This week sees the release of indie horror IT FOLLOWS. You will have no doubt seen the posters or trailer plastered everywhere, but you might not know too much about the film. IT FOLLOWS is the second feature film from director David Robert Mitchell and sees teenage girl Jay, played by Maika Monroe, the star of last year’s brilliant THE GUEST, and her friends stalked by a malevolent spirit. So far it sounds like every horror film out there but the twist with IT FOLLOWS is that you only become a target if you sleep with someone already in its sights; it’s a cross between the video in RINGU and an STD.
Last week we had the opportunity to sit down with both director David Robert Mitchell and one of the young cast, actor Daniel Zovatto. Zovatto is originally from Costa Rica (yes folks the land of Jurassic Park) before moving to New York after deciding acting was his profession of choice. Once in New York he pursued a career in the theatre before getting gigs in some indie projects and deciding to move to the capital of acting, Los Angeles. When we met the 23 year-old he was still struggling to make sense of what time zone he was in ‘my brain is a little bit confused’. Thankfully though he was still able to answer all of our questions, and we did throw a couple of curveballs to him. We talked about IT FOLLOWS, the climate of horror films today, how he’d escape ‘it’ and whether thirty is past it, read on for more.
*The below interview may contain some spoilers to events in the film but don’t worry we’ve highlighted which ones those are, so if you want the film to remain a surprise, skip past those ones.*
THN: For those that don’t know, what is the premise of IT FOLLOWS?
DANIEL ZOVATTO: It all comes from David’s nightmares. It was a recurring thing that happened to him when he was a kid. It’s this thing that would be following him, same as when you watch the movie, real slow pace. He got the base of the story from there and built the story around Jay – Maika, who has a group of friends. It’s basically the story of these kids who live in a suburban place in Detroit, they have to deal with this situation. It’s pretty interesting as it comes from David’s dreams, it’s really cool and rather haunting I think.
Bad dreams are always the worst to shake.
(Nods) At least for me, dreams are like the closet thing to a movie. I don’t know if this happens to you, but when I watch a good film it usually stays with me for a long time. So do nightmares, and dreams; I find it so curious because I don’t know where they [dreams] come from and sometimes it’s something you can’t really get rid of. You probably watched the movie and are still thinking about it, looking behind your back.
My journey home was horrible.
(Laughs) I’ve heard that from a lot of people and that’s amazing. I’m sorry, but that’s awesome.
I left the screening and there was a noise behind me so I had to look. Then I had to use a different set of stairs and was going down the empty spiral stairs on my own…
You were alone?! (Shakes head) Did you watch it alone? You see that’s not a good idea, always watch it with somebody. (Pauses) I wish… they’ve [the press] been asking us if we get scared like that and obviously we don’t because when we watch it we’re like ‘oh that day it was cold’, or ‘that day Maika fell on her ass and it was funny’ or whatever, so we don’t get that chill, and I wish I did. People are honestly saying that they struggled getting back home and that’s awesome, I love that.
It definitely creeped me out, it even made me jump and horror films don’t usually do that to me.
I’m glad. The first time I watched it was when it premièred at Cannes and we were all sitting, Maika, myself, David, Mike the DP, which is fantastic, and all the producers, we were all in the same row. French people can be you know a little honest, or nasty, and we didn’t know what the reaction was going to be and people were jumping and getting scared and I was like ‘nice we’ve done something special’. That was the best reaction to get.
How did you get involved with the film?
I got the script sent, I was actually in Costa Rica and I was coming back to New York and I read it on the plane. I first read it and I was like ‘what the fuck is this?’, I was so confused. So I read it twice to see if I missed something. I had no idea how they were going to make this into a movie because it’s really hard when you read something on a page. It didn’t make any sense to me at least, I was like how are they going to pull this off? I was kinda hesitant at first, I’ll be honest, my team was like ‘you should watch THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER’, which is David’s first movie. So I did that and then it just made total sense. He’s a really visionary guy, I find he has a distinct voice, that’s not like the normal thing that people tend to do. I added those two things together and horror plus David equalled yes. The cast were great too, a bunch of young up and coming actors so it seemed like the right thing to do.
