Never judge a [film] by it’s cover.
XOXO, which stars Sarah Hyland and Graham Phillips, highlights the inner workings of the modern day “rave culture,” which is much more than it’s made out to be. The film follows the main characters Ethan (played by Graham) and Krystal (played by Sarah) as Ethan pursues a spot to DJ at the festival, and as Krystal searches for her soulmate. The film takes a lot of surprising turns, and includes a ton of fun and freeing music. Check out our sit down interview with the film’s stars Sarah Hyland and Graham Phillips after the jump.
The Knockturnal: Congrats not the film, Amazing job. I loved it! What was it like working with Christopher Louie and Dylan Meyer?
Sarah: Great! Christopher – excellent. Christopher makes everything so aesthetically beautiful. And Dylan is this super rad chic who like, you can talk to about anything. She’s super awesome.
Graham: I loved working with Dylan, it was cool to work with her before we started shooting. With Chris I really agree, his ability to bring a really warm, loving, aesthetic to a world that could easily look very chaotic and aggressive is great.
The Knockturnal: Krystal and Ethan start out in the film thinking their experience will go one way, and it turns out completely differently. Were you guys surprised by your characters journeys?
Sarah: We’ve been attached to this film for about two years, so we shot a teaser and now we’re here. So we were really able to be a part of that process. It didn’t come for me as a surprise. I thought it was great – we were able to talk to Dylan really openly about our characters as well. I think that was the greatest pat about it was we had open conversations about our characters and their arcs and and conversations about what happens with Ethan and Krystal.
Graham: I think the fact that we go into this festival thing and it completely 180s is sort of representative of the kind of journey most people go through at that age in their early 20’s thinking. We come out of it kicking and screaming, still partying.
Sarah: Literally still partying.
Both: Imagine filming the end of the movie. With thousands of people having no idea what you’re doing.
The Knockturnal: What do you guys hope people take away from the film?
Graham: I think the soundtrack – I just re-watched it 15 minutes ago, you know, to refresh my memory, and the soundtrack is so amazing and being able to show this rave culture is a lot more than people who haven’t experienced it is, and how much love goes with the music.
XOXO will launch globally on Friday, August 26th.
