For years Samara Weaving has been one of the most fascinating actors in the horror genre. Every time she shows up, there’s an infectious energy that makes her pop off the screen. And she has a knack for picking cool projects. I love it when a movie has a gimmick that it takes through its entire running time. Weaving’s latest venture, Azrael, follows a society post-Rapture, where it’s been deemed a sin to speak. So the film is almost entirely barren of dialogue and really hinges on its performance from lead, Samara Weaving. I loved the film and you can check out my review. The story is a little stereotypical but its the execution that really impresses. The world-building is fantastic and is a great playground for Weaving’s Azrael to exist in.
I was lucky enough to talk to Samara about her role as Azrael, and what it was like to play an entirely mute character:
“It was weird, man. It was a real [weird]. That’s why I did it. You know, I read the script and I was like, “Oh, this is a challenge that’s not going to come around again. I really want to push myself because I’m psycho. Yes, I will go to Estonia in the cold, in the rain, in the snow, and do five weeks of night shoots. Great… But yeah, it was a trip, I think. Having your voice kind of stripped from you and just having to lean on physicality and facial expressions and really listening and looking at other actors and getting real weird with it. It was cool. It was great.”
And as someone who interviews a lot of actors, two things they tend to avoid are Night Shoots and Outdoor Filming. With Azrael taking place almost entirely outdoors and the majority happening at night, this was a nightmare for some actors. Yet Samara took it on like the champ she is, welcoming the challenge.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but that seems to be all [I’m doing] recently. It’s just “Ohh, is it all nice? And it’s all on location. Sign me up. That’s great.” I don’t know. Yes. It’s like brutal and it’s uncomfortable and peoples emotions are really high because people are tired, but there’s something…there’s like a sense of camaraderie. And you get the things that you’ve really been planning . You’re all there, cause you really love it and you care about it. You can’t be anything other than super humble and super willing. And you know, like you’re gonna be upside down on a tree for three days. Great. Let’s go, you know.”
Without any lines of dialogue, Samara’s prepwork was unlike any other film she’d done as she didn’t have to do any line memorization. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t plenty else to prepare for, as the role was plenty physical. But without dialogue, meant the character’s background wouldn’t be handled in a typical way:
“A lot of the story was in the script, but there was a lot of like back story that I just kind of wanted to have, for my own sake. Because the challenge for me going into it was like: how do we keep audiences invested in this character? We need to find these emotional beats and make them really pivotal. Really poignant. Or else you’re just watching someone fight people for a long time, which is great. Also, if that’s what you’re into. But just to try and make it the audience being curious about what is happening and having the ambiguity of it all be like “of service to the story” and not a bad thing. So that was what I was concerned about. And the prep really for me…it was like doing stunt training and learning those fight sequences, but also just sitting with: OK, what is this characters arc and journey? Like I would any kind of script and just get weird and pretentious with it. But then it was kind of scary.”
Finally, I had to make sure to ask her about her new film Carolina Caroline with Kyle Gallner which just wrapped filming.
“Ohh it’s gonna be magical. It’s gonna be…he’s awesome. I’ve been wanting to work with him for ages and I’m so glad we got to find this and it’s going to be such we both come from. You know horror, but this is the total departure from that, but I.”
And if you’ve been around the site you’ll know we’re big fans of Strange Darling (I may or may not have seen it 5x), so I had to ask Samara about her experience with the film, and she responded, “Isn’t it good?” Hilariously enough, I was supposed to interview Kyle on the day of the premiere, but he had to drop out for undisclosed reasons (turns out, he was filming this film). Thankfully, Samara was able to give a little insight into that with a fun story about Kyle missing the premiere:
“Well, we were working in Kentucky [on Carolina Caroline] and he couldn’t make his premiere. And so we got the whole crew to go and see it at a local Kentucky theatre. And then we rented out like a little dive bar and we all just, like, had a mini premiere for him there. It was really fun.”
I had an absolute blast talking with Samara and wish you guys could see the actual video as she’s so charismatic and likable. And make sure to check out Azrael when it comes to theaters this Friday. And for you folks who avoid the theater, it will release to Shudder latest this year.
AZRAEL IS PLAYING EXCLUSIVELY IN THEATERS ON SEPTEMBER 27TH, 2024.