SXSW 2013 Exclusive Interview: Co-Star Sharni Vinson Talks Surviving You’re Next and More
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By far one of our favorite films from the 2013 SXSW Film Festival was Adam Wingard’s stunning home invasion thriller You’re Next, and one of the (many) reasons we fell so hard had to be the movie’s no-nonsense heroine Erin played by Sharni Vinson.
While in Austin a few weeks back, we spoke exclusively with the Aussie actress about what attracted her to the project, her experiences collaborating with her equally wonderful cast members and much more on You’re Next, which arrives in theaters August 23rd.
Written by Simon Barrett, You’re Next (review) centers around a family reunion gone horribly awry after the family becomes targeted by masked murderers who crash the party. As it turns out, their only hope to make it out alive is Erin (Vinson), the Australian girlfriend to one of the family’s sons whose experience living as a survivalist in the Outback turns out to be very handy against the mysterious killers who will stop at nothing until everyone is dead.
You’re Next also stars AJ Bowen, Barbara Crampton, Joe Swanberg, Wendy Glenn, Ti West and Amy Seimetz.
Dread Central: First off, congrats on a killer performance- you guys really nailed it in this movie. Was the biggest appeal for you to come on You’re Next the fact that you weren’t going to be playing another horror movie damsel in distress?
Sharni Vinson: Oh absolutely; a hundred percent. The huge appeal is not only the fact that personally I seek projects out that are action-oriented because I really enjoy roles with physicality and a lot of movement because that’s how I grew up. I grew up very much in an athletic household and was a swimmer for like 15 years and a ballerina for 17 years- so you name it, I’ve probably done it or trained for it.
Then I fell in love with the acting business and started really heavily pursuing it 10 years ago, and I feel like I’ve finally come into my niche now and fully understand what I want to do, which is bring roles like this – like Erin – to life and be that positive, strong female influence on all the women out there. It was definitely all that and all those qualities about Erin- she’s never scared, she wasn’t going to back down and still keeps her own innocence intact while remaining tough. That’s kind of hard to do so I wanted to make the audience fall in love with her and hope that they are going to be behind her throughout this movie.
So when I see a screening like last night and see the reaction, I can see that the audience really does get behind her, which is by far the most rewarding thing in the world to me. That’s why I took this role, that’s what I was hoping we would get, and it’s amazing that everyone has really gotten behind this movie like they have over the last few years.
Dread Central: Did they tell you when you guys were working on it that your character would be getting your own theme song?
Sharni Vinson: Oh my- I love that music so much! It feels like a MacGyver kind of theme song for this ass-kicking girl…”Oh, here she goes” (laughs). I love the music, it was such a brilliant choice I think really.
Dread Central: So when you came on board for You’re Next, was everything that we saw for Erin already written in the script or did you work with Adam and Simon to flesh her out a bit more?
Sharni Vinson: Well initially, the character was written to be an American and I even auditioned as American too. But when I was in the room, they wanted to hear my natural accent which throws you as an actor actually. You think it would be quite easy to do you natural accent but when you’ve rehearsed it one way, it’s quite difficult to just go back instantly. So I have this joke that I did the worst audition of my life for this movie- Simon will tell you that it’s the best audition he’s ever seen so that’s really weird. I don’t know how that works exactly (laughs).
So that’s how it kind of changed- at first it was meant to be an American role and then it became Australian once they sort of saw the potential in that. They could see Erin as Australian; they just got it so we did a few rewrites on the script and changed a couple of words to really fit her history. Simon was completely accommodating while transforming this character to fit into this Australian existence.
And the script itself was just brilliant but what was also amazing in this movie is just how everyone in this ‘family’ were exceptional at improvisation, and that’s where a lot of the realness and authenticity in the performances came from too. A lot of this was just happening in the moment and Adam is just in there with the camera on his shoulder and he’s just finding moments; you never know exactly what he’s capturing either. When I first saw the movie, it was like seeing any movie for the first time because I really had no idea what he had captured. It was a dream, really.
Dread Central: You’re Next has some remarkable chemistry between the entire cast; you really do feel like you’re watching this weird little family at their reunion dinner. Did Adam give you guys a lot of time before shooting to get to settle in with each other or was it a bit more instantaneous?
Sharni Vinson: You know, within the first day – the very first day – that we were all there, we felt it. Again, to put that many people together and to expect them all to just click immediately is usually almost impossible so we were lucky that here, something truly genuine between us all just really fell into place from the moment we all arrived on set. Let me just say this- Barbara Crampton is a god; I’m in love with that woman and to come to set and to be around people like Barbara and the rest of this cast that it was an honor to just be around was really incredible to fall into this family the way I did.
The world of independent filmmaking was very new to me so I found it incredibly rewarding to be working with this amazing bunch of people on what was a truly wonderful first experience with indie filmmaking. To be a part of something like You’re Next and then watch it as it goes through these festivals and gets to connect with fans from different parts of the world is unlike anything I’ve ever been a part of before.
Then to see You’re Next get picked up by a fantastic studio like Lionsgate and then this entire release process has been one of the biggest learning experiences of my career; I’ve never really seen the entire process of an independent movie from beginning to end and everything in between like I have with You’re Next, and that really gives you an entirely new perspective as an actor about the filmmaking process. The reunion last night after our screening was insane- for some of us, it’s been 18 months since we’ve seen each other so just to be a part of everything has been amazing.
Synopsis:
The Davison family comes under attack from a terrifying group of sadistic murderers during a family reunion getaway. Barricaded in their secluded vacation home, they fight off a barrage of axes, crossbows, and machetes from both inside and outside the house. However, the masked killers didn’t count on Erin (Vinson), the young girlfriend of the eldest Davison son whose mysterious past has made her very difficult to kill.
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