Encounter is a sci-fi thriller revolving around Marine Corps veteran Malik Khan (Riz Ahmed) as he takes his kids on the run from the military in an effort to protect them from the threat of an impending alien invasion on the world. However, Malik begins to question his own sanity on the matter and his probation officer Hattie (Octavia Spencer) races against time to save both him and his sons from the people chasing after them and Malik himself.
Ahead of the film's debut on Prime Video, Screen Rant spoke exclusively with co-writer/director Michael Pearce to discuss Encounter, the long journey it's taken to get made, drawing from his past for the family at the heart of the story, and more.
Screen Rant: Encounter is such an interesting twist on every genre it covers. How did the concept first come about?
Michael Pearce: Well it was a script that was originally written by Joe Barton nearly 10 years ago and it always had a lot of love in the UK film industry and I think different directors were attached at different stages, but it never quite came together. Films are just always hard to make, to get all the stars to align. I read the script, I think three or four years ago, and I just really connected to the father-son relationship in the film, there were a lot of personal resonances to when I was a kid. When me, my brother, and my dad were similar ages to the characters in the film, we went through a sort of family crisis and we had to navigate through it together and it just seemed like so much of that was on the page and it was just really a poignant story for me.
So I really connected to that and it's a combination of that with the very big genre canvas that the film was playing in as well. I just thought this is such a unique combination to be able to tell a kind of personal story in this sort of playful genre sandbox, it's just rare that you get that opportunity. So those were the things that attracted me to the material.
Given that it had that long journey before getting to you, what would you say you brought that was different than the other writers and directors prior?
Michael Pearce: I think the original script was a really beautiful coming-of-age movie that had a very thrilling opening scene. I felt that there was an opportunity for the kind of tension in the film, for the thriller aspect of it, which was always kind of simmering there, but it could really just be amplified. So I just wanted to increase the level of jeopardy that the characters were going through, because then it wasn't just a coming-of-age film and a road movie, it was a thriller. It was a coming-of-age film trapped inside of a thriller and there just seemed like there was so much jeopardy and stake involved then.
That was one aspect and then the other aspect was just mining my own memories of my upbringing and my connection with my dad and my younger brother, and how the three of us would fight and come together and laugh and learn from each other. So on several drafts in the script, I just tried to bring some of that, and it didn't need a radical rewrite, because a lot of that was already there in the material, but it's just great when you can bring nuances from your own life. Some of the lines that they say are kind of verbatim things that me and my brother and my dad said to each other.
What was it like looking for the perfect central trio of stars to really help bring the heart of the story to life?
Michael Pearce: It was one of those fortunate things where Riz had read the project and he wanted to meet me on it and it's not usually that way round. [Laughs] I actually find casting is one of the hardest parts of filmmaking, it's the bit where as a director, you have the least control. Because, you know, you develop a script and you send it to an agent and you don't even know sometimes if an actor reads the material or how seriously they're taking it, whether they want to play in that genre or are attracted to that character. You don't hear back for two months and sometimes you just get a flat, "No," and it's a painful, long journey that you go on.
It's just really fortunate this way round where Riz had come across the material and he was pitching himself to come on it and I've always been a fan of his, he's someone that's at the top of his game now. He's one of the most exciting actors out there, so I kind of kept my cards close to my chest when I met him but inside I was just so excited about working with him, and over a series of conversations, it just became apparent that he was the right guy.
Then it was exciting to find new young talents, I wanted to find two child actors that were just going to be authentic on screen, so I wasn't really looking for kids that had lots of experience. In fact, Lucien-River, who plays the older brother Jay, had been in one or two Canadian TV shows and Aditya Geddada, who plays Bobby, had never acted on screen before. There was just some extra layer of authenticity they brought to the project because they weren't overtrained and over experienced and that was great to witness them arrive on set with huge smiles and this big enthusiasm every day.
Encounter is streaming on Prime Video beginning December 10
No comments:
Post a Comment