Congratulations on this incredible film. I want to start with your producer credit. What does that role mean to you?
Celine Song: Being a producer can mean a lot of things. Sometimes it’s financial, but for me, it meant being in the creative trenches—casting, budgeting, locations, all of it.
I’m curious about your collaboration process. Did you have a chance to rehearse, or was it more about trading ideas before filming?
Dylan O’Brien: It went on for a while, actually. For years we were getting passed on by financiers, so in the meantime we kept checking in, updating each other, commiserating.
Albrecht, you said rehearsal was the most challenging of your career. Why?
Albrecht Schuch: It was, without question, the hardest preparation I’ve ever faced. At first, I couldn’t find the center of the character. He felt like someone without emotions, almost as if he were absent from his own life.
Can you talk about the decision to set the film in 2013, and why that specific year was the right choice for this story?
Austin Peters: If you think about where we, as a country, were at in 2013… It was such a different time.
This is a movie that shows real love for the Bay Area. Where did the story come from?
Ryan Fleck: Well, it starts with that Too $hort song, this really nasty song called Freaky Tales that I heard way too young, maybe nine or ten. I grew up with hippie parents. We had Beatles records and Janis Joplin and then my friends played me Freaky Tales and I was like, What is going on?!