Sundance 2016 Interview: Richard Bates Jr. and AnnaLynne McCord Talk TRASH FIRE

Writer/director Richard Bates Jr. and AnnaLynne McCord first came together several years ago to create Excision—the haunting tale of a young woman’s obsession with surgery that takes a tragic turn—which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. The duo have returned to Park City this year for their latest collaboration, Trash Fire, which recently celebrated its debut as part of Sundance’s stellar Midnight selections.

Trash Fire follows Owen (Adrian Grenier), a troubled 20-something who wants to reconnect with his family—and his sister Pearl (McCord) in particular—after he learns some life-altering news from his longtime girlfriend (Angela Trimbur) and realizes he needs to atone for his past mistakes.

Daily Dead had the opportunity to catch up with both Bates Jr. and McCord during the festival to hear more about their experiences collaborating together on this personal tale of redemption and dealing with your demons. Bates Jr. also chatted about what’s coming up next for him after Trash Fire and McCord shared a hilarious story about her pranking Mike “The Miz” Mizanin on the set of the recent WWE holiday flick, Santa’s Little Helper.

So Richard, how much of this story reflects your own personal life? I get a sense of symmetry between the character of Owen and yourself?

Richard Bates Jr.: Probably more than I'd like to admit.

AnnaLynne McCord: Yeah, me too.

Richard Bates Jr.: Wait, is this being recorded [laughs]? No, in all seriousness, I fell into this weird fucking depression for a while, where you're fighting your way out of it and then you can reflect on things and that’s when I realized how consumed with your own problems you become when you're depressed—how selfish that is. The starting point was to attack the film from that angle and not necessarily be sympathetic towards myself. The relationship evolves from there. Most of the differences are that I'm not as witty as Owen and the characters are smarter than us.

AnnaLynne McCord: I agree.

Richard Bates Jr.: A lot of it's probably bits and pieces taken from my real life. There is a little bit of me in every character. AnnaLynne's character, Pearl, for example. When I got so depressed after Suburban Gothic, I didn't leave the apartment for a long time, and I gained something like 60 or 80 pounds, I don't even fucking know. I saw it and lost it, I was very ashamed to leave the apartment, so I put that into Pearl. Really, all these movies are just insanely personal, in a lot of ways.

AnnaLynne McCord: That's why they're good.

AnnaLynne, for you, what was your approach to playing Pearl as opposed to something like Excision, because in this you’re under such heavy makeup all the time. Does that help you heighten that character a little bit? She was so terrifying in her own way.

AnnaLynne McCord: She was. Everyone kept calling me Freddy Krueger on set. It didn't help that I tried to scare them when I was not being Pearl. There's something really wonderful about the makeup, hair, and wardrobe process that people just don't understand. When you do auditions—to every actor out there—it's like you aren't half the person until you see what that final product is. It's like a woman changing her hair color. You feel different. With that kind of makeup, it really does change you.

A lot of my process, I don't know what I'm doing most of the time, but I think it’s just trusting my instincts, trusting my 28 years of experience of observing humans, which is my favorite hobby on Planet Earth. It’s also nice, too, when you have trust with a director.

But with Pearl, the voice was something we found going over the script months before the film started and that was us both discussing that she's a little girl and that kind of came out and then Ricky was like, "That's it", and we worked from there.

And then when I got on set, the physicality and all that stuff came from being in makeup and playing around with it. The way Ricky really helped me was very minimal. Because of how full-on Pearl looks when you see her, it was so important that she was something very simple and understated and very raw, too, because she's had this whole life only in this one room, more or less. So when you experience her, it's intense, but it’s also these small bursts.

Richard Bates Jr.: We actually had time to sort of develop this movie. And also there is a sort of wild trust that I have between AnnaLynne and Gubs (Matthew Gray Gubler) and myself because they've stuck by me. You know what I mean? We make these movies together and no matter what anyone says about them, we give them everything we've got and we stand by each other after the movies. And that's rare.

One thing I have to commend you on is that you made me like Adrian by the end. I’ve never been an Entourage fan and Owen starts off like a huge dick, but the end, you can’t help but like this guy—and Adrian.