How did you and the other actors get along?
Amazing, like it was one of, if not the best, experiences I’ve had. It was really cool because usually you don’t have time to prepare for [the role]. You usually get there the day before you’re shooting and it’s like ‘Action’ and you start. With this we had about a week before to prep. We all got along and started talking, and there was chemistry from the get go. I think you can see that in the movie, it just seems like these people are friends and we still are. After a year and a half we’re still in LA going for drinks and such.
That’s always nice.
It is because you don’t have to fake it. That’s really nice when you don’t have to.
It’s good because you’re all going on this journey together, the film has surprised people. Horror films have been done to death but IT FOLLOWS has been a real hit with the critics.
I feel like horror movies usually get killed by the critics. I’m nobody to say, but I think lately horror movies have been so generic, just blood in your face, just ridiculous things that are not particularly what I’m into. I’m much more into old school horror films. I remember the first one I watched was THE SHINNING, I was about ten or eleven and I watched it with my father in a hotel. It was a weird experience at first but that’s what I have in my mind. To see people like David kind of try to reinvent or bring back what horror movies used to be, I think it’s a really, I’m just humbled that he was interested to work with me.
What is your favourite horror film then, would you say THE SHINNING?
Yeah it’s up there. There’s so many I love, HALLOWEEN obviously, and I being through these days of press and having people be like this, is from Carpenter, this is from HALLOWEEN, there’s so many homages in this movie regarding those movies but I also feel that it’s not copying them. It’s a new voice.
A new voice but with a familiarity about it.
Exactly, or people can be brought back and be like ‘this is what used to be good, why are people not doing this any more?’ I think it’s changing, I haven’t seen THE (unsure of how to pronounce the word) BABADOOK?
(THN nod)
I haven’t seen it yet but I’ve heard really good things about it, and actually we were in Sundance for IT FOLLOWS right now and there was another movie I think it was called THE WITCH that’s coming out. So I think that people are being tired of shitty horror movies.
STARRY EYES is another that goes back to the glamour and silver screen days.
That’s amazing, I’m so happy because I think there’s been a couple of really bad ones that have been coming out.
I felt there were a lot of similarities with the first NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
Yes! Of course.
Particularly with your character Greg, the boy across the street, the phone call it was all very similar to that and obviously Glen was played by Johnny Depp…
I know, I heard that yesterday, I’ll take it any day. Johnny is one of my idols, one of the first movies I ever watched what made me want to be an actor was WHAT’S EATING GILBERT GRAPE. It had Johnny Depp and Leo DiCaprio and I remember asking my mum and my dad if he [Leo] was actually mentally handicapped. I was so in awe of what he was doing, what that was called was acting, that I was so I’ll take that any day. I love those guys.
*SPOILER ALERT*
What’s it like filming a death scene. I imagine it’s pretty technical…
I’ve died a few times in different projects. (Laughs) My mum is always like ‘When are you going to stop dying because I always cry’. This one was definitely the most complicated one I’ve ever had. It required a lot of technical things like there was goo on my hands and coming out (points to chest) I had a package here that would explode. I had to be in the same position but like two and a half hours I think. I couldn’t move, and my ‘mom’ was on top of me for about two and a half hours, it was kinda awkward. It was kinda hard to get through but then again I just think at least for me I would do anything for David. He’s the type of guy who you just literally have all the trust in. You just let him do his thing because you know he knows what he wants to get. So sometimes I was on the floor thinking ‘what am I doing here!? What is happening?’ and all this but it actually looked pretty narley when you look at the scene.
*SPOILER ALERT*
Your character Greg essentially takes one for the team, did he pass ‘it’ on or not, what was your take on Greg.
