Tyler Posey and Summer Spiro – Alone

By starrymag | October 14, 2020

By: Maggie Stankiewicz

 

 

Q) Alone began production prior to COVID-19, but its release is among the timeliest and most topical films hitting VOD. What was it like filming this movie, only to experience a real-life pandemic shortly after?

 

Tyler Posey: So weird. Summer [Spiro] pointed that out first. She texted me and our director Johnny [Martin] and was like, “Can you believe that we’re living what our characters just went through?” It really started bringing it home for me. There’s no way to plan this kind of thing. I still can’t wrap my head around how we filmed this and a couple months afterward, it actually began to happen. It runs very parallel with the world – the stuff our characters go through is very good symbolism for what the world is going through right now. You know, breaking yourself down, being alone and then rebuilding.

 

Summer Spiro: Totally.

 

Q) This film is said to be a remake of the acclaimed Korean film, #Alive. Did you watch that movie as inspiration for your performances, or did you prefer to go into your roles with as little knowledge of the source material as possible?

 

Tyler Posey: That’s the first I’ve heard of that. I didn’t know it was a remake of #Alive, but I’m going to watch it right now. I’m cutting this interview off. That’s so cool. I had no idea, so I didn’t watch it.

 

Summer Spiro: I think it’s the same writer. It’s like the Korean version of the script. I just found out yesterday.

 

Tyler Posey: Is that in my notes?

 

Summer Spiro: It’s definitely not.

 

Tyler Posey: That’s awesome. Thank you. I’m going to watch it.

 

Q) This movie explores humanity’s capacity for darkness in times of crisis under the pretense of a zombie-like apocalypse. Forgiveness, desperation and isolation all come to mind. Were there any themes or emotions that you found difficult to evoke during filming?

 

Tyler Posey: Jeez. Kind of. That’s what acting is all about, pulling from real life scenarios. I lost a parent six years ago and that was hard as hell. Aiden loses both of his, so I was able to pull from my own experiences. I’ve been acting since I was six years old and having “fame” or whatever – I isolated myself and became quite reclusive. I related to the darkness of this movie. Pulling from my own experiences…it wasn’t hard. I didn’t live in those moments for too long though. I wasn’t depressed or sad in them, but it’s almost therapeutic to go through that stuff and retell it from different eyes. It was cool.

 

Summer Spiro: Yeah. I’m one of those people that actually loves to be alone, but I’m never alone. I do love alone time, but I’m always around my sister. I live with my sister and I’m always around my family. I love them and I’m around them constantly and I think sometimes I crave alone time – but when it’s not a choice and you have to be alone for your survival, I think it’s devastating. You might love your alone time and cherish it, but you just need a second of it. You just need an hour, but when its forever and you don’t have a choice or you can’t see your family, it is absolutely devastating. That’s more where of where my character was coming from. She was just doing anything she could to keep her sanity, and I think she was really good at it. I think she would definitely be better than me at it. I do not behave like that. She kept a routine, she kept drawing, she kept her sanity because being alone wasn’t a choice anymore.

 

Q) What was it about the script and premise of Alivethat originally drew you to the roles?

 

Summer Spiro: Working with Tyler! There was also so much play. So much innocence and sweetness woven through it. It wasn’t all action, zombie, killing, blood. There was a little bit of that, but it was mostly about human experience and human connection, especially with Tyler’s character. It was all about his survival. You don’t want to watch a stable person. You want to watch someone who is losing their balance and he just did such a good job of it.

 

Tyler Posey: Aw, thank you. I appreciate that. The character Aiden…I related a lot to him. There are similarities between us, but he is somebody who never liked to be alone and who couldn’t handle things on his own. I went the opposite route and wanted to be alone and handle things on my own. I really dug that dichotomy between the two of us and wanted to play the other side of things. This is just a different kind of zombie movie, you know. The fact that Aiden is quarantined and doesn’t go out for solace or safe haven, losing his mind and going through this emotional battle of thinking about suicide, losing his family and then finding somebody new that he can put away his selfish feelings and find something bigger than himself to live for. He was also just a badass. He was killing these zombies, but he was also clumsy because he’d never done this before. There were also a lot of jokes that we sprinkled throughout and I think it just covers a wide range of things that I think we did a really good job at.

 

Q) I loved when he stuck the landing in one scene and called himself a ninja. It was a good tension breaker.

 

Tyler Posey: Exactly. That line was written as he tells himself, “Okay, you are a ninja.” Then, he does it and sticks the landing and he goes, “YOU ARE A NINJA.” That part was improv. That’s another thing about this movie that I love. Johnny just lets you go with it. Summer and I’s first conversation on the walkie-talkie was improv.

 

Summer Spiro: Oh yeah! We just went off.

 

Q) How much of yourselves did you bring to the characters of Aidan and Eva? 

