SXSW 2016 Interview: John Carchietta, Fabianne Therese and Nichole Bloom on TEENAGE COCKTAIL

Over this past weekend, John Carchietta’s Teenage Cocktail premiered as part of the 2016 SXSW Film Festival and Daily Dead was able to chat with the up-and-coming director as well as two of the film’s stars, Nichole Bloom and Fabianne Therese. Here's what they had to say about their experiences collaborating together on the project, working with co-star Pat Healy, and keeping the film’s story true to the teenage experience:

What I appreciated the most about Teenage Cocktail is that no one here is a true villain; everyone is just incredibly flawed, but in a wholly realistic way. What was it that you both saw in the characters of Jules and Annie that really spoke to you, either as women or as performers?

Nichole Bloom: When I first read the script, I was under consideration for Fabi’s role [Jules], so I read it differently, but also in reading it, I intrinsically understood Annie better because that's closer to who I am. I'm not really the ringleader in most of my relationships, so when I was reading it, I felt like I was reading it as her and I was thinking about it more.

Fabianne Therese: When I read it, I also didn't know who I would be playing. John was like, “Well, you're kind of up for consideration for both of them,” but I am way more like Annie's character. That's been my position in my relationships with other women thus far, but I was really excited to play Jules because I had a relationship very similar to this in high school. I really enjoyed getting into the head of the other person; that was really fun for me.

The movie does a really fantastic job of capturing confusion, self-doubt, ideas of identity, and dangers of conforming to others’ expectations. Can you talk about how integral that authenticity was to the film’s direction?

John Carchietta: There are a couple of factors with that. I like to think that it came about partly because I was brought up in a completely female atmosphere. I grew up with my mom, my grandmother, and an older sister, so I was constantly surrounded by women. I think that lent itself to it. Maybe it was unconsciously simmering inside me as I worked on this. But most of it was just these two ladies, and them knowing the script like the backs of their hands, which allowed us to be super loose and free and able to just play around with it on the day. They constantly brought notes.

Fabianne Therese: Every day [laughs].

John Carchietta: Exactly. They were like, “This is great, but this is how we would say it, because we actually went through this.” So that was a tremendous help to me, and kudos to them for being comfortable with bringing the notes to me and being willing to push it.

Fabianne Therese: We would completely rewrite pages and be like, “Can we do this?” I've never had a director be so open with—not losing your voice—but giving away that much power to your actors.

John Carchietta: But it's legitimizing my voice in a way. Putting a legit stamp on it—this is how it would be said, this is how it would be felt. I never felt like I gave away anything, really.

Nichole Bloom: Yeah, and when you're making a movie, when you have that kind of collaborative experience where you can be as open as that, it just makes for such an overall better experience for viewers.

Fabianne Therese: It felt like such a collaboration. It didn't feel like I was being hired to just act. It felt like we were constantly trying to make it better, every person who was involved. Not even just us, but also the makeup and wardrobe departments. They cared so much about the scenes we were shooting, and John was open to everyone's input.

Nichole Bloom: I didn't even think that was a possibility [laughs]. I remember when we started working on it and Fabi, you were the one that said, “Oh, we should make suggestions,” and I'm just used to working on things where it's like, "Well, you got that word wrong, so say it again," where things had to be perfect, right down to the tee. I just didn't even think it was possible to have this kind of collaborative experience [laughs].

John Carchietta: I don't think I ever turned anything down. And by chance, too—I never even realized it until halfway through the shoot—it was like the entire crew was a girls’ club. I wanted to hire everyone I thought was the most talented and that could really do the job and it just turned out that it was almost all women.

How was it working opposite of Pat Healy? How was your experience collaborating with him?

Nichole Bloom: He wasn't super friendly with us, but that helped with the scenes we had to do with him. I didn't want to feel like, “Oh, I know him so well, and he's this great guy.” I'm sure he is. It was like how Annie meets him as a stranger, I really just felt like, “I have no idea what your deal is.” So it really helped me in that way. It made it very believable for me that he wasn't super down to be my homie.

Fabianne Therese: I worked with him on two other films. We have one that just got into Tribeca [Film Festival] called Rebirth that I haven't seen yet, but the one before that, Starry Eyes, we didn't have any scenes together, so we had separate characters and separate worlds and when we were on set together we got along great. He's really funny. He's a really great comedic actor, which helps for the serious roles, if that makes sense. It was similar during this shoot. He wasn't as warm because he was just in his zone as Frank. It really worked well for our scenes together because our other scenes were so fun and charged and we would just be listening to rap music, dancing, watching movies, making jokes and screaming. But he definitely brought a more somber tone to all the scenes. He's very professional, funny, and really awesome to work with.

John Carchietta: Pat’s super easy to work with and a lot of fun to direct. There were times when I was trying to continually fuck with him and push him, and then he'd realize what I was doing and instead of throwing that back at me, he'd go with it because he'd figure out what I was doing, that I was pushing his buttons, and he'd let those buttons be pushed and just go with it, and then afterwards we'd laugh about it. He was a total breeze and I knew I could just let him go and do it, and he delivered tremendously. We were lucky to have him on this.