- 6 hours ago
'Buddy' director Casper Kelly and cast members Cristin Milioti, Delaney Quinn, Topher Grace and Keegan Michael-Key stopped by the THR Studio at Park City to chat about their new film that tells the story of children who trapped inside a kids' television show. Quinn revealed which part of filming the horror movie was the scariest for her. Plus, the cast opened up about their scariest filming experiences of all time, including the time an underwater stunt went wrong for Milioti.
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00:00I've watched a lot of Sid and Marty Croft stuff in like, you know,
00:04Electro Woman, Dying a Girl, and Land of the Lost, and H.R. Puffin stuff,
00:09all that, Lidsville, all those crazy like drug and tooth shows
00:13from the early 70s, Banana Splits.
00:16So those are the kind of shows that affected me and did influence me
00:22in regard to what I do for a living, as a matter of fact.
00:25How about you?
00:26How is Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers?
00:28Oh, Mr. Rogers, yeah, Mr. Rogers, yeah.
00:32What are the next?
00:33I watched Mickey Mouse, what is it?
00:38Doc McStuffins, that was my favorite.
00:41Doc McStuffins, yeah.
00:44And I forget the other name, Team Umizoomi.
00:51I was like full Ren and Stimpy, Freakazoid, Animaniacs,
00:55and then like The Simpsons, The Critic.
01:00The Critic.
01:00Oh, wow.
01:01The Critic.
01:02Those were my shows.
01:03The Critic.
01:04Yeah, The Critic was great.
01:08You guys were at midnight last night?
01:09Yes.
01:11Did everybody stay up for the whole thing?
01:13You guys look so fresh.
01:16Wow.
01:17We have very good makeup artists.
01:19I had a lot of sugar and a lot of coffee and a lot of makeup.
01:23Yeah.
01:23Did you have a lot of coffee?
01:24Yeah, you was.
01:25It was really coffee you were drinking.
01:26Okay.
01:27I was like, does she have a chocolate?
01:28No, that's a straight up coffee.
01:29I had a hot chocolate and coffee.
01:31Oh, got it.
01:31Okay.
01:32Okay.
01:33And never mind.
01:34And just the water.
01:36She had the coffee for the base.
01:37Yeah.
01:38And the sugar, you know, a little bit of this, but she's got that base going.
01:40And then some candy.
01:42And you had some candy too.
01:43Wow.
01:43Do you like mochas, the combination of the chocolate and the coffee?
01:46All right.
01:46Oh, you'd like a mocha.
01:48That's right up your alley.
01:49Yeah.
01:49You should have a mocha.
01:50Mom, get her a mocha.
01:52So we've got the trick to the midnight releases.
01:56Okay.
01:57So tell me, obviously some people saw it last night.
02:00Some people haven't seen it.
02:02How are you describing the movie in a spoiler-free manner?
02:05Like, let's set that baseline first so that I don't know, so that I don't spoil anything.
02:09It is about children that are trapped in a children's TV show and have to escape.
02:21Okay.
02:22That's good.
02:23And a brave girl.
02:25And that's Delaney Quinn.
02:27Who gets them out.
02:29Wow.
02:29Is their leader?
02:30Their leader.
02:31Is their leader.
02:31Are we allowed to say what you play?
02:36I think so.
02:37Yeah.
02:37No, yeah.
02:38There's a character, the titular character, Buddy.
02:42I play the voice of Buddy.
02:44Did you feel like once you read the script and heard about this, did you have the voice right away?
02:50Or did you have to fix it?
02:51No, no.
02:51I did not have the voice right away.
02:52We really developed the voice together.
02:56But I try to take cues from everything.
02:58I mean, part of the mood or the framing of the movie is a children's show like Barney.
03:06And so you think about Barney's voice, also the temp voice, the guy that did the temp voice.
03:11We took something from that.
03:12So it was like a mosaic.
