Hot on the heels of several highly-regarded shorts and series work, actress Alice Skok is diving into the genre with her role as Joan Weaver in the upcoming short "Alice and the Little Green Men." In honor of its upcoming release, I talked with her about her early interest in the industry, filming the short, and upcoming release information.
Me: Hello and thank you for taking the time to do this. First off, when did you get into horror in general? What films specifically got you into watching horror movies?
Alice Skok: Well, I was not into horror for a long time. I watched a couple of scary movies when I was a bit too young—the first I remember watching was The Birds, which I don’t think my parents remembered as being too much for kids, but at that point where we discover the guy with his eyes pecked out, I’m pretty sure my mom said, “Aw, shit. Well, too late!”--- and then there was the time I had to be picked up from a sleepover in the middle of the night after my elementary school friend put on The Ring without warning me. I couldn’t walk in front of my TV during the night for a month after. So I swore them off for years!---Plus I never had roommates when I was single and I feel like anyone who can watch horror movies and live alone must be a little bit of a masochist. But then! Seven years ago, I started dating a guy who had a standing tradition of watching a horror movie every day in October, and I’ve been watching with him ever since. That’s a MINIMUM of 31 horror movies every year (we toss a couple spooky series in there for good measure), and I even go to see them in the theater throughout the year now, something I would never have dreamed of doing before (my favorite horror movie in the theater last year was Demián Rugna’s When Evil Lurks). Friends started coming to me for horror suggestions and I eventually did introductions as a fictional camp counselor on Bunk 237: Ahhh! Horror Movie Podcast (season 2), giving me even more watch ideas. So many hours of jump scares, suspenseful string music, and all degrees of fake blood viscosity later, I finally landed my first roll in horror! Alice & the Little Green Men!
Me: When did you initially discover a passion for acting? What aspect of this industry appeals to you?
AS: Probably when I played Timon in The Lion King when I was about 8. I did a dead-on Nathan Lane impression (I have a copy of it on DVD if you’d like to borrow it).
Acting is like being inside a living organism, rather than part of a machine. Like organs in a body. If I’m a liver, I can’t control and sometimes can’t even predict what you’ll do as the stomach, but we’re working together to make this body run. Like there was a scene in Alice, where Joan wakes up in the night and goes to investigate a noise. We did it as a single shot (it’s broken up in the film because that makes more sense for the story, but it’s all in there). So it’s all cued up, but the camera, sound, a bunch of actors, we’re all moving as this unit by feeling, sensing each other's movements to create this smooth moment that is still authentic and spontaneous. Almost like a dance.
Organs...dancing. You get the idea.
Me: Is there any specific type of character you prefer playing? What do you look for in a character to be excited and interested in playing it?
AS: I just kind of know it when I see it. It’s not really the type of character, but how real that character feels to me. It’s not like every detail has to be there in the breakdown, just a way in, something in the script that lets me go, “Oh yeah, I know that person.” When auditioning all the time, it’s fun to see characters I don’t feel like I’ve encountered before. Joan felt fresh to me.
Me: Having worked on plenty of short films early in your career, what tools and skills do you acquire working on those that transferred to future film projects?
AS: So far, it all applies. You’ve got to find the arc of the scene and the story and make sure you’re building that, even when you’re shooting out of order, which you probably are. You have to offer lots of different options on takes so the editor has enough to work with. You’re prepping a full character, just because it’s shorter, doesn’t mean you’re any less of a complete person. Having not led a feature, I can only imagine that it requires more endurance and preparation mentally and physically to pull you through after the adrenaline wears off. For short shoots, you can basically run on adrenaline the whole time.
Me: That brings us to your latest project, "Alice and the Little Green Men." What can you tell us about the short?
AS: It was a wonderful project to film. Anthony had such a clear and unique vision. He’s a true collaborator and encouraged us all to bring our ideas and input to the script and set. I never doubted that anyone on the project had their whole heart in it. You don’t always see that on sets, especially with shorts—everyone was committed to working tirelessly to make this the best possible version of the story we were telling. As for what happens in the film, you’re going to have to go find out! Because everything is not what it seems in the Bell household...let’s just see what we can catch on tape!
Me: What initially attracted you to the role of Joan Weaver and made you excited to play her?
AS: Oh I loved Joan right away. She’s intelligent and analytical, but she’s not cold. I get auditions for science-driven characters a fair amount. They can feel a bit one-dimensional—list of science facts, expectations of how an event will go, warning if things don’t go as planned—and of course, it’s an actor’s job to bring humanity and complexity to these characters. Still, with Joan, it was already written in. She’s studying an unusual subject, so she has to expect to be spending time with some unusual people and not make them feel too alienated (I walked right into that pun and I’m thrilled about it). Plus, she’s inspired by a real person, so I had all these reports and videos to draw from and choose to embrace or ignore as it worked for the story, which was such a gift.
Me: What do you do to stay in character while on-set? When you're not filming, how do you pass the time between takes?
AS: Luckily, Joan has a sense of humor. There was a lot of joking around on set. But things were moving quickly, there wasn’t a ton of downtime! Whenever things quieted down, I tried to stay present and observant, as Joan would. We had this incredible house we were shooting in the whole time, filled with weird trinkets and art. There were always new things to discover.
Me: What was the set like while shooting the film? How did the cast and crew react to the type of film being made?
AS: Everyone was super professional. The film has some very dark and vulnerable moments, so it was crucial that everybody felt comfortable and safe. I don’t think I heard a single person complain the entire shoot. People really wanted to be there.
Me: Do you recall having any odd or funny on-set stories about yourself or any of the other cast/crew members?
AS: There’s this moment in the story where I had to back into a table and knock a cup off of it. We tried a couple takes and I just couldn’t get the movement right to get the cup to fall and look accidental, but we were losing light so I had to get it on the next take. So I give it a little extra force with my table bump. The cup falls! But the table also collapses entirely, spilling the wax out of a burning candle and breaking a picture frame and Anthony’s personal vase. I remember thinking, “This will be funny one day. It’s definitely not right now, but it will be.”
Me: What are you most looking forward to with the short’s upcoming release?
AS: I love going to movies on their opening nights because you get these really animated audiences who are all jazzed to be there, laughing and gasping, before the audiences who have read the reviews and already made their mind up about a movie before they’ve walked in and hardly react at all. Since you’re much less saturated with information about short films, every time we see it will be like that opening night audience, and getting to hear all those reactions is so gratifying. The first time I saw it with an audience, a guy behind me at one point said aloud, “Oh shit!” as the woman next to him was whispering, “No!” It made me giddy. This film is a conversation starter. Not all of your questions are answered at the end, and I like that.
Me: Lastly, what else are you working on that you'd like to share with our readers? Thank you again for your time!
AS: Keep an eye out for Mr. Floof, directed by Claire Sliney, and The Truffaut Affair, directed by Benjamin J. Gohs. I’m also going to shamelessly plug My First Horror Film, which I am not in, but two of my incredibly talented friends are, and you can now stream!
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