Interview: Adam David Thompson Talks HERE ALONE and Reflects on +1

Arriving on VOD platforms and on iTunes today courtesy of Vertical Entertainment is Rod Blackhurst’s Here Alone, a post-apocalyptic drama about three people who cross paths and find their lives forever intertwined as the world around them goes to hell. Written by David Ebeltoft, Here Alone stars Lucy Walters, Adam David Thompson, Gina Piersanti, and Shane West, and recently Daily Dead caught up with Thompson to discuss his involvement with the film. During the interview, he discussed how Here Alone became a turning point in his career, his experiences collaborating with everyone on the project, and even chatted about how much he enjoyed working on another genre movie that came out a few years prior, Dennis Iliadis’ +1.

Great to speak with you today, Adam. It's funny, before I watched the movie, I was doing my research and realized you were also in +1, which I really enjoyed back when I saw it at SXSW a few years ago. It’s one of those movies I wish more fans had discovered, but I feel like they will over the next few years.

Adam David Thompson: Yeah, that was a super fun movie to do. I met some of my best friends doing that movie. Logan [Miller], who plays Teddy the smart-ass, we were together yesterday. Rohan [Kymal], who plays Angad, and I are still super close. And Rhys [Wakefield], Ashley Hinshaw, and Natalie Hall, too. We all just became so close because that movie was shot over the course of a couple months, and we shot nights every night, so we were all delirious all the time. And we all fell in love with each other, which was really cool.

But I'm so glad you liked it. I think that Dennis [Iliadis] is the man. The Last House on the Left [2009] is amazing, and with +1, I agree with you. It was the first to do this cloning thing, and I think that people kind of missed the boat a little bit, but I have a strong feeling that it won't always be that way.

Well, let's talk about Here Alone. I’ll be honest and say that when I read the description, I was like, "Oh, okay, there’s a post-viral outbreak, and I’ve seen that story before.” But I really thought the way you guys approached this story here was so different, where it becomes this character study of these broken people who find each other, and I was very surprised.

Adam David Thompson: Thank you so much. I agree with you. I had the same reaction when the script landed on my desk. My wife and I had just had our baby two weeks before I got the script, and so when it came across my desk, I was immediately like, "Absolutely not, I cannot go away and do this film for almost a month," and my wife, who's the most incredible person in the world, was like, "You know what, you don't turn down a movie until you read it first." So I read the script, and I spoke to my wife after. She was like, "You have to go do this, don't you?" And I was like, "I think I do."

Because you're right, it's different. It's a character study of these people with this backdrop of the apocalypse just adding layers and levels of what they're going through. And it just makes everything so much more dire. But at the end of the day, it's these people dealing with their problems, just against a different backdrop than we do.

When you were working with Rod on the film, did you guys tightly stick to the script, or did he give you opportunities to break out a little bit, considering the environment and how many character moments we get in the film? I'm just curious what the process was like for you guys.

Adam David Thompson: Well, because I was a new dad, I was driving home every weekend from upstate New York to see my wife and my baby for the weekends. But the process in general had to be super tightly-knit, and everything had to move like clockwork. We had this small but powerful crew. We had these certain locations that meant we were out in the elements. If it was raining, it was raining. We just had to deal with whatever came to us.

And the great part about Rod, if you've seen any of his other stuff, like the Amanda Knox documentary he did for that's on Netflix right now, Rod has vision like nobody I've ever met. Lucy and myself and Gina would often sit around and figure out what the scene was about before we'd shoot it, which really helped us, as opposed to just us jumping in headfirst. We got to sit around, talk through it with the writer and with Rod. So we were able to kind of process it as it was happening. It was an incredible process, and it truly was one of the most unique experiences I've ever had.

We get some information about your character, Chris, and what has happened with his family in regards to the outbreak, but I was curious how deep you might have dug into him as a character prior to shooting. It was interesting because we see how Lucy's character, who is so serious and so driven in terms of her purpose, and that’s probably how most people would be. But then here comes this guy who is cracking jokes and telling stories that, you know, most people would agree, don’t really matter anymore. He hasn’t let the circumstances change him.

Adam David Thompson: Yeah, Rod and I had long phone conversations before we ever got on set about who Chris was. And Rod and I are kind of cut from the same cloth—we think the same stuff is funny, we listened to the same bands in the ’90s. We are very much alike, and Rod and I both knew this guy, we both knew someone who was just like Chris.

The thing I liked about Chris was that he's the type of guy that says, "Yeah, we're in a shit situation. And we can live in that and we can mull on that for a while, or we can make the best out of it. We can make this feast out of grubs and Cheez Whiz and crackers, or we can pout about it for a while." So I think that Chris was the exact juxtaposition of Lucy's character, Ann, and they forced each other to come to grips with the way each other reacts to things.

The thing I liked about Chris is that throughout the film, you're not sure where he's going to go at the beginning, or what he's going to do, which adds to the element of suspense of the film. But as the film progresses, you get to see Chris' true colors, and that's what drew me to him the most.

Then you have this third person in this odd triangle, which is Gina's character, Olivia, who plays my stepdaughter. Gina and I had a really interesting relationship on set. She is very much a young girl, so here I am thinking my jokes are hilarious, but it was very apparent that Gina did not find them funny. She would have these massive eye rolls every time I would come up with a pun or some stupid joke. And so that made me laugh so hard because Gina's the sweetest human being alive, but you could see the difference between us, which then created this difference between the characters of Olivia and Chris.

What would you say was the biggest thing you took away from working on this film, whether it was something personal or professional? How much of an impact did it leave on you?

Adam David Thompson: I think it was a couple of things. Number one, it was my first film and my first performance as a father. I got to see how that affected me as an actor and as a performer and as a “screen dad” in a way. So that was really interesting. I've never given that enough credence, because there was so much going on in the process of labor and delivery and bringing the baby home that, all of a sudden, I was in this atmosphere with these two amazing ladies who are in this film. It changed my whole life, and this movie was the crux of all of that. That's where it all turned for me. So I would say that’s how it affected me, both personally and professionally.

But the other thing that I took away from working on this film is this group of people that I made this film with. I would be over the moon if we could just make a film together every year for the rest of our lives. Every single person on that set I would go into the woods with again and make another film. We were able to create a team on this film that was cohesive, and our hope is that this film does well enough that we are able to turn around and do this again with each other.