In ‘Everybody Loves Somebody,’ written and directed by Catalina Aguilar Mastretta, a young woman named Clara (Karla Souza) must choose between the familiarity of her past or the unexpectedness of her future, as she strives to find romance with the help of her family.The Knockturnal’s Britt Leoni was lucky enough to score interviews with Catalina Aguilar Mastretta, Karla Souza, Ben O’Toole, Tiaré Scanda and Patricia Bernal!
Interview with Karla Souza:
The Knockturnal: A huge takeaway I got from the film is that love is fleeting and ever changing, what is your opinion on that?
Karla Souza: I think when you try to hold onto it, it’s almost like you’ve missed the point. It’s alive in itself and it can’t be put into a jar or a picture. It’s a living organism that you share with someone or an emotion. My character Clara tries to hold onto this idea that she had, that one love that was it and she let it pass and that’s why she doesn’t really want to commit to anyone else. I think I could definitely relate to that. Letting go of that and allowing yourself to be hurt again is almost the only way.
The Knockturnal: What did you do as an actor to find the difference in those two relationships with Ben and Daniel?
Karla Souza: I depended 100% on the actors. I knew when I helped cast this movie. I was like “I need amazing counterparts to be like you said to be able to portray a relationship for years,” with José Yazpik, it had to look like we had had a really long relationship. Our first day filming, we filmed the bathtub scene which had to be us coming to terms with a lifelong relationship, so I really needed to be vulnerable with him.
With Ben, there had to be this chemistry also just like a ping pong, and we had that on casting. When casting Ben, I thought, “this is someone who has the vulnerability that character needed, but also that young playfulness we needed.”
I fully depended on them for those.
The Knockturnal: The genuineness of the Latino family, I thought that was brilliant. How did you find that authenticity?
Karla Souza: I think it’s a craziness. When I bring people to my family dinners or lunches, everyone talks on top of everyone, you have to scream if you want to be heard, but there’s such an art in it and there’s such a liveliness to it.
Because it was majority Mexican cast, Mexican crew, the director is Mexican, I think that came with it. That sort of liveliness. Even if we had to shoot 25 times the same scene, the one where we’re running in our socks through the house and playing those games, the chemistry was able to come alive with the fact that we all had that family. I come from a family like that. Catalina wrote a family like that because she comes from a family like that. It was very authentic to our live,s os it wasn’t very hard to act that stuff out.
Interview with director Catalina Aguilar Mastretta and Ben O’Toole (Asher)
The Knockturnal: What was it like creating this film? What inspired it?
Catalina Aguilar Mastretta: I think the experience of making it was so happy. It sounds cheesy and fake to say it, but we had such a good time. We made it with so much love that it translates onto the screen. If it has to have some sort of message, it’s that in the end, everybody does love somebody and love is sometimes more complex and gray than we sometimes give it permission to be. That’s what makes it good.
The Knockturnal: As beautiful and amazing as it can be, love can also be super painful. Were there experiences that you pulled for playing your character?
Ben O’Toole: There are a few moments in it that I relate to quite explicitly. I think that’s the strength of the writing as well that a character like Asher is very identifiable and relatable. I think in a weird way, we’ve all been in that position before. We’ve all loved and been terrified by the idea that it’s unrequited.
It’s terrifying, unrequited love. Chemically, it’s a disaster. It’s a nightmare, yet I think what Asher does better than I do is that he’s willing to take that leap. As scary as it is, he’s going to go for it and just be there, irrespective of what happens. It’s incredibly selfless to truly care enough to be there for someone else. I think it’s such an admirable quality.
The Knockturnal: The cast had such a great dynamic. Was there a lot of preparation in building the different relationships:
Catalina Aguilar Mastretta: We did some. We didn’t rehearse-rehearse, we hung out. I wanted us to come to set with the sense that we knew who we were and we were all telling the same story.
Ben O’Toole: We loosely explored and spoke about certain ideas. The huge thing was getting to know everybody. It’s a huge part of the work you don’t have to do if we actually care about the people.
The film hits theaters this Friday.
