Sydney Sweeney and Ana de Armas Face Their Acting FEARS in Ron Howard's Eden

[Music] what's up everyone welcome back to the collider interview Studio at Tiff 2024 at the cinema center brought to you by Range Rover Sport I'm so excited to dig into Eden right now oh my I I had done a little bit of homework going into your movie but I kind of didn't realize the extremes that it was about to go to so congratulations the audience was uh pretty electric last night thank you yeah it was a great it was a great screening uh despite the the in the events yeah somebody we had a Health crisis in the middle of the movie uh and uh which was you know troubling on a lot of levels but then as a director I was like well are we GNA set it are we going to lose the audience it's going and uh I was very grateful the Tiff audience came back with Focus got right back into the movie and we had a great screening handled well the person is safe and then people just got caught right back up in your film so winds across the board Ron I have to start with uh the basic question because clearly I know what your movie is but because we're celebrating it at a film festival our viewers might not know about Eden just yet so can you do a brief synopsis okay well I obviously don't want to give too much away because there are a lot of twists and turns um and uh you know it starts off really as a survival Thriller um and and then it turns into something more psychologically dangerous and um you know it it it turn it turns out that um these these dis groups who decided to go to the Galapago separately to try to reinvent their lives uh to go off the grid uh and face that challenge well it kind of turned out that um you know it's not Mother Nature that they needed to fear it was human nature and that's that's really you know where the story comes from it uh I bumped into it in a museum on a on a visit in the Galapagos uh and the and the the whole the events took place there and they just it would not leave my mind this was like 15 years ago and uh I've been thinking about these characters who so different kind of extreme kind of wild kind of unpredictable uh and and yet sort of what they what they put themselves through and what they went through was uh I thought so fascinating entertaining and and memorable and eventually got a tremendous cast to make it happen oh I am tapping into how perfect this cast needed to be and how perfect it is in a quick second but one thing I had read a lot about going into this was how this movie would pose a lot of film making firsts for you so even with all of your experience in this industry can you tell me something you did for the very first time as a director on Eden oh for the very first time um it's I I staged more wers now these are not like in aatu minutes upon minutes upon minutes but for me they were it it was and it had to do with the suspense it was building a shot that would sort of just look kind of mundane pain and then at a certain point there'd be a jolt there'd be a shock not not necessarily a horror shock but um a Twist in the in the story that you would not have seen coming and I don't think that from a staging standpoint I'd ever sort of built suspense into a scene quite uh in that way because it's not it's not just where the story is going it's not just the surprise in everything that we did in this was about a performance moment because so the psychology of what was going on was always you know front and center and in a way being the magician uh which a director needs to be that's kind of the diversion so you're watching the characters go through this kind of stress test and then wow you didn't see what was coming next uh because you were so engrossed in them as human beings I love me a l they want you use them quite well in this film Daniel I wanted to come your way because you have an interesting Journey with getting into this fil because I believe Ron first brought it up to you 10 years ago big two-part question about that when it was first pitched to you what part of this script intrigued you most and I'm just curious what intrigued you most about it when you jumped into it 10 years later well I was attracted on many levels first of all um because you know working with Ron and Rush was such an incredible pleasure that the fact that he wanted to work with me again was uh you know a no-brainer for me so uh but then when you hear that from directors it it happened very often in my life that then you don't hear back from them you know and they say it's so great with you and we're going to do something else again I said yeah okay so but then he really called me uh 10 years later so um there's a little Gap there yeah but funnily back then uh that was in 2013 uh it rang a bell and I thought like hold on uh another director that had work with also wanted to do this film and was a German director that I shot goodbye Lenin with me back back back in the days so um he gave me books um and I saw on the on on on on the first page of of of these books these books made it to the Galapagos Islands 1993 some rotten copies of Josh Simon's take on that tale and another one it might have been the one uh that Margaret vitma had written and so I was mesmerized and and and and fascinated by this story right away especially being German I thought like what this really happened and then I remember that I checked out the documentary on YouTube so that was before Ron but then and then Ron mentioned it uh that that particular project and I said like what Jesus I I would love to do it and so so it happened finally by the way Han Zimmer who composed the music for this movie uh told me in as we were working on the score that uh early in his life he'd gotten to know Nick Rogue Nicholas Rogue and it worked with Nicholas Rogue and Nicholas Rogue was very interested in this story and he never got to the point of having a a screenplay but look it's classic it's such a fascinating set of characters and they are so outrageous that it really is Stranger Than Fiction and we needed actors who were willing to go to that U place and I'm kind of looking at you on at armas the reaction to your performance last night is one of