00:00Hey guys, contributor Joel here. I recently got to sit down with Brady
00:04Heppner and Jocelyn Donahue, two of the stars of Abraham's Boys, coming to
00:10theaters July 11th and to Shudder AMC after that, probably. Two of the leads,
00:17they are members of the Van Helsing family. Brady plays the son of Van
00:24Helsing and Jocelyn plays the troubled wife. Got to speak to them about their
00:29acting process, working together as a family without having a whole lot of
00:34prep to do so. Really interesting conversation.
00:40Brady and Jocelyn, how are you? Good, how are you? Good. Jocelyn, I wanted to start by
00:47asking you, you've worked with so many horror icons. You're like Thanos out here,
00:50collecting all of them, with Ty West and Mike Flanagan and Stephen King and James
00:55Juan Lee Whannell and now Joe Hill doing this. What is it about the horror genre that keeps
01:01bringing you back? Great stories and, you know, the filmmakers really get a chance to
01:08be creative and play in a world of ideas and a world of aesthetics. And I think it's just kind
01:13of like an endless framework for us to make stories. And as an actor, it's really fun to kind of play high
01:22stakes all the time. Yeah, horror is my favorite genre for all the reasons you just said. It's
01:28so versatile. You can do so much within the genre. Now being part of this kind of Dracula world and
01:35being kind of one of the seduced people in that story, what's that like being a part of that and
01:42kind of coming into the story like that? I've loved these characters and Bram Stoker's Dracula since I
01:49read it as a 12 year old and couldn't put it down. It was traumatized by the scene of
01:54Mina suckling at his breast on the bed, you know, like these indelible moments that are
01:59just unforgettable. And that's I think that's why people keep coming back to these characters.
02:03There's there's so much in the story of the solving the mystery of turning skeptics into believers of
02:10I mean, and vampires themselves are just so scary, like as an idea that you can map things onto. And
02:20Mina was a character I always loved for her strength and her intelligence. And now we get to see Mina
02:2720 years after the attack, having lived with this trauma, ending up in America. So we get to see this
02:33character in a new setting and in a new state of mind, which was super interesting.
02:37Yeah, a lot of fun, a lot of fun to see kind of the aftermath of like this very traumatic
02:43this moment in all their lives. Brady, I am I live in Wilmington, North Carolina. I know you've been
02:49here a couple times working just here for the waterfront. You worked with Holt McEleney in that
02:56you're with Titus well over here, maybe two of the most like as far as screen presence,
03:01maybe the more intimidating actors out there. What was it like coming on to this?
03:05No, it was um, Titus is nothing but okay, he looks terrifying on camera. He just is there's
03:13this very bravado we like, you know, we're getting something done. But he's such a such a sweet person.
03:20I enjoyed every second that I got to, you know, eat lunch with him and hang out in between
03:24uh, camera rolls, all that stuff. But being able to work with somebody who's such a veteran actor as
03:31himself, it's, it's kind of an honor. Um, you get to learn more about what I do professionally.
03:38It's kind of like a master class of acting, if you will, you pick up on so much just from watching
03:44these people who have been doing it longer than I've been alive. And, uh, it's really just inspiring.
03:49It's this motivation of, you know, keep going, but being able to sit down with Titus and kind of talk
03:55over the work that we've been working on and what we want to accomplish in this movie, um, was such a
04:01treat because when the camera started rolling and we started getting into these really high
04:06pressure, high stakes scenes, it went by really fluently. And so that was just such a joy to be
04:14able to come into these really meaty scenes and just have so much fun with it. And so for that,
04:20I really do think Titus a lot. Yeah. I think that coming into the story with these characters were
04:27coming into them, there's this generational trauma that's kind of following them fathers into sons
04:32and, you know, fathers into sons again, and you're kind of having to pick up the pieces
04:36of a broken father and then kind of having to maybe, uh, break that trauma and, and maybe try
04:43to move a different direction. Is there conversations that you have on set with, with Titus, um, kind of
04:48moving in that direction, or is that something that you're kind of bringing on your own?
04:52No, I mean, I, I would come, you know, I always come to set with, you know, my pages filled of
04:59all of these notes that I have, and I would sit with Titus and Natasha. We would kind of brainstorm
05:03over the, all, all the ideas we had. And one thing that we really was trying to spotlight in the film
05:09is, uh, Max really does look up to his father, especially at the beginning. And so through some of
05:18the movements and some of the decisions and what he's starting to tell, uh, Rudy and Mina are things
05:24that are oddly very specific to what, um, Abraham would say. And so we kind of have created Max being
05:32this shadow to Abraham and almost forming into the exact same person that Abraham is. And so that was
05:40something that when we've had endless zoom calls on and figuring out, you know, who these characters
05:45are at the core, but, uh, no, it was, it was super fun diving into all of that stuff.
05:50Yeah, for sure. And, and Jocelyn, one last question as, as kind of being a part of this,
05:55like family dynamic, um, going into it as a character who's gonna be going through what
06:02they're going through, but also having like a maternal kind of like protective instinct. Um,
06:07is that something that you're kind of doing and bonding with them on set? Or are you trying to,
06:11uh, maybe a little bit more standoffish? Uh, no, I mean, both Brady and Judah were so,
06:18so sweet, so lovely to work with and such pros. Um, and yeah, you, you do have to make,
06:23you know, you make fast, it's fast intimacy on a, on a film set and that's where Natasha and her
06:28producers come in. They did such a great job of bringing really great people together who were just
06:34excited to tell this story together. And so like Brady said, like any chance you get to just eat
06:39lunch or hang out or, you know, the rapport comes quickly when you're working with nice people like
06:43Brady. And, um, and it's true, it's, it's pretty tragic, you know, that Mina is so sincere in her
06:50love and care for her kids, but she's in such a deteriorated state that, you know, she's not all
06:55there. Um, so it's, it's pretty sad. Um, this story she's in, she's particularly a tragic character,
07:02but I think ultimately both her and Abraham are coming from a place of loving and wanting to protect
07:07their kids. And we just see how dangerous it can be when someone's obsessed with an idea that may
07:12or may not be true and how that affects the family. Right. Perfect. Well, thank you very much for your
07:18time. You guys, I really enjoyed the movie and, uh, looking forward to see how it goes once it's out
07:22for the world. Thanks, Joel. Thank you.
Comments