Exclusive: Amanda Crew, Lexi Kolker, and Bruce Dern Talk ‘Freaks’ [Video]

Check out our exclusive interview with the cast of the new sci-fi thriller “Freaks”!

“Freaks”, the brand new Sci-Fi Thriller follows a disturbed father (Emile Hirsch) who locks his 7-year-old daughter (Lexi Kolker) in a house, warning her of a mysterious world full of dangers outside.  Until one day, when the mysterious Mr.Snowcone (Bruce Dern) convinces the girl to escape her father’s control and to join him on a quest for freedom, revenge, and her mother (Amanda Crew).

We were able to sit down with Amanda Crew, Lexi Kolker, and Bruce Dern and get their thoughts about filming the movie.

The Knockturnal: Congrats on a wonderful movie.

Lexy Kolker: Thank you

The Knockturnal: I watched it two times

Amanda Crew: Two times! Wow. Committed.

The Knockturnal: That’s right. It’s a good sign. So I have to ask the question. If you could bring any of these powers to your real life what would it be? Which powers would you bring?

Amanda Crew: Well Lexi?

Lexy Kolker: Well the power that I would have is to give myself any power that I want at the time. So, let’s say if I feel like teleporting, or flying, or turning invisible, or telekinesis, or anything, I could just give it to me and boom! Or, give anyone else a power. That would be my power.

The Knockturnal: See I didn’t even know the word Telekinesis at nine.

Amanda Crew: I still don’t know what she’s talking about so I don’t know what that says about my level of intelligence. Maybe that would be my super power I would just be smarter.

Bruce Dern: Well if I had power, I think… I adore one thing: anytime I see a cake I want buttercream frosting. And then I don’t care what they do but if there’s buttercream frosting on it I’ll get it. I used to go to Vaughn’s and get a birthday cake once a week for myself.

Bruce Dern: They did it there and they had buttercream frosting. Now they do WI it says with ice. Meaning it’s not buttercream frosting so I can’t buy them anymore. That’s the power I want.

Amanda Crew: Well that’s a plug to Vaughn’s. Where is the buttercream frosting cake?

The Knockturnal: They’re sponsoring this right?

Amanda Crew: Yeah, Vaughn’s is sponsoring this, so they’ll bring you back your icing.

The Knockturnal: So obviously this is a big supernatural thriller but, you know, you have to play it as real people. How do you bring realness to something like this?

Amanda Crew: I think that’s what Adam and Zach, our directors really excelled at: creating a safe environment for us to feel safe to explore that. And especially Lexi is carrying this thing.

Lexy Kolker: When I first started filming, I was kind of nervous because it was a pretty hard script and then everyone was just so nice. When we went to film, I knew I was acting. I knew everything was fake and they really, like Amanda said, created a safe environment for all the cast to be in. After I was done filming I would go give everyone a hug and start laughing. So after the really intense scenes I would just have a break and I couldn’t have done the film without Adam and Zack and the whole crew. They were my team. The dream team.

Bruce Dern: Well since I began my career I’ve been interested in one thing: Do I believe it? Do you believe it? That’s the thing. So I try and be as real as a I can. So many times you get into something science fiction and you know “oh where are the cone heads? Where are we supposed to come in with science fiction?”  And I don’t know, I did one movie that was really good but the science fiction was very honest and that was Silent Running. And you know he had a knack on it, he’s kind of a genius guy.  I’m always about the reality of the situation; what’s really happening? Somebody asked a question earlier: what do you do just before the camera rolls? Well I take the truest thing I see on the set. That the guy is a little nervous who is trying to turn the switch on. So, I’m aware of a real thing that I’m really seeing happen right there. So that keeps me in the reality of what’s there. And when I left the theater I realized movies were better than the theater because that’s forever. In the theater “you know what did he say? What did the guy with the crippled thing what did he say?”  I’m just not that cool.

The Knockturnal: So obviously between the three of you, you have a ton of credits but Lexi you know you’re still very young. What advice did you give to Lexi starting her career out?

Amanda Crew: I don’t know if she needed much advice. She’s a wizard. As far as performance stuff, I was learning from her. There is something beautiful about working with kids who are talented like she is, where they really force you to be present in the moment. To what Bruce was saying about that is when your purest acting can come out. When you are not trying to control everything but just being present in the moment and seeing where the scene takes you. Again, Zach and Adam were so great at allowing us to have that freedom to explore extra moments in the scene. And I think that’s what you see on screen of that realness is like they really created that space for us to find those extra moments and weren’t so caught up in all these special effects and all these sci-fi things. There is a real true family story at the heart of this and if that wasn’t true then none of it would have work. So they really catered to creating that safety net for us so we could bring that to life.

Bruce Dern: My biggest thing with Lexi was she’s a fabulous actor. Stop acting. Just be. Let’s have a conversation. “No but when I rehearsed I wanted to say it like this.” “No you say it like right now.” You know what I mean. You got that. The first day you got a little skittish about it. You said well “the guy wrote this line right here and he’s going to be pissed off if I don’t say it that way.” No he’ll love the fact that you made his dialogue alive and real and you got that right away and that was when I knew you had a possibility as you go on now. Because you have something I haven’t really seen in any other young girl. You have a charm. It’s a big person’s word and little kids don’t do it. Shirley Temple was charming. You’re charming.

Lexy Kolker: Thank you so much.

“Freaks” hits theaters on Friday, September 13th, check it out!