my favorite like communal experiences seeing a movie on the big screen give anything away but it felt very special and right to be a part of that I have many follow-ups now for for the three of you so again I said this a little earlier it feels to me like a movie like this does not work without the Pitch Perfect cast I think you found it here can you each tell me the first moment you kind of stopped and said to yourself whether it was in prep or on set like I am with the right people we are going to be able to make the most of this material together for sure I mean we did have the privilege to have about full two weeks of rehearsals and the setup was pretty amazing even though it was like three different families or groups we all rehearsed together and everyone was present when the other group was rehearsing so it was kind of like a very I think I think it helped for everyone in getting the tone and getting the the the energy of the other group and and kind of like understanding each other I guess the the the the accent the awarness the kind of like measuring each other the level of eccentricity and craziness and like all of that it was uh for me like doing the table reads which we did like few of them and and spending so much time together every day uh rehearsing with the animals rehearsing with you know all of it we did together and that was that was kind of like a you know it was good to see each other finding what we want it to do should include the animal actors in my Ensemble question CU they are wonderful as well have about for the two of you a specific moment at the beginning where you said we are the right group I mean I think I agree with the rehearsal process you really saw everybody show up and then we were able to feel each other out on the acent and and the performances but I think especially when we filmed the lunch scene when all of us were together there was just so many Unwritten nuances that came out amongst all the different characters that I think that's when I really was like oh my gosh this is going to be crazy this is so incredible we're working with such an amazing group of talent and I I really just felt it coming alive in that scene it's an electric scene in the movie have it for you Daniel yeah I mean we needed each other it's like the characters needed and we got along better than the characters in the in the movie thank God glad you know nobody felt at home you know we were in shooting in a remote place it was hot and sticky and and and feverish and and you know it was exhausting so we we we needed each other's company and I I remember we also had a great time when Anna was cooking for us or uh you and your lovely husband or partner sorry and so we we we yeah we and there was that mutual interest and it's another quality to the film that it's such an Eclectic mix because the there's there's Cuba there's America there's Germany Austria uh England um you have all these different cultures and there was a mutual curiosity in each other um which made it very interesting on a personal level to to work on this uh uh project so yes on the very last day I realized this was a good gang what a wonderful the personal quality add a nice extra layer to it well actually you're you're kind of right the last day was a the last scene yeah oh yeah well you know what I mean yeah so it was a really intense scene to say goodbye to to the to the Sho every day was intense look we were working on a tight schedule it was it was very it was very dense uh uh in terms of the you know what the characters had to do because you saw the movie there's a without giving too much away you know the tone shifts some and it's all very organic but by by going to the places is that these that these actual people had gone psychologically and emotionally when you watch it sometimes it's outrageous it's funny sometimes it's horrifying sometimes it's a little heartbreaking uh you know or or and and I hope it creates suspense well they were having to mind that and find that tone in the scenes you know every day and sometimes one scene would lead one way and that's what we'd be shooting in the morning and in the afternoon it would be something else you know the AL together so I love working with actors on complicated scenes but even I felt like it was kind of a a tight RPP walk you know all the time plus we had the uh you know we we had no cover sets we were shooting outside we had no Studio there were no I mean if we would get occasionally stormed out because we hit a stretch of of really bad weather and the only way to make it up was to to to to work really hard and really fast and uh the the these guys uh and the rest of the ensemble really lived up to that that film making challenge as well you go all in in every single respect I had written down this quote from from Ron talking about all of you he wanted Risk Takers for these roles so non-spoiler of course but can each of you tell me a risk you took while making this film that you know will pave the way to even bigger things for you in the future because you did it here well being the embodiment of perfection was very risky that's her character's Mantra that's character's Mantra to keep yourself going um yeah I mean just the whole thing for me was was terrifying I remember being on the phone with with Ron and and finally like okay you're going to do this yes I'm going to do this and hanging up very excited and 20 minutes later call him back and like having doubts like I you know were feeling scared like I just didn't know um I had made the right decision or I was the the right person for it and I was like just think about it again maybe you want someone else but then you know you you for me that's what's all about you know um that's what I find interesting and and fulfilling and and exciting and and if it's not that I don't I don't want it you know it's it's what it's what makes me enjoy every day at work that's that's what I that's what it makes it not feel work and I just do have to add with with Anna it's easy to forget this because she's she's so fluent in English now but it's not her first language um and she's doing an accent that is uh in basically invented