I think when I first read the character I think its really easy to just categorise him like the douche guy who lives in the neighbourhood and he’s like ‘I don’t care about anything’. But that’s too boring to play, there’s a little hint in a scene in the movie where Maika is shooting the cereal boxes and I’m like ‘I’m right there, you could’ve called me whenever, I’m always there for you’. I think that was the defining moment where his character blooms because he is concerned about her. There is a history between them so he sees her and he’s like ‘What’s going on?’ ‘Why are you acting like this?’. The thing is I don’t really think Greg believed there is a thing that is following them. He does want to prove to her that he can handle this, ‘all your little friends they don’t know what they’re talking about let me take care of this’. I think he is very brave in that aspect but at the same time very naive cause he ends up dying. He takes it for the team and he just wants to help. He is a guy who genuinely feels that Jay is going through something and he wants to be there for her. I don’t think I pass ‘it’. It’s just it is what it is. There’s that scene where I come back and I try and see how she’s doing and I don’t see her and I end up dying in the scene after.
Hypothetically ‘It’ is real and it’s passed on to you, what do you do?
What would I do?! Myself?! I would get the fuck out of Detroit! That’s what I would do! (Laughs) It comes slowly, I would go to some other country.
Could you do that? Keep travelling around?
Yeah exactly, but then the movie wouldn’t happen. (Laughs) I would probably jet off to China or something (chuckles) somewhere really far away. That would be the solution.
What’s next on the horizon for you?
I have a little indie coming up that I’m really excited about in April. A few TV shows that are coming up, I can’t really talk about them as I would get into trouble, but yeah a few things in the States that I’m really happy for.
How does TV and film differ?
I just recently started to do TV, I lived in New York and I did theatre and the few little indies I could get. But my focus was on theatre. Then stuff started to happen, I did IT FOLLOWS and then LAGGIES which did a few festivals so that started to moving me towards LA. As soon as I got to LA I started working on TV shows. Its a completely different animal, it’s so fast, and there’s so many people with the executives telling you one thing, the writers telling you something else, just a lot of opinions and a lot of things. You get two or three takes and then lets move because they gotta make how many episodes. It’s definitely a different thing and I’m getting used to it. I love indies because there’s so much freedom and you can actually create something special. For instance in this movie David was really open to ideas, which in TV shows you typically are just categorising what they want you to play so it’s a little bit different.
Dream role?
Dream role? I’m very interested in, I’d love to play someone that’s real, a real story whether that’s an athlete, I always love those stories where you get out of the movies and you’re so inspired, something like that. Or playing, I love really dark, drug dealers, one of my favourite movies again is BLOW, so something regarding that area. There’s so much, I’m really young I feel like at this age I can play certain things and until I reach probably my thirties I can start playing cooler things.
It hurts that you think thirty is old…
(Laughs) I’m 23 I’m almost there. I usually go in for 18 year olds or 17 year olds and there’s very few roles, the really only awesome role I’ve seen on the big screen for someone my age is FURY which Logan Lerman played. That’s a really interesting role but you don’t see those roles that much, they’re very rare.
Is it strange playing different ages.
It’s really weird because I’ve always been really young looking and I usually go in and read for a 17/18 year old and most of the times people say I read too old with how I am, not how I physically look. It’s kind of weird because they’re like you’re not that young and I’m like what?! What do you mean I’m not that young? I’ve always gotten that I look young so it’s really trippy. The oldest I’ve played is a 24 year-old which was for a TV show. It’s just, it is what it is, and you have to adjust and get into their psychology of when you were 16 and how you were insecure about certain things and now you’re not. Its just getting in there and remembering who you were and what it was like.
Thank you for taking to us and thanks for scaring me.
I’m glad you got scared.
Come back tomorrow when we will bring you our interview with the man behind the lens director David Robert Mitchell.
IT FOLLOWS is released across the UK in cinemas everywhere from Friday and we highly recommend that you all go and see it, read our review here.
