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RadioFree.com: [jokes] Congratulations...Thanks to the scene in the car, I won't ever see Lin-Manuel Miranda's name again without thinking about Sex and the City.
MICHAEL: [laughs] It is the stupidest joke in the world, and yet it's funny, and it's because of [Tatiana's] delivery. I actually tweeted at him yesterday in the hopes that he sees that clip, because I would just die if he saw that joke about him. And hopefully he'd take it well.
One of the challenges of any short film is being able to tell a concise and complete story in a limited amount of time. Did Snatched require much editing to get it down to only 10 minutes?
It was a 7-page script, and I knew I didn't want to make it any more than 7 pages. The reason it's 10 minutes is because the last quarter of the film is in slow motion. You know, it's a huge, huge testament to our editor Mike Patterson. The very first rough cut he turned around in 36 hours was, like, the most genius rough cut I've ever seen, that was nearly the film completed. We planned as much in advance as possible, which I think you have to do with projects like this. I wrote it with a three-act structure in mind: the first act's the bedroom, second act's the kitchen, third act is the car in the street. And that sort of structure really helped keep us on point, keep us focused. We had the luxury of some site visits ahead of time, location scouting, really making sure we knew what we were doing on the technical end, so that once we got to set, the actors could just play. Because in order for this story to succeed, there has to be a looseness and a camaraderie amongst the actors, that they feel they can just go "tits up," as [someone] said earlier. So yeah, it required a lot of planning, but I'm super happy with the 10-minute experience.
I had the pleasure of meeting Tatiana about 18 years ago, so I've known for a while that she's awesome. A lot of people discovered that with Orphan Black, and even more people discovered that recently with She-Hulk. How did both she and her husband Brendan Hines come to your project?
I met Brendan years ago at a wedding. We had met a couple times, had some mutual friends. You know, the character of the dad is tricky to cast, in that he's got to be so silly, and game for fellatio on a banana and white cut-off shorts. And then at the same time, he's got to channel fury and rage and anger. And that's a tricky thing. So a mutual friend put us in touch. I, to be honest, did not know he was married to Tatiana. And he shared the script with her, and they reached out to me and [asked if] I would consider her for the role. I still am in disbelief. [laughs] But I think it was an opportunity for them to work together. They had never worked together before, and we happened to fit this perfect window. She did Comic-Con the weekend before filming, drove up to the Bay, shot our film for two days, and then went off to her next gig. We just happened to fit in that window. So it was luck of the timing. And I know LGBTQ issues are important to her, and stories are important to her. She's such an amazing advocate for people, and they got the tone of this, which obviously pivots wildly moment to moment. And I think, hopefully, for actors, that's fun to play in. So I just lucked out.
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Given the many different meanings of the word "snatched," is it safe to say that the title was in place from the beginning, and maybe even informed the narrative a bit? Like, this wasn't an untitled project that just found the perfect word one day, right?
[laughs] That's a funny question. No, it was always called Snatched. I got the opportunity to pitch 20th Digital, and I wrote it that night. So this was not, like, a script that was hanging around my computer. Once I figured out that it was a sort of riff on Invasion of the Body Snatchers (though not a direct riff, because we don't have the IP!), [I realized] the last version was The Invasion with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig about 10-15 years ago. So they had already taken "invasion." So I was thinking, like, "snatchers." And then I knew it was a queer story, and so I was like, "Oh, Snatched is obviously the name of this movie!" And yeah, it means a lot of things. It's a good title, it's succinct. And it was there from the beginning. And I think it helped dictate the tone. It can be something that's disco horror, as I like to call it--this idea that you can have the intersection of queer cinema, comedy, horror, sci-fi, [and] have a good laugh and then be terrified, too. The one thing I was scared about, though, was that there was an Amy Schumer/Goldie Hawn movie that came out like five years ago called Snatched. And I remember messaging a friend of mine, and I said, "Oh no, but there's already a Snatched!" And she said, "Michael, nobody knows anything before the pandemic. Don't worry about it, no one's thinking about any films before then, you can use the title." [laughs]
You use a very distinct shade of blue for the aliens' eyes. Why did you pick that particular color over the greens and yellows we might typically expect in a body snatchers story?
It's sort of another point of subversion in the film. The opening scene in Joey's bedroom is cast in a purple light that is coming from his lava lamp (which I had next to my bed growing up) and the string lights across the ceiling (which I also had in my bedroom). And purple is a queer color, and it's a royal color. Myles has purple hair, he's in a purple hoodie. So the color of that sort of queer comfort is set up to be purple. And blue, for me, is the color of boys. Blue is the aliens coming in and trying to make him what they think a boy should be, or what a queer boy should be, and it's not his authentic color, which is purple. There's something also cold about blue, so that was a very deliberate choice. Although I love creating something that people can interpret in different ways. I've had people say to me, "Blue because of Democrats! Oh, clearly this is an assault on liberalism." And "The blue car almost gets in a car accident with the red car." And I was like, "God, I love that! That's not my intention, that's not what I thought of, but great that that's what you're seeing, if it makes you question things!" But no, I'm 100% inclusive with my satirization as well. This is not a political statement of a film. [laughs] But the colors are very intentional, so I'm glad you picked up on that.
What do you think horror allows you to do narratively that, perhaps, you couldn't do with another genre?
I think that's a great question. I think horror, obviously, is a great vessel for allegory and metaphor, and sometimes stories are easier to digest that way. As an audience member, you don't feel like you're being hit over the head. You feel like a spoonful of sugar's helping the medicine go down. Also, as someone who cares about the audience experience, I don't make a film for it to sit on a screen in an empty room--I make it for audiences, and I want to take you on a ride. And horror and comedy both produce visceral reactions. They punch your gut, they accelerate your heartbeat, they gut-bust you in laughter. I want to create visceral reactions in audience goers, because I think if you feel something in your body, it makes you question it perhaps more quickly than it would [with] your mind, because you sit in a discomfort, or you sit in a physical reaction, and you wonder, "Whoa, why is my heart racing right now? Why can I not stop laughing?" I think it just helps audience members feel like they are able to ask themselves better questions.
Would you consider yourself a lifelong horror fan?
Yeah, I loved horror as a kid. I had a costume closet, Halloween was my national holiday. There was a video store down the street from my house, and I would sit in the horror section after school--literally sit on the ground and look at the back of the VHS tapes and read the descriptions. There's this great limited series on Shudder, Queer for Fear, that I can't wait to watch, which talks about the history and intersection of queerness and horror. You know, demons and monsters...I think sometimes queer people feel like demons and monsters themselves, and so there's an odd kinship there. Also, there's something about the dress-up element, and the costume and the pageantry, that I think's appealing.
What were some horror films that had the most impact on you?
The Shining was huge for me as a kid, so it's a privilege to put a nod to it in the film. It felt hypnotic to me as a kid--I felt like I was literally being hypnotized. I remember Bram Stoker's Dracula a lot. I remember being terrified of it so much that I had a weird vampire obsession as a kid and non-stop nightmares. But what I love about that film is it's so lush--the costumes and the score. It is so over the top, and specific, and kind of campy, and fun and horrifying and bloody and disgusting. And I loved that it could be all of those things in a single movie. So I think those were two of my biggest influences as a kid.
Thanks for your time today...It's been fun, I appreciate it!
It's such a pleasure talking to you, Michael. Thank you so much!
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