03:13You know, we used a bunch of different things to develop the character, set the voice, and then say, okay, here's the challenge.
03:20How do we keep this voice, but have him go through everything he has to go through emotionally in the story at the same time?
03:25That's vague enough, right?
03:26Yeah.
03:28Everyone's doing a good job of talking around it.
03:30Where, how did you get the idea?
03:34Like, were you just watching reruns of Barney and thinking, what if you start a mirroring?
03:39My kids are younger than Barney age, but they still knew that song about I hate Barney.
03:45You know, and just watching kids shows, I, they're, they're, a lot of them, their intent is to sort of instruct children and persuade them to behave a certain way in both subtle and not so subtle ways.
04:00And it just made me think about, um, manipulation and propaganda a little, um, and, you know, making people feel subtly, this is the right way to be the only way to be, you know, and it just kind of grew from that.
04:14What was everyone's, um, like, what was your formative, uh, children's programming as a kid?
04:20I watched a lot of Sid and Marty Croft stuff, you know, like, you know, Electro Woman, Dyna Girl and Land of the Lost and H.R. Puff and stuff, all that, Lidsville, all those crazy, like, drug and tooth shows from the early seventies, uh, um, banana splits.
04:38So those are the kinds of shows that, that, uh, that affected me and, and, and, and did influence me in, you know, in regard to what I do for a living, as a matter of fact.
04:46What about you?
04:48I was Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers.
04:51Oh, Mr. Rogers, yeah, Mr. Rogers, yeah.
04:53Hold on to the next.
04:54Um, I watched Mickey Mouse, um, what, what is it?
04:59I don't know.
05:00Doc McStuffins.
05:02That, that was my favorite.
05:03Doc McStuffins, yeah.
05:04Um, and, I forget the other name.
05:09Team Umizoomi.
05:12Mm-hmm.
05:12Of course, you know.
05:13I was, like, full Run and Stimpy, Freakazoid, Animaniacs, um, and then, like, The Simpsons, The Critic, like.
05:21The Critic.
05:22Oh, that was, like, those were my shows.
05:24Oh, The Critic.
05:25Yeah, The Critic was great.
05:26Oh, my God, I love that show.
05:28Yeah, I, those, yeah, loved those.
05:30Do you ever go back and, like, have you ever gone back and revisited this stuff as an adult?
05:34I mean, the, the, the shows that Kristen just mentioned, which I watched as an adult, but the shows that Kristen just mentioned, a lot of those shows stand up.
05:42They really do.
05:43The shows that I watched as a child do not stand up.
05:47Yeah, absolutely.
05:49How, um, Delaney, were you ever, was it ever scary acting in this movie?
05:57And, if so, which parts?
06:00Yes.
06:01Spoiler free?
06:03Spoiler free.
06:03Okay.
06:04Okay.
06:05So, there was this one scene where there was this really big, scary, like, puppet, you know?
06:14And it was supposed to be, like, coming at me at the scene, and I'm supposed to be, like, you know, like, supposed to be brave.
06:20But I hadn't got a rehearsal with this specific puppet yet.
06:25But, and, all of a sudden, like, this thing is coming at me, and I'm like, and then I started crying.
06:34Did you really?
06:35Yeah.
06:35And then, and then we filmed the scene perfectly because, but, but, but, sorry.
06:46Um, I, like, learned to be friends with it because it was really, really cool.
06:54Like, all the ways that the puppets are designed, they're so amazing.
06:59Like, every detail is perfect.
07:02Um, was, did, were you actually inside?
07:07No.
07:07No.
07:08Okay.
07:08Did anyone, did anyone try on, um, try getting inside?
07:12I have never, I've never, I don't know if any of us have tried to get into the buddy costume.
07:17It looked, um.
07:18I would want to.
07:19Yeah.
07:20I can't even imagine.
07:21It looked utterly grueling.
07:22I volunteer as tribute.
07:24Okay.
07:25Well.