because her character is somebody who you know like some very theatrical bigger than life people kind of invent their their Persona and that's what that's what her character has done and so from a creative standpoint it's like it it it it it's all art you know it's like every every step of the way and and she she met the challenge yeah I think definitely that was one of the biggest challenges like the you know Lo creating the baroness it had to be so eccentric and crazy and it was an invention but it had to be up there but also still believable for the other people to even consider this woman was saying something truthful uh but she gets so entangled in her own story that she actually gets to believe it sometimes and it's heartbreaking what she's really she's very fragile and like childish sometimes and you can see she's lonely and then and she's very Vain and loves love and and beauty and all that and then it's it's terrifying like this woman is scary sometimes and it's it was about finding that the two extremes and that balance of you know um being believable in her lie you know seeing those little qualities your just name popped through is what what grounds her and's it's what for me at least as a viewer based all of her actions as Extreme as they were in some sort of consistent truth that I believed in yeah how about for the two of you an example of a time when you were more Fearless on this set than you ever have been before as an actor I mean Daniel was building the set build the set was I was very impressed by that building the set all the work that you saw us do we were actually actually milk in the c i this this morning you did a wonderful job thank you for this I did take the risk to confront my snake phobia because Scot that was there was some scary moments you know in the middle of a take a very friendly gentleman would show up out of nowhere and tell you to stop uh with some long scissors and to step away and um I mean I have to say in Australia I mean they all these poisonous creatures and we were dealing with snakes um every now and then we had we had snake rers and Daniel just called them scissors no snakes were harmed but a lot but a lot were caught uh you know Daniel what are you doing for what it's worth I pick you're the right thing Australians are nice Sydney I bet for you uh to take us home on this one you know I felt like I just had impostor syndrome the whole time I was there working with Daniel and Jude and Anna and Vanessa and Ron I every day I was like oh my gosh I cannot believe I'm here am I supposed to be here did they make a mistake am I the wrong person um so for me it was I I was nervous I was I faced a lot of fears just even being there cuz everyone is such amazing actors and I like what am I doing nerves come from a place of being passionate and caring that's what I always hold tied to and also just because I won't be able to bring this up because we don't have enough time and I said it to you before you have two of the most epic birth scenes I've ever seen in my entire life on screen in a single calendar year that's a like you crush those scenes I'm very impressed thank you before I let you go I have to ask about some upcoming projects I'll I'll go to you first Sydney with the one you know I'm going to ask about because our our viewers are rapid for Euphoria and there's one particular performance challenge that I'm curious about because there's obviously a longer wait for you as an actor between making season 2 and three and you've accomplished so much in that period of time so are there any particular skills you've gained in that period that you're especially excited to apply to cassid that's a really good question you know I whenever I'm on set and different sets I think the most that I learn is from the crew and how different departments need different things and just being able to use that and making sure that everybody has what they need and their tools that they need to be able to move forward so I think with Euphoria especially is just making sure that everybody can give their 100% um I'm really excited I can't wait I don't really have anything to say but U I'm really excited always thinking with the producer mentality I like that you know I want more of that from you as well um Anna go get my next one because our viewers and readers are also massive John Wick fans and you have ballerina coming up and someone was just telling me that you did additional photography and that involved chat to heli which is like so cool you get the person who directed the first film in that franchise in there with you so by working with him is there any new layer of that movie that you were able to unlock oh my gosh I love Chad um and I have to say every time they say you have re shoots you it's not good you don't feel good about it important part of the process but I really have to say he was so right about it it was all we did in those reshoots had to be there is we had we we got amazing footage uh it's really spectacular and a trailer is coming out soon I've been told I saw it and it's it's it's it's beautiful I'm very proud of it it's really exciting he dangerous it's sexy is is very Jung Wick and and I think people's going to be surprised and I don't know it you know I'm biased of course I like the movie yeah but but it's I think it's really really cool it's going to be amazing Rox salot that makes me very hyped also one of my greatest missions in this line of work is to demystify re-shoot in additional I I I was finishing Eden and I we started the re shoots like two weeks later so that was a big switch uh mentally and physically to get back to that weren't you beginning to do fight training and physical stuff even while you were on it was really like full on like right away it was hard it was a hard uh switch but yeah it was great glad you made the switch because that means we get more of you we get lots of all of you because you're super busy delivering really complex stuff that keeps me stimulated as a movie goer so thank you for spending some time with us sharing some of your experience making Eden with us and huge congratulations on the movie thanking so much [Music]