Interview with Sting writer/director Kiah Roache-Turner and star Alyla Browne
Sting opens April 12 in theaters nationwide
(This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.)
Kiah
Hey, Alise.
Alise
Hi, Kiah and Alyla. Is that correct?
Alyla
Good job.
Alise
Excellent. Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. The first thing I wanted to ask, Kiah, I love the names in the movie with, especially with Charlotte and Sting having all of these like spider from literature kind of things. Are there any other literary elements that are involved in the script that maybe I missed here?
Kiah
I think you got both of them. I mean, Charlotte is obviously a reference to Charlotte's Web and Sting is obviously a reference to JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit. I basically pick names about like I just the way they sound generally like I just, I love the name Charlotte. I think it's really beautiful. You know, Helga and Gunther to me, are just like classic. They're just these beautiful German hard-sounding names.
But also, you know, I just, yeah, I kind of wanted fairy tale archetypes for those ones. So I wanted them to feel like they were from Germany from Europe from a fairy tale place, you know. And yeah, I mean a lot of the other characters. Yeah. I mean, I basically just pick names if they sound cool or not, you know. But every now and again, there's a literary reference and you got both of them. So it's good that you got it. Yeah. Yeah.
Alyla
I've realized that Sting was named from The Hobbit. Right. But then it was named after how the, like the troll’s lair. Like, something about a troll's lair. Just because that's what Charlotte thinks that Gunther's little storage room is.
Kiah
No, that's right. It's like a fairy tale reference. Yeah. And you know, she's going into the lair of the troll to steal the treasures and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah. All of my stuff is like very much. I like to make horror fairy tales. So everything is archetypal in terms of fairy tales. Yeah. That's a good point. Alyla, I like that. Yeah.
Alise
Yeah, I like that too. So Alyla, is this the first horror film that you've done?
Alyla
I have been in Children of the Corn.
Alise
Oh OK. Right. Right.
Kiah
She's pointing it at her. So I love that. That's me.
Alyla
That was absolutely. And apart from that, it's my first lead role in a horror film, which it was really cool.
Alise
Is that something that you'd be interested in again?
Alise, Alyla
Like continuing to work in horror or are there other things that you have, like more interest in or I feel like every role, even if it's horror or not, I don't know how I can explain this, but I feel like every role is just a character and their journey.
Alyla
And I don't really look at shows based on their genre because I feel like everyone's the same as in, they're both, they're all just characters and them going through a journey and the kind of category they're put under isn't necessarily change how they feel to film. It just maybe the character faces something more scary, but I feel like it's always the same kind of base when you're filming a movie.
Alyla, Kiah
So I kind of like all genres, but I think it's more about the character and the script, and I think that's really, that's, but I love post-apocalyptic films, and I'm gonna make a, you've kind of done a bit of everything Alyla like you've done so much drama and horror, you've done like a $200 million sprawling action post-apocalyptic movie. You've kind of done it all, though, and you're only 14. It's crazy.
Alise
Excellent. One of the things Kiah that really kind of was interesting to me is that so often in these kinds of movies, especially if you have like an adult and a child, it's usually like a birth parent or something, and they have this disaffected kind of relationship and everything.
Alise, Kiah
I thought it was really interesting, disaffected relationship.
Alise
Exactly.
Kiah
Always you never start a film where, like, everything's fine. We love each other at the end.
Alise
But I love that. It went with the step-family here. I thought that was a really interesting kind of like, twist on that.
Alise, Kiah
Can you talk some about, like, making those decisions to go with the step-family thing instead of just like, well, I'm a, I'm a step-parent.
Kiah
And so, my daughter, I very much based Charlotte on my daughter. And so the relationship between Charlotte and Ethan in the film is very much based on my own daughter's relationship. We get on really well, though. Like, I had to add a bunch of drama and like, you know, stuff because we've always gotten on it ever since she was like two years old when I first came into her life, you know, but she's, you know, she's her own person.