07:26There's.
07:27Like a mini, mini.
07:28Yeah.
07:29A mini buddy.
07:29Yeah.
07:29Yeah.
07:30Have you guys, have any of you other guys done, I'm trying to like think, have you done
07:34anything that you were scared that was like freaky for you guys acting?
07:39Sorry, as an actor?
07:40Yeah.
07:41Yeah.
07:42I, I'm more, I don't know if I can speak for you guys, but I'm more scared when maybe
07:48the project isn't going to be great.
07:51Well, you can speak for me.
07:53Like on day one, the director's going like, oh gosh, I don't know.
07:56And you're like.
07:57You don't know?
07:58Yeah.
07:59Yeah.
07:59So I, it's, uh, but I think that is more of an adult fear.
08:05It's like, you know, where, where are we in big sense?
08:08Uh, what was great about this film was, I was a huge fan of, uh, too many cooks.
08:14I mean, say a huge fan.
08:15Like that was like bespoke to me.
08:18Like it was just a perfectly made thing.
08:20I loved it.
08:21And then to hear that Casper was making his first film and that, uh, I'm still tickled
08:27and I could be a part of it.
08:28You just knew it was going to be unique.
08:30And then when I got there, it's fine.
08:33You're a very loose director.
08:34You're open to suggestion, but you also are very firm hand in terms of knowing kind of what
08:38you want and you want that in something that's kind of challenging tonally like this.
08:42There's more than one tone.
08:43Yeah.
08:44Cause you guys were, you guys were doing like at one point, like very serious tone, you know,
08:48at the beginning and then it, yeah.
08:50And grounded in a grounded tone.
08:52Grounded.
08:52Yes.
08:53Quite grounded.
08:53And then the opposite of grounded.
08:55The, um, the, uh, there were sketches.
08:58We did a number of prison sketches on Key and Peele and a couple of times, we shot, we shot
09:08in an old, old abandoned prison, but I think our background casting director did a little
09:16too good of a job sometimes.
09:19So yes, yes.
09:20There were times I was authentically nervous, uh, terrified, terrified on set.
09:28Yes.
09:29Yes.
09:29I mean, my, I had an underwater stunt go wrong once and that's the most scared I've ever been.
09:36But that's like a really, that's going to like change the vibe of this interview.
09:40Let's take it there.
09:41Yeah, where, what did you, what did you see?
09:44Now you gotta tell us what happened.
09:44It was, um, it was on a show that you can't watch anymore.
09:49Um, but the, in the show, I'm like, um, it was the Cosby show.
09:57Yeah.
09:57Yeah.
09:58Oh my God.
09:58Um, I was trapped underwater with something around my neck and, um, there was supposed to
10:04be a release on the back and they'd given me the signal if something was wrong.
10:08Um, and then, but when something goes wrong, you're not thinking about the signal.
10:13And so I, we were in this like Olympic swimming pool and I was weighted down so that because
10:18when you're doing underwater scenes, they put weights in your costumes that you don't
10:21go.
10:22And so I was like completely weighted down.
10:24I had this thing that was dragging me in this like really beautiful shot to the bottom
10:28of the pool.
10:28And then I was supposed to go like, doink.
10:30I was supposed to struggle a little and then like go still.
10:33Um, and I struggled a little and then like realized it wasn't releasing and then kept
10:39struggling and they thought it was like part of the, she's doing great.
10:43She's doing great.
10:44And then I couldn't remember the, um, the signal for like help.
10:49And so I just was like panicked and panicked and panicked.
10:51And then one of the cameramen, thank God, like saw it, put the kit, like swam and like grabbed
10:57me and pushed me up and it, we had, it was awful, but like, that's truly, it was really
11:04terrible.
11:05And now everyone has a new thing to put like in their contracts will not do.
11:09Yeah.
11:09Yeah.
