I did actually have the privilege of interviewing Alastair Orr. It was going to be featured in one of our podcast episodes but there was a technical error with the recording so that it could not be used as audio content, so here is a write up of the conversation.
I first wanted to know how Alastair became involved with this film. He told me that he was tired of making supernatural films and he really wanted to do something different. “We initially really wanted to do something [with a little more action], a little bit more of a thriller, something where Man was the enemy.” They ended up going through several scripts that had been pitched to them but ultimately decided to go with the script for Triggered that was written by David D. Jones. Alastair ended up choosing this film because of the unique way that there wasn’t really a “bad guy” and that basically all the characters had a turn of playing the bad guy in one way or another.
Next I asked Alastair about how casting went. I thoroughly enjoyed the performances of Sean Cameron Michael as Peterson, Russell Crous as Kato, and Cameron Scott as PJ. I thought they fit their roles perfectly and did an excellent job of working within their character archetype. I wanted to know how involved Alastair was in that process and what that experience was like. He told me that he really wanted to take all the credit for the casting but he couldn’t. “We cast Steven Ward first, he plays Ezra. He was working as a casting agent and he was casting for some other T.V. shows and films. And he was able to give us all the tapes and auditions for those other movies. So we were able to piggyback off of that and get a lot of referrals, like from friends of friends.” He also mentioned that Russell Crous who played Kato, one of the more sinister characters, “is not really like that in real life. He is really just the sweetest guy and it was really quite terrifying to see him turn it on and off.”
Next we talked about the difficulty of playing into tropes and character archetypes that have been done so many times before. In my opinion I thought that they did a really good job of handling these in the film but I wanted to see what he had to say about it. He mentioned that a big influence of them choosing to use those archetypes was due to the limited space for character development but needing to have many characters for the kill count. Using these archetypes you get easily recognizable characters that people can relate to but then you have to do some creative reworking within the film to get more from them.
Lastly we talked about how they went about covering the topic of suicide in the film and what intentional decisions they made in that process. Within the first fifteen minutes of the film, Peterson commits suicide and it is vividly depicted on camera. This scene is quite gruesome and carried a decent amount of weight. Alastair said that when they originally planned the movie, the suicide was not a part of the film but was added later to help frame the terrible events that Peterson was about to subject the group to. Alastair didn’t want Peterson to be the antagonist of the film as it could have been distracting to the battle royale style of conflict.
If you or someone you know is reading this right now and you are struggling with suicide, depression, addiction, or self-harm - please reach out. Comment, message or tweet to us. Go to victimsandvillains.net/hope for more resources. Call the suicide lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Text "HELP" to 741-741. There is hope & you DO have so much value and worth!
Victims and Villains is written Josh "Captain Nostalgia" Burkey (and produced by) and more. Music by Mallory Johnson and others. Triggered is available in theaters, VOD & digital beginning November 6th, 2020.
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