Remember Buddy, the bright orange unicorn and star of that classic children's television show who brought joy and life lessons into your living room? Inside the colourful world of "It's Buddy!", a group of children spend their days singing, dancing, and helping Buddy spread happiness.
However, when one child refuses to play along, Buddy is not pleased, and cracks begin to appear in this seemingly perfect world.
That's the premise of Buddy, the new horror movie from Casper Kelly (Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Mandy). He co-wrote the script with Jamie King, and the impressive cast includes Cristin Milioti, Delaney Quinn, Tristan Borders, Madison Skyy Polan, Caleb "CJ" Williams, Luke Speakman, Patton Oswalt as Strappy, Clint Howard as George, Michael Shannon as Willie, with Topher Grace and Keegan-Michael Key as Buddy.
When we sat down for a conversation with the Buddy director earlier this month—the movie opens on August 28—we took a deep dive into the creation of this world, bringing Buddy to life, and casting Shannon, who most of you may know best as Man of Steel's General Zod, in a truly bizarre role.
Kelly also talks to us about what made Keegan-Michael Key the right choice to play Buddy and shares his thoughts on having potentially created a new horror icon.
You can check out the full interview on Buddy in the player below.
Hi Casper, it's great to speak to you about Buddy. It must be exciting to get out there and talk about it.
I'm super excited [to be here]. Last night we had a screening at the Lincoln Center, which was a real thrill. And it seemed like everybody stayed for the Q&A, which is always a good sign. You don't want to be in the lobby and just see people streaming out, you know? So that felt good.
That's awesome. After watching this film, the first thing I've got to ask is: where did the inspiration come from to take that innocent children's TV aesthetic that a lot of us grew up with and to almost weaponise it against the audience and put such a twisted spin on it with this character of Buddy?
I think, among many things, it was thinking about how, compared to, like, the 1970s Bad News Bears, for example, the kids in those shows are so well behaved. And I remember even as a kid wondering if I would be okay in that world, or what would happen if I did something wrong, you know? So it kind of started from there. And when something is so perfect, you can't help but wonder. And it often is the case that there's something bad lurking underneath, you know what I mean? Like some of our most beloved stars, like Bill Cosby or, you know, etc. Once you learn, you know, there's this whole dark side. So it just seemed to feel right.
You've got an amazing cast here as well, from top to bottom. But I've got to ask, what was it like pitching Michael Shannon on playing [a vetriliquist's doll] Willie? What a role in this one for him.
Well, to some of the producers of this movie—the financiers—was this company called LowSpark, who produced Take Shelter, which was Michael Shannon's first and breakout movie. So maybe it was just them cashing in the favour. I don't even know the story. I hope he wasn't like, "I don't want to do it, but I owe you one, so I'll do it." No, he was into it. He enjoyed it. He just has a natural intense quality, but he's a nice person and is down to do fun things. I mean, he's doing that cover band and touring, you know, so he's a cool guy. But some people just have a natural vibe, and he has a natural intensity.
When it came to designing Buddy and the world that he inhabits and the characters that surround him, they've all got a slightly sinister feel, which fits in with the tone of the movie. However, you could imagine them in one of those '90s kids' TV shows. Was it quite challenging to find the right balance of not making them look overtly scary, but also making sure there's a little something there for the audience to be a bit creeped out by?
Well, actually, I'm not sure I agree with you, but I tried to make it purely realistic, like a show and let the sinisterness come out in the acting and the body language and the camera, you know? I tried to make the world as sweet and like those real shows as possible. In the design, I don't know if I intentionally put in a bunch of sinister feeling. I think it just comes through. I don't know. So maybe unintentionally. Or maybe intuitively it comes through.
That's fair. Having seen what these characters are capable of, I can't help but look at them in that light! Was it quite a big challenge for you in creating this world and maybe the horror mythology later in the film? We do see that there's a little more to this world than we expect.
Yeah, that was wonderful. I wouldn't even say it was a challenge. That's part of the fun of this: building a world and having to answer the questions. Even if you don't answer the questions for the audience, I feel like you need to have answers to the questions. So no, that was an absolute joy. And if I ever get to do a sequel, I would probably try hard to answer a few questions, but ask a lot more. I'm kind of like, I support the David Lynch feeling about Twin Peaks where you want to create more mysteries than you solve, you know?
In terms of finding the right voice for Buddy, what was it about Keegan-Michael Key that made him the right choice in your mind? Was there something specific in his performance that really unlocked this character of Buddy for you?
Oh, that's a great question. He has a lot of versatility. He is, in real life, just a nice, lovable person. And you want to cast, if you can, towards someone's natural tendencies; it's good. And then he was able to access the dark side. And we spent a lot of time on the voice, and he was very thoughtful about it, you know, because he's so versatile; he could have mimicked Barney, but we didn't want to do that. We wanted it to be its own voice, but one that felt like it could be in a real '90s kid show.
From a technical perspective, how did you go about recreating the look and the feel of those '90s kids' TV shows? I grew up with those, and I've got to say, that first 25-30 minutes of the film when we're solely in that world feel very authentic.
Thank you. I've got to give a lot of credit to our production designer, Anna Kathleen, who designed the sets, our puppeteers led by Devin Ledllo, and then our DP, Zack Cooperstein. We originally investigated—I don't even know if I should tell you this—but we originally were going to try to use period cameras, but they only had two and one of them they had to fix. And we had so little time. So it was such a tight shoot. It was a low-budget movie that, for example, in some of the death scenes, we only got one shot of it because we would not have had time to clean up the blood and everything. We only had one chance. So we made the decision to shoot it on modern cameras and do post-work and post-colour correction to achieve that effect. But I'm glad it worked for you.
You've added a potential new horror icon to the stable of them with this character of Buddy. Was that playing on your mind at all when you were creating this character, or are you just excited to see what audiences do with him and just let him take on a life of his own?
It doesn't enter into my mind when I'm writing it, but I do love it. And for some reason I've had some luck with that. Like Cheddar Goblin, part of Mandy, a lot of people seem to really embrace it. And also, I did a segment of V/H/S/Halloween with this character called Funsize. And always one of the best compliments is when someone gets a tattoo. And I just saw on Instagram that someone sent me that someone already got a Buddy tattoo, and the movie's not even out yet. So that was awesome.
Well, I'll be on the lookout for Buddy tattoos. But Casper, thank you so much for your time. It's been such a pleasure to talk to you about this one.
Thank you, Josh. Comes out August 28th. It was great talking to you.
Buddy is only in theaters on August 28.