Like, she's a writer. Like when I'm writing screenplays, I go and I ask her, like, for advice, I'm like, this is the story. She's like, ok, you got this right. And this right. But you need to change this. Like she's that sophisticated. So, like, when you see that Ethan is actually weirdly, he's a great, he's a great artist, but she's a better writer than him.
Like, that's kind of how I feel about my daughter. And, you know, there's a strength to that and I wanted to talk to that strength through the character of Charlotte. And that's why I was so happy when we found Alyla because, I found somebody who had like an originality and a strength and, you know, Alyla is very much her own person.
And, you know, it was important to me that I get that across in the film because it's my daughter and I didn't want to stuff that up, you know. And my daughter still hasn't seen it yet. I hope she sees the film and goes, ok, you got it right. But I'm sure it's fine because I cast Alyla. I think I'm ok, you know. But yeah, it was very personal to me, and the family in the film is my family. I am very much like Ethan, I'm an artist, and I struggle because I'm an artist.
That's the artist's life. You know, my wife had just had a baby at the time and so we were struggling with that. It was in the middle of COVID. So we were stuck indoors. That's when I wrote it. So weirdly, even though this is a film about a giant alien spider that eats people, it's unusually the most personal thing that I've ever written. So if people relate to the characters and the narrative, that's probably why, you know.
Alise
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Alyla, so how was it working with this giant spider? Because I know it wasn't just like all CGI, you have an actual physical beast there with you. What was, talk some about that? Because that is interesting, especially now when so much is CGI, it's really interesting that this was a practical movie primarily.
Alyla
Yeah, it's, it was definitely very, very good that we did have a spider there because it, it makes the actors be able to react to something. And I think that that's really what acting is all about, it's reacting. And I was just so like immersed in the scene when a real massive spider is in front of you. And like, it's funny because the actors always are the ones that live this the story the most.
I like everyone in the world would watch that. I'd be like, oh my God, that's terrifying. But like the actors actually lived that world between action and cut. And I'm personally not scared of spiders, but it's definitely, I don't know how I would have done it if there was just a stick and like a tennis ball. And they were like, I would be scared of the spider.
I'm like, I'm not scared of spiders, but knowing the scale, like the sheer scale of it, and it's not just the size of a tennis ball, it's massive. That kind of enables you to know how to do a lot of imagining in a scene and be able to actually be there and actually react.
Kiah
It's nice to give them something to react to, you know because I'm not scared of gerbils. It's just not something I'm scared of. But if there was a giant gerbil, like with huge fangs coming at me, I would act scared for sure. You know. So like, it was one of the things I wanted to do for the actors was to have like this thing that could actually come at them. And so when something clawing at Alyla in the film, there's an actual giant spider, the size of a panther clawing at her.
So all of her reactions are very specific to the legs, and to the jaws of the thing as it opens and spits in her face, the venom and all that, like it's all real, you know, and I like that kind of reaction, you know, from a performer.
Alise
Yeah, for sure, for sure. One of the things that was interesting to me is just in the horror genre again, like just kind of going with like tropes, there can be this tendency it, you know, to kind of like dispatch a bad guy first, like one of the villainous kind of characters. And I thought it was kind of interesting that one of the first people that really like goes down to the spider is not necessarily a villainous person. And I thought that was kind of an interesting choice that you made there. So can you talk just a little bit about like, why you made the decision with regard to that?
Kiah
Yeah, I mean, you have to keep an eye on tropes and like if somebody comes into a horror film and goes, you're an idiot, you're like, that person's gonna die, that person's gonna die in like five minutes. So like, you gotta be careful not to like… if an audience is already moving to like the, the rhythm of the rollercoaster, you failed. So you have to surprise people. So one of the things you do is you set somebody up who's likable, and then you kill them, and then the audience goes, oh my God. OK. Now we don't know what's going to happen. And so the audience, by definition, becomes a little bit more on their toes, and that's why we've got that opening scene where a guy who seems pretty nice kind of seems to die at the start so that the audience doesn't get used to the rollercoaster, you know?
