The Sacrifice Game director Jenn Wexler discusses casting Aladdin's Mena Massoud as the unhinged leader of a gang of cult killers.
The Big Picture You want to see some serious acting range? Go watch Mena Massoud in Disney’s live-action Aladdin and then check him out in his upcoming horror film, The Sacrifice Game directed by Jenn Wexler.
Hear about that and loads more straight from Wexler in the video interview at the top of this article or you can read the conversation in transcript form below. WEXLER: Oh man, there is a big difference. It would be a major spoiler to reveal it, but I'll say it's a plot thing.I definitely need to know just to have this information in my own back pocket.
WEXLER: You absolutely don't. Even if you're making a movie on your iPhone, embrace that format. Okay, it's an iPhone movie. If you can, make that part of the story; is it found footage? Or whatever it is, just embrace that element. But then, take your phone and look for the most interesting frame around you. Like in this room, I could find 20 interesting things to point to. So you have to embrace what's available to you and use it and think about theme and emotion and metaphor.
WEXLER: Absolutely. So this building was probably built in the 17 or 1800s. It’s beautiful. It reminded me of European arthouse films. When we were shooting there, I did not have any ghostly experiences because I was really focused on directing, so I was like, “Ghosts, do not get in my headspace. You better stay out of my headspace.” But other people on set experienced weird things with lights.
WEXLER: I have to say, the whole process was really weirdly easy. In hindsight, easy. In the moment, of course, you're like, “This is hard,” but in hindsight, easy. When we had Mena Massoud from Aladdin and other great things, when he came on, and also when Olivia Scott Welch came on from Fear Street and the TV show Panic, we were like, we had our financing. we were going. So that's probably the hardest thing in terms of getting the movie going, which is often how it is.
But I have to say, the way I like to work with actors is I like to have a lot of conversations with them, and we kind of define the arcs of the characters, we define the objectives of the character's overall life – what do they want in life? And then, from there, we can go on a scene-by-scene basis. So I find that that's a process that works for a lot of people.
WEXLER: Yeah, they were all incredible. And what was really, really lovely is they all became a family on set, and their dynamics and their energies fed into each other. Samantha and Clara – Madison and Georgia – they became best friends while we were shooting, which was like, that's what we need. We need that energy.
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