Stephen Ohl and Jonah Ehrenreich Talk Hooked Up
On VOD April 7, Hooked Up (review), directed by Pablo Sarucen and produced by Orphan’s Jaume Collet-Serra, tells of two young friends (Stephen Ohl, Jonah Ehrenreich) from New York who travel to Barcelona to get over the break-up of one of them. But things won’t go as expected, and they will end up trapped in a house where they will have to fight an evil girl and the evil inside them. We spoke to the film’s stars about making a movie in Barcelona, found-footage films, and the pros and cons of making movies on an iPhone
First up, how’d you both get involved in Hooked Up?
Stephen : Pablo had posted a casting call on several online casting and film gig websites. I happened to stumble across his post that essentially said, “feature film to be shot in Barcelona directed by recent Sundance Film Festival competitor Pablo Larcuen.” We made two audition videos on our own and then we did two videos together.
Pablo liked us but still had to meet us to know if it would work. He came to NYC on New Years Eve 2012, and we all woke up with tattoos of NYC in a heart on our asses the next morning, and that was our contract.
Jonah : I was auditioning in New York City a lot at the time for student films and what not and I came across Pablo’s ad on ‘mandy.com’ a free casting website, it said that the production would send 2 college aged actors to Barcelona to film a feature and I’m not sure I read much more than that before I already submitted. I was applying for as many auditions as I could at the time, not sure who I would even hear back from. When I first heard from Pablo that’s when I caught wind that it was a found footage film, he said he was interested in seeing me video audition myself with two clips, in one I am telling a friend of mine who lives in Barcelona that I was surprising him with a visit to come have fun and party and the other was that I have 5 minutes left to live because there is someone outside my door who is going to kill me so I have to say goodbye to my friends and family.
Before auditioning I watched all of Pablo’s short films and knew he was a director I wanted to work with so I put in the time to record both auditions, the first one went very smoothly but then the scared audition was a process because I had not done that kind of role before and was unsure of myself so instead of just being scared and addressing the camera to say goodbye, somehow I came up with the brilliant self sabotaging idea to record myself deeply saying a poem that I knew very well into the camera as if that would suffice which it did not at all and Pablo said the first audition was good but he didn’t know why I said a poem and I would have to record the second one again and really show myself being scared so I hunkered down and did it proper and from there Pablo said to meet up with Stephen Ohl in NYC and record two audition videos, again one fun and one horror with us in character filming each other which Pablo approved of and then said he would be coming to NYC for new years eve a few months later and wanted to meet us to prospectively lock us down as the actors for the film. So Pablo and Stephan came and stayed with me in NYC and we were able to talk about the project and the iPhone aspect and what production would look like, the script would be finished in the coming months. Pablo also kept mentioning that he wanted the three of us to get matching tattoos on our butts as a symbol of our commitment to making this film happen. At first I thought he was kidding and would drop it as the day of New year’s Eve progressed, after all Stephen and I did not even know if we officially had the roles yet, but Pablo was relentless and it soon became very clear that this was more than just weird matching butt tattoos but a weird matching butt tattoo contract to solidify my place in the film. So, for the rest of my life I now have a heart with “NYC” on the inside with an arrow going through it tattooed on my butt and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
And you were both based in Los Angeles at the time? Did this mean relocating to Barcelona for the duration of the filming?
Stephen : I was living at home in New Jersey at the time, just outside NYC and Jonah was in Brooklyn. We went to Barcelona for about a month to make the movie. We now both live in Los Angeles.
Jonah : No this all took place out of NYC, I didn’t move out to LA until a year after the film. We filmed for about three and a half weeks in Spain, the first week was rehearsals and pre-production in Barcelona and then the first half of filming was in a remote town called Carcastillo which is about four hours North West of Barcelona and that was to film all the horror in the house and for the second half of filming we went back to Barcelona to film what is seen in the first part of the movie.
Being an independent film, I’m guessing you weren’t staying in five-star hotels and digging out on Wolfgang Puck style catering each day? How no-frills was it all?
Stephen : Well the first week which was preparation and rehearsals, we stayed with Pablo in his grandparents very old apartment in Barcelona (and Europe’s old is a lot older than America’s old). Jonah and I shared a room in which the beds probably hadn’t been changed since Pablo was a kid sleeping in them… or maybe even his parents, because those beds sunk like hammocks. I stuck an ironing board under mine so I wouldn’t get scoliosis.