Alise
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So Alyla, can you talk a little bit about just the audition and getting like, called in for this or you know how that whole situation went?
Kiah
I didn't audition. Alyla. She auditioned me. We are just in the film. But anyway, talk to that.
Alise
Yeah.
Alise, Alyla
No, that I was really excited.
Alyla, Kiah
I remember and I just had a meeting about a different film in the same week. And then I came over and we were in Redfern in Nikki Barrett's office, who's the casting director for this film. And then I just walked in, and there was heaps of strawberries on the table, and I ate some strawberries, and I don't actually really remember what we talked about, and I don't even really remember my first impression of you, Kiah.
But in the film and I know you're not a memorable guy. So many memories you've made with me past that point that there's so much, there's so mu too much to store about you in my head. Kiah. Anyway, isn't what we talked about?
Kiah
Do I remember what we talked about? Is that the question? Yeah. Yeah, 100%. I went in there desperate to get you in the film. Like, I went in like, 'cause like we knew that if we didn't cast Charlotte correctly, we wouldn't have a film. And so I went to talk to Nikki and go well, we need, you know, this is what we're and she goes just cast Alyla Browne.
Like, just don't think about it. Just cast her, don't, you know, I'm gonna bring her in next week, convince her to be in your film when you have a film. And so I went in there very kind of trying to convince her to be in the film. And like, I was like, you know, scared because I was like, oh, I think you'd just turned 13. So you were like, 12-13 years old. And I wanted to come across, like, somebody who was going to be very safety conscious and like, there might be some stunts and a little bit of blood and you just went, I do all my own stunts. Like, I just jumped off a moving motorbike in, like, Furiosa. Like I've been doing, I've been like doing crazy car stunts for the last year, and like, she's like, I love spiders. I'm not scared of anything, and I'm just like, man, please be in my films.
You know, that's yeah, I just knew from the start. It's like we gotta get, we gotta get this lady, she's so talented, you know, I was just lucky that, that Alyla liked the script, you know, of course,
Alise
I will. Absolutely. So what I guess is we're wrapping up here, what would you, what is your like main hope for audiences to take away from this? And you know, both of you can answer that. Alyla, you know, what, what do you want people to kind of like come away with, with this?
Alyla
I think it's a very metaphoric movie, and I feel like people should take away what they want to from it and kind of relate it to their own experiences, but it's really about kind of the relationship between a family and how that can so easily just get completely destroyed and decimated. So to kind of keep it close and and to show that even through like hard times that can actually strengthen families to great extent.
And I think that that's kind of also very metaphorical and it's obviously because it comes from such a real place in Kiah's life. And I think that's a really big thing that I hear people talking about and why they like the film is because of the depth of the characters and the meaning behind it. It's not just a creature film, it's, it's got lots happening, lots happening behind it.
Alise
Yeah, for sure. And Kiah?
Kiah
yeah, I agree with everything that Alyla said. I think that's a good answer. I'm gonna go with that answer too, but also, I mean, at the end of the day, I kind of just want people to go and see it and I want lots of people to go and see it and enjoy it because, you know, the more people that go and see it, the more successful it is and the more successful it is, the more likely it is that I get to make Sting Two and I really wanna make Sting Two.
I wanna do it again, you know, I wanna make this film but like, you know, up the energy you know, 50 times. And, you know, if this is Alien, then Sting Two with the Aliens, I'd get to make like just an elevated version of it. And then I really enjoy being in the world. And I'd love to dive in there again and I already got everything creatively that I wanted from this. I had a very specific idea of what I wanted to do and I was just so lucky to have collaborators and producers and the crew that could help me achieve the vision that I wanted. And it's very, it's, yeah, it's unusual for a director to get this kind of sophistication of collaboration. And I think we made a really good horror film and I'm very proud of it, and I just want people to see it, you know.
Alise
Awesome. Well, thank you both for your time. I really appreciate it and enjoy the rest of your afternoon.
Kiah
All right, take care. Thanks. Thanks so much.
Sting opens April 12 in theaters everywhere. Check your local listings for your chance to see this!