Richard Bates Jr.: The idea to cast Adrian was similar to when we had considered AnnaLynne for Excision. I didn't know her, all I knew was that she was on 90210, and initially I refused to cast her because I thought the actors on shows like that just wanted to show off and look pretty and say a few lines. AnnaLynne, she was a real fucking actor. I was shocked and she'll never get rid of me.

AnnaLynne McCord: Ever.

Richard Bates Jr.: With Adrian, he’d been doing independent movies for so long. He even did a John Waters film, so I called John to make sure he would be cool to work with, and John loves him. But in reality, Adrian doesn't have to take a movie like this. This was a tough sell, I'm sure, for his people and whatnot. This is very much the exact opposite of his brand, so I think that was the fun of it for him, just completely being able to reinvent someone for a different audience.

I know this is a bit of a homecoming for you guys, coming back to Sundance once again with another movie—how has the experience been different for you guys this time and how much has it meant to you to premiere Trash Fire here?

Richard Bates Jr.: I don't get to exist without Sundance. You know what I mean? We didn’t know anyone when we submitted Excision and I just remember staying up for 48 hours straight to get it done, I dropped it in a box and went home and slept for a day and it changed my life. I didn't know I'd get into a festival. We were so happy when we got in here the first time.

AnnaLynne McCord: I don't know about you, but this time around I feel like I can actually be here. I feel like I'm actually present in this interview with you, for example. I know what I'm doing and talking about and I'm like myself, whereas that fucking trip I was like, "Ahhhh, what am I doing?”

Richard Bates Jr.: It was just terrifying.

AnnaLynne McCord: It was so scary. And awesome, but scary.

Richard Bates Jr.: It was a huge relief. It's kind of like my mom, who wouldn't read a lot of what she reads if Oprah Winfrey didn't tell her to. It’s the same with Sundance; it validates your work in many ways and we don't get to exist without Sundance.

AnnaLynne McCord: Thanks, Mr. Redford.

Richard Bates Jr.: They've done a lot for us.

Are you thinking about what's next or are you just relishing the experience of having Trash Fire finally out on the festival circuit?

Richard Bates Jr.: It's a weird thing. We actually do have what's next, it's the first time ever. Anything can happen in between. I'll find a way to screw it up. I have no faith in anything. But what is next is sort of my version of Love, Actually.

AnnaLynne McCord: I'm going to explore some really personal stuff in this one.

So I’m guessing I’ll be the only person who will ask you about this movie in particular here at Sundance, but I know that last year you did Santa’s Little Helper with The Miz for WWE, and I just have to ask you how that experience was, because it seems like such a different experience than these films you’ve been making with Richard.

Richard Bates Jr.: I'm so glad you asked this [laughs].

AnnaLynne McCord: Honestly, it was literally one of those things where it's six figures and I was like, "Fuck yeah." But it was so funny because The Miz was the sweetest thing in the world. I love him and basically the whole film, when I wasn't working, I was trying to find ways to prank him because he's actually the sweetest guy on the planet, totally not like his wrestling character at all.

He’s from Ohio and so easily gullible, like snowed about everything. So one day, I don't know if you saw it, but when I show up at his door, being greeted by this blonde chick, blonde bombshell person is supposed to throw him off a little.

So we're rehearsing one day it and he's just so proper and like a little corn-fed Ohio boy that I just thought this would be really funny. I completely took off my whole top and went topless. The director had opened the door for one second to tell me something and I was standing there topless and the director is like, "This is great!" He's like, "Hold on, let me get my eyes on it" so he actually filmed it on my iPhone.

So Mike comes running down the stairs in rehearsal, throws open the door because he's going full-tilt, like as if it's really being filmed, and when he opened the door, it was the best thing ever. I'm sitting there like, "Hi." He freaked out, almost like he was the worst person for having seen my tits at that moment and it was really funny. The whole movie was just fucking around with everybody, we all had a lot of fun and I hope I actually did something good in it. Mike’s face that day, though, was just the absolute best [laughs].