RENE LAI TALKS DON'T LOOK AWAY

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

How did you get your start as an actress?

To be honest, I would consider myself still at the start of my career. I started studying acting in Vancouver a year after graduating high school where I took part in a lot of school plays. I've spent the last few years getting my hands on as many roles and jobs as I could. I was actually drawn to acting for a long time before deciding to pursue it in a more formal way. I was studying English literature in university and my parents told me they had bought tickets to see a community theater play. I saw the play with them and I realized that acting was the thing that fulfilled me the most. I guess you could say I felt a calling. I left university quickly after that to enroll in acting classes and it sort of snowballed from there.

Who were people you admired early on?

There are honestly so many people I admire it doesn't even feel possible to list them all. I remember when I really started to appreciate acting as the craft itself, I really admired actors like Victoria Pedretti, Neil Patrick Harris, Helena Bonham Carter, and Saoirse Ronan.

As you first discovered Lucy on page, how did you approach playing her?

While I was reading the script Lucy struck me because of how sensitive she is, she feels a lot and perceives a lot at the same time. So I knew I had to honor that part of her character and build around that. The trap for me was to not let her sensitivity be a weakness for me but a strength instead. I finished the script knowing I couldn't play Lucy as a sensitive, weak person but rather a caring friend for Frankie that would do anything to protect her loved ones.

Does your process vary, or does it stay the same?

It really varies between scripts. Sometimes, I have to read the script several times and really dig deep to connect with them but with Lucy, I instantly felt like she was with me when I auditioned for the part initially.

The writing and directing duo behind this film, The Michaels, cited eighties supernatural slasher movies as their inspiration. What kind of monsters lived in your closet growing up?

I love this question! I have to admit I was a scaredy cat growing up. I was afraid of the most random things from dark basements to bathroom mirrors. My imagination was wild to say the least. I was honestly the most afraid of things like "The Bloody Mary", hence my fear of mirrors, and of course, the boogeymen that I swore lived in my closet.

I’ve heard stories of actors having very different relationships with their on-screen antagonists off set, from sharing cute nicknames to cuddling between takes or snapping selfies, what was your mannequin up to when the cameras weren’t rolling. Among the dolls we've gotten to see in cinemas this year, this one seems quite far from being a Ken?

The mannequin might have been spooky on camera but it really was just a prop piece in real life. Because this was a low budget film, I actually lived in the same house as the mannequin, in the same house we used as Frankie's house. So I got used to seeing it all the time pretty quickly. It was sort of a joke amongst the cast that the mannequin was number one on the call sheet everyday and even got it's own bed when we weren't rolling. My favorite memory of the mannequin is hearing the crew call "Flying in the lead!" when we needed the mannequin for the shot.

Lucy’s chances of returning for a sequel are slim, would you like to do more horror, though?

I'd love to do more horror! It's quickly become one of my favorite genres of film. In a perfect world, I would be working with directors like Mike Flanagan and making something amazing with them. There's a lot of aspects that go into my interest in a role. Honestly, I'd love to try everything once within reason. However, I have been absolutely dying to play more villains, as of recent.