 

Summer Spiro: Quite a bit. I think I just naturally do that. I bring the character to me instead of going out to meet them, especially for this. She’s kind of my age. She’s living in Los Angeles. I already felt connected to her, so I just thought how I’d react with some differences. I just thought about how I’d react, how I would feel, what would I miss most, what would I want to do, what would I fantasize about? I found myself wishing that she had a dog or a cat. I had my cat during quarantine and I keep thinking about poor little Eva with no furry friend to cuddle. It’s those little things you think about that really get a person through hard times. I thought about the first thing Eva would do when it was all over; getting an animal. I brought a lot of that to her for sure.

 

Tyler Posey: I did that too! It helped that my character is covered in tattoos like I am. So, I felt that painted a picture of Aiden. We don’t get to see too much of his backstory, but we kind of get to see who he is just by how he looks. I brought a lot of myself to Aiden, for sure. I think that I may be a little bit stronger than him – but I really don’t know! We might be the exact same person. I think he tries to find the light at the end of the tunnel in a lot of things just by keeping himself entertained and making himself laugh and finding weird elements of life that bring a light side to things and I do that a lot. He goes through this growth of realizing that life is bigger than him and that is something I feel genuinely in myself. When he goes through that growth, I felt like I was using a lot of my own experiences. It was cool. He’s a cool character.

 

Q) What are Aidan and Eva’s biggest motivations for survival in the midst of such dismal circumstances?

 

Tyler Posey: Man. I think for Aiden, he got hopeless toward the end and lost whatever little glimmer he had that was keeping him alive. Mostly, it was his family. Even though they weren’t around anymore, it was his family’s dying wish that he kept going. He wrote little post-it notes all over the apartment and he put them with the picture of his family. It just said “Stay Alive.” For Aiden, it was to redeem his family until he was just a lost cause and then he saw Eva. Then he said, “Maybe I can live for her! Maybe she needs help or something. I can now be something to somebody.”

 

Summer Spiro: Totally. For Eva, it was just like, “If I don’t survive, I don’t know who else will.” You’re just looking at your window and everyone is gone. There’s no news. There’s no internet. Life is just gone. I think at that point you just go, “I have got to survive this. I have to make it through this. If it’s not me, then we might not ever come back.  We will never know what happened.” I think that’s just extreme perseverance.

 

Q) The Screamers in Alone are a far cry from the slow-moving Romero zombies that inspired the genre. What scares you more: the slow, inevitable tidal wave of undead or the fast, almost sentient creatures portrayed in movies like #Alive and 28 Days Later?

 

Tyler Posey: Definitely the fast ones.

 

Summer Spiro: Yeah, definitely the fast ones. Those are so scary.

 

Tyler Posey: They’re so frightening. I think the first time I saw it was in Dawn of the Dead. I had grown up to the slow-moving ones. I saw those and it ruined my life. It completely affected me. Zombies aren’t just these moaning things anymore. They’re these rabid, frightening, no-stopping creatures. It’s so scary.

 

Summer Spiro: You don’t really stand a chance. When they become superhuman with their bodies and they don’t die, you just don’t stand a chance against that. That is scary.

 

Tyler Posey: They don’t hit that wall like runners do. They just keep going.

 

Q) Johnny Martin has been in the industry for a long time, working as an actor/stuntman in addition to director. How was it working on such a physically taxing film with a director whose background in stunt work is so extensive? Did he bring any of that expertise to his direction?

 

Summer Spiro: Oh yeah. You go, Tyler.

 

Tyler Posey: Johnny Martin. First of all, he is my homie and I love him. We really collaborated on this thing. He really brought me in under his wing and this project became a huge passion project for the both of us. We had the greatest time envisioning it and capturing it and coming up with new sequences and the things that really made this movie what it is. Part of that was the stunt work. I was super stoked to be a part of this project because I knew I would be doing the craziest stunts of my life and I trusted Johnny wholeheartedly. Then, he got this stunt crew that I had worked with on “Teen Wolf” for years. There was such trust there. So, I was just ready to do anything. You could have thrown me off a building and I would have been fine. And that’s what we did. Johnny knew how to capture those moments so well and made me feel so safe and comfortable before I did it. He’d always say, “Dude. Buddy. If you don’t want to do this, it’s okay, man.” But I’d do it and then he’d say, “Thank God you did it. I couldn’t do it without you.”

 

Summer Spiro: That is so him.

 

Tyler Posey: He’s the greatest. I love him.

 

Summer Spiro: Same. He made me feel so safe. I put the harness thing on to go over the balcony and I was so distracted by what we were doing, that I wasn’t thinking about the stunt at all. I just went over the balcony and did it. If it was anyone else, I might have been more scared. But because it was him, I knew he was thinking about it. I know he’s taking all the precautions. You just have to go for it. He’s such a papa bear. He’s so sweet and warm and kind. He just made everyone feel so safe.

 

Tyler Posey: I love him. He loves his Twinkies, too.

 

Summer Spiro: Yes! He would like smell Twinkies if he was in a bad mood and it would make him happy.

 

Tyler Posey: We did an ode to Twinkies in the movie. I find them and I go, “Fucking Twinkies!”

 

Summer Spiro: You find them in the apartment!