You are listening to The Next Best Picture podcast, and these are Cody Derrick's interviews with the cast for The Life of Chuck, Chuitel Egya4, Karen Gillan, Kate Siegel, Matthew Lillard, Mia Sara, and Annalise Basso.

When you look up at the night sky, it can tell you stuff about your future. Chewetel, Karen, how you doing today? Good, how are you? Good, thanks. Thanks for talking with me about this amazing film. Loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it. Oh, thanks. Karen, you're reuniting with Mike Flanagan, who you previously worked on in Oculus. So what's it like working with him in general? I mean, it's the best. I had such a good experience on Oculus. I really did. It's the whole reason I moved over to America and I had a brilliant time. And I kept saying to him, I want to do it again. I would visit his set during Haunting of Hill House and be like, when are you going to put me in something again? And then he finally did, so I was very happy. Did it feel different working in a sort of less horror-adjacent realm than Oculus? No, not really. But I think that I never take in the genre of the film I'm making. And I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I'm never, like, it's never on my mind. I'm just always like trying to be, like, vaguely truthful in what I'm

doing. And I don't even really register when I'm making a comedy versus a drama. It's just more

like trying to feel something genuinely. Yeah, the characters don't know what kind of move they're in.

Right.

Yeah.

And Chia Toul, what was your experience like working with Mike?

I loved it.

You know, I loved the script and I loved the conversation with Mike initially.

And then really I was surprised by how curated the experience was of being on a Mike Flanagan set.

You know, just from the moment that I arrived in every decision in terms of heads of department

and in terms of the casting and all of the crew and just everybody having this very shared sense of what they were trying to achieve. And I think it was

very clear the kind of profound respect for him that was there and that everybody really got what

this story was trying to say and trying to do. And I really appreciated that. I really appreciated being in such a kind of immersive experience as an actor.

It felt very comforting, actually, and therefore freeing to be in that kind of space.

And so I think he does create a world that's very kind of rich.

Now, you two play characters with a very specific relationship that I haven't really seen

explored too much on film.

You're a formerly married couple that's since divorce, but you still get along.

How did you convey that bond to the audience so quickly with, you know, just in a segment

of the film itself?

Well, I think we'd sort of done work on the backstory and filled in the blanks a little bit, and then just tried to prepare as much as possible, and then just kind of jumped into it on the day. It was the big phone call sequence, and it was Chiu-a-tel's side of the coverage that was first. That was the first thing that we did together, so you were really thrown at the deep end. But I was on the other end of the phone for support.

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