Your Monster is now playing in theaters worldwide and to mark the occasion, we sat down with stars Melissa Barrera and Tommy Dewey to get all the details on their unique horror romantic comedy that blends a myriad of genres to deliver one wholly unique experience.
Barrera and Dewey share stories from the making of the film, developing their electric chemistry, channeling their own inner rage, and a whole lot more.
Loosely based on director/writer Caroline Lindy's real life experience, the film is "the story of the soft-spoken actor Laura Franco, who is dumped by her longtime boyfriend while recovering from surgery and retreats to her childhood home to recover. With her future looking bleak, insult is added to injury when Laura discovers her ex is staging a musical that she helped him develop. But out of these gut-wrenching life changes emerges a monster with whom she finds a connection, encouraging Laura to follow her dreams, open her heart and fall in love with her inner rage."
Watch our full video interview with stars Melissa Barrera & Tommy Dewey below and/or keep scrolling to read the transcription. Plus, please remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more exclusive content!
ROHAN: Melissa, you've done a handful of very intense films, but I believe this is your first romantic comedy. Did it excite you to be able to try something considerably different than your last few films?
MELISSA: Oh yeah, definitely, I was very nervous about the comedy, but it was also so much fun. But, also, it's not like a light movie, it's also like a crazy movie, you know, like it has all the comedic elements and the romance, but it also gets pretty intense. So, it wasn't like, oh, a walk in the park for me. It was a lot of like, okay, now I'm dreading those scenes that are coming up. I'm having fun with Tommy right now. We're laughing, but then I know that tomorrow I have to yell at Jacob, you know, but it was good to be able to have the whole spectrum of - it feels like the whole spectrum of movies.
TOMMY: I was going to say, this movie has a lot of Melissa, we barely made it across the finish line. *laughing*
ROHAN: Tommy, did you find wearing the prosthetics to be a freeing process, as an actor?
TOMMY: Yeah, I mean, a little bit of a challenge, just getting used to it. But, yeah, it is mostly freeing, you know, and I keep saying this, but being able to drop one's personal vanity and just show up and act is a real luxury. And, it was great, and I think, like I'd get it on, I'd look in the mirror for like a minute or two in the morning, and just kind of fuse myself with this strange entity, and then, just, and just…
MELISSA: You’d get it on?
TOMMY: *laughs* I'd get it on, and then, it was time to get it on.
ROHAN: Melissa, in the film, Laura really has to find her voice again and unleash her rage after her experience, were you able to relate to that sort of feeling?
MELISSA: Yeah, definitely, I think it's very relatable to feel like you disappear into the relationships that you have, you know, and I was actually having this conversation with a friend the other day, my friend, JP, and he was like, I've been trying to figure out who I am without thinking of myself in relation to other people. And, I was like, whoa, that's deep. Because, like, who are you?
TOMMY: *laughing* Airing JP’s dirty laundry…
MELISSA: No, no, no, he's like an amazing guy, he's like a singer/songwriter. He's amazing, and he puts this all in his songs.
TOMMY: I know what you mean.
MELISSA: But like, when someone asks you, tell me about yourself, you always say, either your job or like, I'm a daughter, a sister. It's always your relationships to other people, but if someone was to ask you, like, who are you? Just yourself. That's a hard question to answer, and I feel like that's very relatable, and I think that's what that's where Laura starts at the beginning, when she's committed herself to like her boyfriend and her best friend, and that's all she is in relation to other people. And, when she finds herself alone, she's in complete despair because she's like, I'm nothing, you know, like I'm alone and depressed and have no purpose in my life. And then, Monster comes to the rescue, which is, you know, beautiful to see that journey of her, like finding her voice again and finding herself again.
ROHAN: Your chemistry in the movie is off the charts and just talking now, you have a very good rapport, so what is it like initially building that chemistry?
TOMMY: It was just, I don't know, maybe Melissa would disagree, but it was just so easy.
MELISSA: Yeah
TOMMY: And, then you think, oh, we can make a good movie. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that has to line up, but after a couple scenes, I'm like, you know, there's actors that show up with a performance in mind, and they've done all this preparation, and it’s not as if Melissa hadn't prepared, but then, there's the actors that show up and are just game. She is one of those. I try to be one of those, and then, it becomes about that magic that happens between you, which I think is the best stuff, and we have that in spades on this.
MELISSA: I think it also helps, because I don't remember us like trying to build chemistry, like I don't remember us ever being like, oh, we gotta do that. It just kind of felt easy, like we got along right away, and he's very funny, so I was like, oh, this is gonna be fun. But, also, we shot the house, not in sequential order, but pretty much close in sequential order. So, we started off shooting the things where we first meet, where there's a lot of tension. So, yeah, we got to know each other as actors during those moments of like they're not in love yet, and so, it kind of felt like a natural progression of finding where they started to like each other and all of that, and so, I think it was also very helpful to not have to like jump into the love scenes.
TOMMY: Yeah, I think the first scene we shot is when I'm sitting there and she wakes up, maybe hoping that Monster was a dream, and he's sitting there reading. I think, maybe, that’s the first thing we did.
MELISSA: Yeah, that was it.
TOMMY: So, any awkwardness in that scene would play appropriately, but it was super fun. I mean, you kind of had to rip us off the set at a certain point because we were like, what if we did it like this? Let's try it. Let's do that scene again, you know, which is a good place to be when making a movie.
Your Monster tells the story of the soft-spoken actor Laura Franco (Melissa Barrera), who is dumped by her longtime boyfriend (Edmund Donovan) while recovering from surgery and retreats to her childhood home to recover. With her future looking bleak, insult is added to injury when Laura discovers her ex is staging a musical that she helped him develop. But out of these gut-wrenching life changes emerges a monster (Tommy Dewey) with whom she finds a connection, encouraging Laura to follow her dreams, open her heart and fall in love with her inner rage.
Your Monster is now in theaters!