. Yes, it is. And as for Alycia; no, she is not British. Her Australian accent means she’s Australian. But that’s not all they asked.
Q: And the American accent was no problem then?
Max: Well, you know, you do them a lot. But we had a dialect coach who worked with me and Leesha and Richard every day and we all thought she was a character and hugely talented. She’d get scrappy with us if we were off.
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*Cue me questioning why everything sounds so much cooler in a British accent*
Q: Now who helped you with your American accent? (Referring to Nathan of course. Because he doesn’t have an accent. It’s called sarcasm).
Nathan: My mom and my dad happened to birth me here.
And that marks the spot for just the right amount of accent talk for one interview. Or a bit too much. I think we’re all ready to move on.
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Q: With the handheld camera, vlogging is a big thing now. Are you all into watching that on YouTube?
You see, I was sitting next to Nathan Kress, a.k.a Freddie Benson, when this question was asked. If you’ve ever seen iCarly, you’d know vlogging played into that show quite a bit. And, as awkward as I am, I subconsciously whispered iCarly at this point in the interview. His expression read ‘weirded out,’ but he incorporated it into his answer. So I’ll take that as a win.
Nathan: I lucked out because for the last six years before that I had been doing a kid’s TV show where my job was to tote around a camera the whole time. So for me, it was actually very organic. And not only that but matching that to what the camera guys were doing because that’s very difficult. You have to shoot everything the exact same way they do.
Max: It’s quite a different way to shoot a film like this. Usually when you’re on set, you’re supposed to ignore the camera, the cameras aren’t people. But here, the cameras are people and in some ways it’s very freeing because there are no marks, but then sometimes you have to turn and look straight down the lens which is a very alien feeling and your like, “Oh, this feels wrong.” So that was kind of an adjustment.
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And in the second-long gap after this answer, Peeta struck.
Me: Max and Alycia, how difficult was it to film that pit scene? It was just so intense to watch I thought you guys did an amazing job.
Max: Thank you so much.
Alycia: We appreciate that.
Max: It was very sexy.
Alycia: We had that dirty glam look going on.
*Laughter*
The two played off each other very well.
Max: It was cool, we did it over five nights, which is a really short time because it was such an easy set up and because it was just me, Alycia, and a camera man down in this pit set up on a soundstage. We started it and they just filled the pit with more water and more water and more water ‘til that final fun scene.
Alycia: I think we first imagined we’d be doing it over a longer period of time, but because it was in the one place it was suddenly quick succession over a bunch of nights. It was difficult because it is one of the quieter moments of the whole film; there’s a lot of spectacle going around but this really brings you into two characters. And so that was sort of hard, we wanted to do that justice, too. So to do that, the water’s slowly rising up to your mouth and you’re kind of struggling to breathe at some point.
Max: It was always kind of nerve-wracking going into the scene, but that setting was both difficult and kind of galvanizing. Having water rise on you and being right on the edge of drowning the whole time, it gives you a sense of urgency and intimacy. They put a lid on us. We couldn’t see the rest of the crew. And towards the end of the scene I’d look over at Alycia and I’d just see a pair of lips above the water.
Well Max, that’s not a bad pair of lips to stare at.
I think it’s about time in this interview to mention a name drop that had gone down earlier and will play in again later on.
Q: You said James Cameron had another contribution to the movie, what was that?
Max: Yeah, there’s one scene where I’m being saved from the water. My head almost came out of the structure when he was coming in after me once I’d almost drowned. So they added in a layer of water so that as he arrives I’m (totally) submerged.
Max: (As per James’ recommendation). At the end, Steve comes in dragging a kiddie pool into this room and he was like, “Do you mind just putting your head under the water and making some noises?” And he wanted to make it realistic so he actually uttered the words I’d never thought I’d hear a director say, he said, “We don’t want to water board him but…” and I was like, “Yeah, not that” and he replied, “No no no not that.” But yeah, we had to make the sounds realistic.
Me: At the end, do you think Donnie (Max’s character) finally got the date with his long time crush (Alycia’s character)?
Max: Oh, definitely.
Nathan: They’re getting married. How could they not?
Max: We originally had that in there.
Dang you, whoever cut that out. The guy nearly died for her and we don’t get to see his happy ending. Not that kind of happy ending. Oh, you know what I mean.
And then once our time with them was up, THEY thanked US. Seriously, they were THE kindest souls. And I’m clearly CAPS happy.
[tps_footer]Click NEXT for our interview with Richard Armitage, Sarah Wayne Callies & Steven Quale[/tps_footer]
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