For shooting we all relocated to a small town in the Spanish countryside. There Jonah and I also shared a room with two twin beds. And the two actresses were in a room next to ours. It was like sleep away camp.
Jonah : Yes he was but it was always with the roadmap of hitting the appropriate beats for the sake of moving the story along. With Pablo being a foreign director and writing American English lingo, sometimes he would be able to make it very clear through the writing what message he was going for and from there it was about us putting his intention into our system and then letting out the dialogue in the natural way that we would in real life. His American Girlfriend at the time translated the script for him so she did a good job with the transition so sometimes we wouldn’t change any of the script and maybe just add on here and there or leave some stuff out. Other times Pablo would feel confident with our understanding of our own characters and would let us kind of come up with dialogue and then tell us what he felt was working and what to leave out but this was more rare. The scene where Tonio is filming Noemi walking up the stairs as we have first entered the house, Pablo had only written in the script that we all walk up the stairs together and then the morning before shooting he told me to come up with something to say for that scene so I went off on my own for a while and wrote down some ideas and that’s what you see in the movie. When Pablo see’s something that he likes, he is very open to it, he just has to see it first.
Did you guys spend much time together before the shoot, in order to get the chemistry down pat?
Stephen : When we did our first audition video together, there was an immediate friendship. For whatever reason, Pablo knew we would have that. We did hang out a good amount before shooting, part of it was to build that chemistry, but it was also very natural and we enjoyed hanging out so it wasn’t work or anything. We are in fact still good friends.
Jonah : Yeah Stephen and I became friends early on through the process. We knew that these characters would have to feel like lifelong friends and we made sure to hang out as much as possible and keep in contact before heading to Spain so the transition into filming would feel seemless. Now he is one of my best friends. I can’t get rid of this guy.
Being a found footage movie, was the director open to improvisation?
Stephen : Yes, quite a bit of improvisation. It being a found footage film and also English being Pablo’s second language, he was open to us saying things how we would naturally say them. He had the blue print and was very specific but he trusted us to make it our own and contribute a lot. He was very open to our ideas, which made the process enjoyable.
Jonah : Yes he was but it was always with the roadmap of hitting the appropriate beats for the sake of moving the story along. With Pablo being a foreign director and writing American English lingo, sometimes he would be able to make it very clear through the writing what message he was going for and from there it was about us putting his intention into our system and then letting out the dialogue in the natural way that we would in real life. His American Girlfriend at the time translated the script for him so she did a good job with the transition so sometimes we wouldn’t change any of the script and maybe just add on here and there or leave some stuff out. Other times Pablo would feel confident with our understanding of our own characters and would let us kind of come up with dialogue and then tell us what he felt was working and what to leave out but this was more rare. The scene where Tonio is filming Noemi walking up the stairs as we have first entered the house, Pablo had only written in the script that we all walk up the stairs together and then the morning before shooting he told me to come up with something to say for that scene so I went off on my own for a while and wrote down some ideas and that’s what you see in the movie. When Pablo see’s something that he likes, he is very open to it, he just has to see it first.
The film is premiering on VOD in April, before the DVD release a month or so later. Have you guys got into the whole VOD thing, yet? Do you think it’s the way of the future?
Stephen: Although I still love going to the theatre and being locked into a movie with no distractions and a large audience, VOD is a great new outlet for films like ours to be seen. And watching movies at home is probably my number one favourite past time… But VOD also allows filmmakers to get their films out there in a way that was previously impossible. It’s changing the face of both television and film. Like anything, it has great benefits but also negatives. There’s great potential to get your work seen, but it can be hard to make profit. It allows filmmakers to get work out there, but it may also oversaturate the market. But mostly I think it is good, and Hooked Up would probably not have a chance to be seen without it. It is the future and the future is now.
Jonah : Nothing beats it. My level of exposure to quality cinema has never been higher. VOD especially works for Hooked Up because although it looks very cool on the big screen, the whole iPhone found footage aspect directly translates well in whatever capacity it is viewed, from a phone to a big screen TV.
Per Uncork’d Entertainment, Hooked Up will be hitting DVD and VOD on April 7, 2015. In the meantime, check out the plot crunch and trailer below along with a piece of poster art.
Stephen Ohl, Jonah Ehrenreich, and Julia Molins star in the flick, which promises “Party, alcohol, sex & blood… in Barcelona!” Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan) produces.
Synopsis:
Two young friends from New York travel to Barcelona to get over the break-up of one of them. But things don’t go as expected, and they end up trapped in a house where they will have to fight an evil girl and the evil inside them.
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