BRICE ANTHONY HELLER TALKS YOU'RE KILLING ME

Interviewed by Culture Coast Talks editor Daniel John. Interview transcripts might have been edited for length and clarity.

University admission reach new heights of madness when a student crashes a party to score a letter of recommendation for an Elite University. Chaos follows. What was your first thoughts reading this wild script?

The whole audition to set process was one massive whirlwind spanning less than a week. I had an audition for it on like a Tuesday, callback on a Thursday, which mind you, I’ve only read two scenes of the entire script up to this point, and I got the call on like Saturday that I got the role. Then was told we’d start filming Tuesday on Sunday. On Sunday I received the script, then I was told I was needed that Sunday night. So the whole thing was a major turn around that I was super grateful and excited for, but not until I figured out my life real quick before heading to Rome, Georgia where we shot the film for a month and a half. And so now to answer your question, I read the script and my first thought was, “Oh this is going to be a lot of fun”. Stunts, blood, a axe wielding rich guy, a final girl. I was like, “Oh snap, I’ve kinda officially joined the horror world, let me not mess this up” (laughs).

Despite everyone trying to kill everyone, what was the vibe on set?

I’m grateful to report that outside of the characters on screen, we all got along great and no one tried killing anyone for real at any point, that I know of. Now that I think about it, my body did feel a little funny after Wil gave me a water bottle at one point, kidding. Everyone got along wonderfully. I was sort of nervous in the beginning to meet everyone, I had no clue who was attached to the project outside of its two directors so it was definitely a little nerve-racking to see who I’d be working with, but exciting at the same time if that makes sense. But as I met each person, Keyara being the first and that was an incredible first person to meet, so kind, I knew that they were passionate about the craft and this script in particular and they were, are, genuinely good and cool people. And they gave it a hundred percent, we all did, like our lives depended on it.

A party off-camera too then?

It didn’t really become a “party” on set until the party days were shot which was like two weeks into filming, we got to let loose a little bit after a lot of the more intense emotional stuff we had previously shot. I mean we had a shooting schedule of 6pm to 6am so we got really close to one another and got real delusional the later the night or was it morning went on so, you can imagine how fun things got for the entirety of the shoot. Our very first day together we all went to the local cemetery, an old famous one, and we ate ice cream and saw a beaver. I think that about sums up our time together on set.

Any particular set-moment you can take us back to?

Oof. There’s a few I can share. Well day one, I get the call from the production coordinator less than an hour after taking the first Covid-test, that I tested positive and that I’d need to come and take another one. My heart dropped to my butthole. And once I got in the van, Morgana Van Peebles, our head of makeup Mikaela Kester, and a few other key department heads including one of our directors had also tested positive. It was a long drive and an even longer wait to find out if it was all false positives or we’d be getting replaced the day before filming. Scary scary, still shiver thinking about it. I think you can guess how the results of the next Covid-test went for us, phew! The car crash scene into the water was a really touching moment. Not in the movie, but on set. It was the last day for a number of people, or second to last I can’t remember. Regardless things were coming to an end and flights back home were being whispered about and “real life” was slowly seeping into the minds of everyone I’m sure. But we still had this moment, so we all gathered around while they dropped the car into the river and it was really special for everyone, it was not only a huge moment in the film that we were all wondering how the hell they were going to do it from day one, but it was a pivotal moment for all of us as this happy time crept to a close. Also, Dermot Mulroney hugged me his second day. I don’t know if it was a method character thing or if I earned his respect or if he was just being a nice guy and called me over and hugged me but it was unexpected and felt reaffirming that, “Ok, well, the big dog likes me enough to touch me outside of cameras rolling so I must be doing something alright!” (laughs) Another cool moment was when we were outside freezing for a number of hours in the wee hours of the day aka the last few for our shooting day, and we shot some pretty cool death and killing stuff. And we all go to the monitor, it’s the end of a looooong day and we’re like a week and a half into this thing, and we watch playback and it looks super sick I mean Jeff and Nathan went crazy on the camera-and everyone is going nuts over this shot and it felt really great to know we had something, and Wil screamed at the top of his lungs, no Wil declared, "We're making a fucking movie!" and we were, we did. We certainly did.

Hosting the party is the uber-popular, uber-rich, uber-spoilt Schroder, played by you. McKaley Miller said in interviews you are the furthest thing away from him, so what did it take you to become him?

