While COVID is on everyone's minds daily in 2020, it's difficult to imagine anyone predicting that this would be the case a few years ago. When we chatted with director Brian Duffield (The Babysitter, Underwater) about his new film, Spontaneous, he admitted that he actually found the concept of a global pandemic too far-fetched for his film.
Duffield released his directorial debut this year, and it focuses on children coming of age in a world where they could explode at any moment. Being politically charged, Duffield explains that the film features explosive action due to the situation we as a nation were in when the movie was being developed in 2018.
Now, everyone (well, most people) understands the seriousness of the situation, but Duffield admitted that when the film was initially being put together, the notion of a pandemic on such a level was seen as unrealistic and too science fiction to fit into Spontaneous's script.
To hear our full conversation with Brian Duffield, click the podcast player below. Otherwise, scroll down for this portion of the transcript!
12m 49s Darth Lexii: All the characters go through various forms and stages of grief. I was curious if you experienced anything like that in your own life or felt most connected with something specific that any of the characters deal with?
13m 8s Brian Duffield: For me, I think it was not to keep talking about the drinking, but I think there's a scene where Katherine makes a cocktail, and that felt very specifically me. It was probably one of the toughest scenes in the writing stage to get right. Again, she was breaking the fourth wall for a little bit of that because it's such a dramatic reset. And I think part of it for me was you can have the grief that is like crawling under your bed grief. And then there's the grief where you're trying hard to not be in grief. And that felt like the one that was most specifically me, where I would probably drink a lot. I've talked with Katherine a lot that the whole movie is her trying to distract herself from what's going on. And so as soon as the first kid pops, she instantly is like, I need to be high. And then she's like, Oh, there's a boy I like, great we're dating now, kind of thing. Until the ending, the whole movie is her trying to distract herself. Even go so far as to blame herself for what's going on, which is total nonsense.
But it feels like you're trying so many different things. Then eventually you get to like the self-loathing part where you're like, of course, it's my fault, and it makes sense, and it doesn't make sense, but it is so much easier to accept that you did something wrong because the opposite of that is no one did anything wrong. It's just this s****y thing that happened. You can even see that everyone is just like it's the "Chinese flu" and all this stuff in politics. But that's not how it works or how it happens. It's easier to blame somebody, especially if you're a racist piece of s**t, but that's not how viruses are. It wasn't like some dude in a lab cooking something up, but it's so easy to try to blame somebody and try to blame yourself. And it felt like having Katherine go on this movie long journey of trying to distract yourself from the inevitable of like, Oh, "life is hard." One of the things that I loved about the character in the book and what Katherine brought to it is trying to play that the grief is, and the trauma is fun as opposed to the mystic river, Sean Penn screaming and like getting like pulled down. I think that's how I've related to things. I can think of like funerals and deaths and the things that pop up to me that are like the things that were like really absurdly funny in those moments because they are so human and genuine, and they are so not like the stereotypical thing that you would expect. A long way to answer your question was to infuse as much of that fun while also having the grief and the pain be something authentic and understandable. Especially in that kind of back half-hour of the movie where she's a total mess, but she's having a great time at the same time, and that's like the tunnel tight rope kind of stuff. But as a writer and as a director, I want things to be as difficult to pull off as possible because I'm terrible at giving myself an easy experience.
17m 8s Literary Joe: I liked the Punchbowl scene.
17m 11s Brian Duffield: A lot of that was vital. So the punch bowl was scripted, but I think a lot of it was Katherine. And then we had to cut it down a little bit. Cause we were just like, do this, do this. Like it was those kinds of things where it felt so sad, but it's also hilarious. That felt like the kind of humor line to play whereas an audience, you're like, Oh, that girl is hurting. But you're not just miserable watching it; it's not a Hannukah film, you know, it's trying to have fun and be a YA high school movie.
18m 8s Literary Joe: Is there anything else you want to plug or anything else you want to mention about Spontaneous that we didn't touch on before we let you go?
18m 16s Brian Duffield: I'm excited about Spontaneous, and we went through a lot to get it out. I'm excited for people to see it and enjoy it. And I hope it inspires people to vote for Joe Biden. That was one of the things in the movie. It's not a subtle movie politically. People are brought up. Like if I take that stuff out, I won't be as dated, But I'd love to be f*****g dated. My kids aren't going to question what I was thinking during this crazy time we lived in. That is one thing about coming out, like a couple of weeks before the election, where the movie is not subtle. There are a couple of times they mentioned like Doctor Strange love and like impending nuclear Holocaust. Cause when we made the movie, we were all like, Oh, we're going to get bombed. Like this is happening. It was always about to happen in 2018. And then it just moved onto all of the other parts of the movie, becoming the part that we were living through, like pandemic s**t. So I messed that up a little bit, and thinking like the bombing is what's going to kill us all instead of the other stuff that was just in the movie. Cause I was like, a pandemic, that's too sci-fi.
*This interview is edited for clarity and audio is hosted by cosplay actress Darth Lexii.*
Get ready for the most outrageous coming-of-age love story about growing up…and blowing up! When students in their high school begin inexplicably exploding (literally…), seniors Mara (Katherine Langford) and Dylan (Charlie Plummer) struggle to survive in a world where each moment may be their last. As unexpected romance blossoms between them, Mara and Dylan discover that they can finally start living for today when tomorrow is no longer promised!
Spontaneous is now available on Premium Video-On-Demand and for Digital purchase.