11:09That was like a real, but, and it was like, no one's like, you know, it was just was like
11:13one of those things, like the thing got, it like broke and it wouldn't unclasp, but
11:19yeah, that was like, uh, you really like lay by the side of the pool and you're like, is
11:23this worth it?
11:24Like, you know, you're like, so you can't even watch anymore.
11:27No, I wasn't.
11:29What'd you say?
11:29I was like, so you're like, was I scared making buddy?
11:31No.
11:33I don't know if I'd go underwater again.
11:35It really was like, yeah.
11:38Did you have to like hold your breath that entire time?
11:41Yeah.
11:42They like taught me how to like, you could only do it for little spurts, obviously.
11:46Um, but they trained me in a pool to like, you let the air out and you count a certain
11:51number.
11:51It just like minutes something went wrong.
11:53I'm not like a great swimmer and it was really wild.
11:59All right, guys, I'm going to ask one damn question about it.
12:01Did they use that tape?
12:02You didn't have to do it again, did you?
12:04I don't even know.
12:05Honestly, I hope they did.
12:06Okay.
12:07Who knows?
12:07And actually like in the final product, it's in there for like five seconds.
12:11Oh, of course.
12:12And you're like, wow.
12:13I almost really like went to the other side for like a five second.
12:18Beautiful shot.
12:20You do have a good story now.
12:22Yeah.
12:22Unfortunately.
12:23Um, okay.
12:24We have some questions we're asking everybody who comes in and actually this is what I'm
12:28going to get for you guys is what did you get yourself with your first Hollywood paycheck?
12:33What, what gift did you buy?
12:36Oh gosh.
12:37Some of you more recent memory than others, but I'm not sure if it's Hollywood.
12:47I don't know.
12:48Um, but definitely I got Play-Doh.
12:50I was obsessed with Play-Doh.
12:52I, I was like four and I was like, mom, can I get some Play-Doh?
12:59Because...
13:00Was that when I met you?
13:03Yes.
13:03You know, we met, she played my daughter in something else when she was four.
13:06And yeah, this was not our first rodeo.
13:09Wait, wait, that was the one that I stole from my sister in accident.
13:13I believe so.
13:14Yeah.
13:16Yeah.
13:17Yeah.
13:18And you got Play-Doh out of it.
13:20Yeah, I did.
13:21All right.
13:21Not bad.
13:25Sadly, I think mine was rent because I was barely scraping by.
13:29Yeah.
13:30Yeah.
13:31I also was like, uh, credit card debt.
13:33Yeah.
13:33Yeah.
13:34I did buy, um, it wasn't like a Hollywood paycheck.
13:37It was the first paycheck I got.
13:39I did like a Broadway play in New York and I bought myself a used piano off of Craigslist.
13:44Oh.
13:44And I remember like watching it get moved into my apartment and being like, yeah.
13:48Piano.
13:49I have a piano.
13:50That's awesome.
13:51Yeah.
13:51God, I, I think, I think I bought, this is a weird one.
13:56I think I bought like a, it was a nice pair of shoes, like something a little more, you
14:02know, like you can't wear tennis shoes every day, you know, like, like a, like a nice pair
14:07of, I think it was a nice pair of shoes, but I know what you mean.
14:09That sense of consciously going, that's the paycheck and put that in the bank and I'm going
14:14to use this credit card to, you know, that that it's a direct link from that labor to
14:19this good.
14:20Yeah.
14:21Mine was also Play-Doh.
14:24And do you still have it today?
14:26I do.
14:27I just have to keep it moist.
14:30Perfect.
14:30Awesome.
14:31I'm pretty sure I still have that Play-Doh.
14:32You should keep it.
14:34In some box in my basement, it's probably grown those like crystals out of it.
14:38Probably by now, honey.
14:39You're going to want it as a moment.
14:41Well, he can teach you how to keep it, keep it moist.
14:43You got to keep it moist.
14:44You got to, you got to like spray water on it.
14:45It's like a real overdose starter.
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