McKaley is seriously one of the nicest people I’ve met. I appreciate her kind words. Umm, you know I’ve sort of adapted this philosophy of “being on” meaning turning on a switch to get to where the scene calls me to be. The niceties had to be turned off once cameras were rolling, that’s just how it had to be, I had no other choice. For a lot of the film Schroder is this piece of shit human who only thinks of himself, and I think there’s an awareness of that but at the same time he doesn’t see anything wrong with his actions, but shame is a powerful emotion that guides him throughout the film and his impulsive monstrous actions reflect that. I went in with a gameplan and I would talk and email back and forth with Jerren and Beth, our directors, to discuss the character and where his mind was in different places. And the writers, Walker and Brad, gave me two really juicy descriptions of Schroder throughout the script, they described him as a snake and near the end as a hungry wolf. Loved that. Gave me huge pointers in how to physically and mentally embody this character. As the shoot went on I understood Schroder better, thank god. I had an idea for him but some things you can’t really pinpoint until you’re on the day in the room with your scene partners and things start to click. For example, for the first time in the film, the first true time for him in the film, when he’s genuinely torn between his way and the right way, and that’s in the bathroom with Kendra, he’s thinking “I need to get that phone", but Kendra is bleeding, he doesn’t register she’s dying, she is not going to die, things work out for him that’s just his life, even when he fucked up things are always ok in the end. But now it involves someone he sort of cares about, shit’s gotten real for the first time in his life. Loved shooting that scene, the preparation for that was kind of insane and Morgana was incredible to work with especially in that particular scene.

Most of Schroder’s confidence seems inherited rather than earned, that is except for his impressive beer pong skills, which he takes seriously. As the characters outwit each other the film teems with psychological play, but what prep went into landing those good shots?

Lots of movie magic. I played very little beer pong in college and the times I did I was horrible at it. Fastforward to set, I’m still horrible at it! In my defense, in our defense, we all sucked, the cups had to be spread out like way more than they typically would on a beer pong table so they’d look right for the camera. And that made it way more difficult to get one in the cup. It was bad, it was so bad. We wasted a lot of time that we didn’t have trying to get just one in the cup, it was so bad! (laughs)

Who were you back in high school?

I feel like I had an evolution throughout high school, which I think is a good thing. I started off as like the small short kid that weighed 87lbs that wrestled and actually believed he’d get some playing time on the football field. Then I gained some weight and still wrestled and still believed I’d get some playing time on the football field. Okay, so maybe there wasn’t much of an evolution, kidding. I got a wake up call my sophomore year after failing a class I shouldn’t have failed, I was cutting, losing, a ton of weight every week for wrestling and I just stopped caring about academics and life. After failing that class I decided that I wasn’t going to be that person and I excelled fine in my academics from there on out. I was involved in the theatre program at my school all four years and I took classes as well as my involvement in community theatre outside of school. Unlike Schroder, I was not rich and my parents were not Dermot Mulroney and Anne Heche. My mother introduced me to theatre at the age of seven years old, and I’ve been involved in a project on stage and or the screen every year since. Theatre saved my life. Hundred percent.

I am not sure if you’re talking about it yet, but you have another upcoming film, which you've both written and directed. What is ‘Birthday Boy’?

That I do that I do, thank you for mentioning it. 'Birthday Boy' is a personal project of mine that means a lot to me, it is complete, although I may go back and touch up on some stuff. It stars Bryson Grimes in his very first film, and the kid is a freaking natural, alongside a frequent collaborator of mine in Darian Rolle. It’s about a lonely depressed kid who recently lost his best friend, his parents don’t know how to love each other much less their only kid, and it all comes to a head on the boy’s birthday when his buddy Rico attempts to give him the day he deserves. It’s like part drama, part road trip movie, part hang out film, part comedy, it’s got a little bit of everything. I shot it on mini-DV tapes and I’m super proud of how it turned out!

Will it be a while still until we get to see it?

So I submitted it to some festivals, some really big festivals and it got rejected which is totally fine! I’ve sent it around to some people whose opinions I respect, and they’ve given it some good praise so it’s good to know that it’s not god awful. It’s part of the catalog, it’s part of my journey as an artist, as a person. I needed to work through some stuff, I can’t afford therapy so I’m an artist instead.

Is there anything else you are working on?

I hesitate to say “I’m working on” because then people expect a due date, but I’ve got some gears moving towards another screenplay, a novel, and hopefully I’ll book some acting work soon! I’ve got a very small role in a film called 'Guacamole Yesterdays' that should be hitting the festival circuit here soon annnnnnnd uhhhh yeah, hopefully I’ll book some more acting work soon (laughs). Thanks for having me.