Opening today is Unaccompanied Minors, the new film from Paul Feig. If his name sounds familiar itâs because he was the one who created one of the best television shows of the last decade, Freaks and Geeks. Before we go any further, if youâve never seen Freaks, I strongly recommend buying the amazing box set and spending a day with it. Once you see how good it was and watch how many amazing actors got their big break on it, youâll understand why it has such a following.
But even if youâve not seen the short lived series, all you need to know about Paul is that he has this amazing ability to make you feel for the characters on-screen. And rather than focusing on the popular ones, he always is looking for the outsiders or people on the fringe.
And thatâs the cast of Unaccompanied Minors.
A bunch of random kids get thrown together on Christmas Eve due to a massive blizzard hitting the airport they're all traveling through, and it forces all the flights to get cancelled. While itâs not exactly a remake of The Breakfast Club, it has some similarities. But while Breakfast Club was more senior year of High School, Minors is more 7th Grade, thus the humor and situations are more kid friendly.
And while I didnât get into the film as much as the kids around me in the theater, itâs really hard to judge as Iâm clearly not the demographic the film is aiming to get. But I can say is if you have some younger cousins or family members, itâs perfectly safe and you wonât be bored while watching. Also for all you adults, there are a number of cameos from people youâll definitely recognize.
Now back to the interview at hand.
A few weeks ago they held the junket for this film and paired up a number of the kids. One of the groupings was Tyler James Williams and Quinn Shephard and their interview can be listened to here or read below. And while I didnât transcribe the Gina Mantegna and Dyllan Christopher interview, you can listen to the audio of it here.
Also, Iâm almost done transcribing the Paul Feig piece and that will go up tomorrow.
And just in case I donât get to them, here is the audio of Wilmer Valderrama and here is the audio of Lauren Shuler Donner and Michael Aguilar. Tomorrow Iâll post selected answers but probably not entire transcripts.
Q: Have either of you ever traveled unaccompanied?
Quinn (pictured on right): Um, no.
Youâve never had an experience quite like the airport?
Quinn: No.
This movie talks about forming a family with people who are strangers, did that happen for you on the set while filming?
Quinn: Um, yeah.
Tyler: Yeah, Iâd have to say that weâd never met each other before, came from different parts of the country, New Jersey â
Quinn: New Jersey, California, Canada, we were all over the place.
Tyler: We were all separated, and we came together, we were all here for one thing, to make this a good movie and just to have fun with it and I think we were able to accomplish that.
Is it Tyler or Tyler James?
Was the dancing your choreography?
Are you a dancer normally? Is that something that you enjoy doing?
Quinn, you seem so sweet, your character was tougher than the others, what did you fall back on to do it?
Quinn: Iâm really nothing like my character, and I think when I was playing the character I was sort of just thinking exactly about where she grew up and what she was like, and I was trying to put that in because itâs really hard for me to act that way, because Iâm totally different than that in real life, and so it was really hard to get the nerve to act that way, but hopefully I got it.
How was driving that cart?
Quinn: Oh that was very fun.
Did they show you physically how to do it?
Quinn: The stunt coordinator gave me driving lessons around the â wherever we were, because we were never in an airport except for one scene.
So it was all in other locations?
Quinn: Yeah, in other locations theyâd have me drive around special areas, so I could get used to it.
Have there been any birthdays? How old are you both now?
Quinn: Iâm eleven, Iâm turning twelve on February 28th.
You guys really did that sliding down the hill in the snow â that wasnât green screen?
Quinn: We did some of it.
Was it cold, was it fun?
Quinn: It was so cold, it was six degrees one night.
Quinn: And it was so wet, I remember I was freezing, and I had so many layers of clothing I was so freezing.
Tyler: A lot of it we did, there were only certain things that we just couldnât do, like going off the snow drift that we just couldnât do, there were certain takes where the canoe just flipped over, and so we just kind of played what was actually happening. It was moving fast, we were scared, it was cold, there was acting involved but there wasnât much of it.
Quinn: Yeah, we were scared and we were screaming because it was just crazy.
What about sliding down the airport luggage thing â did you both do that?
Quinn: Yeah, I did some of it my stunt double did some of it too.
Tyler: I didnât do most of it, it was just the plain suitcase with nothing in it when everything was going down, we mixed in everything else in ADR, but we shot most of the suitcase scenes away from the whole enclosure, the suitcase was like spliced in four different areas, they stuck me in it, tied me in, just turned it with a wheel, and I just read lines.
Your characters torment Lewis Black, did that happen during the filming as well?
Quinn: No, we were too scared of him (laughs), well, I was.
Did you interact with him at all between scenes?
Tyler: Yeah we had to because in order to get a chemistry with the character, and to become more of your character, we had to interact with him, make sure that we were pushing it in the right way, that it wasnât too evil, we didnât want to be evil children. We just wanted to have some fun.
Quinn, were you saying that he was terrifying off-screen too?
Quinn: Well when I first met him I had no idea who he was or what character he was playing, because he was there on set but I didnât know who he was, and I remember just thinking that he seemed a little bit scary, just the whole way he talked and everything is like a little bit intimidating.
Quinn, youâre very young, is Tyler the first boy youâve ever kissed?
Quinn: Yes (giggles)
Was it nerve-wracking that day?
Quinn: Yeah. I donât really remember.
Tyler: I think it was one of those scenes, it was at the end of our shoot, we were almost done, we had like two more weeks to go, and we had progressed as the characters, we were at this time, most of the time, no longer really Tyler or Quinn.
Quinn: Yeah.
Quinn: Yeah, we were totally into our characters at that point, so we werenât really concentrating on what we were doing so much as being our characters the most.
How long did you guys shoot in
Quinn: Two and a half months.
Tyler: Yeah, two and a half months.
When you guys were not shooting what did you do to have fun in
Quinn: We went to arcades and stuff and the mall.
Quinn:
Tyler: I think we had a lot of fun on the set just creating what we could do there, like playing â I think one of the greatest things a kid can do is play tag on a set. There are so many lights and things that you can just bump into, that you have to dodge a round them, and itâs really fun.
Quinn: And they gave us scooters.
Tyler: Yeah, we didnât have to do anything outside of work to make it fun, it was like a big playground, and by the time we got home we were exhausted, not only were we shooting but we were playing most of the time.
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Did Wilmer hang out with you at all, because he was with you in a lot of scenes?
Quinn: Totally.
Tyler: Yeah, we hung out a lot, whenever it was a Saturday or whenever we were just off work, weâd all head to the â
Quinn: Oh, the Skybox.
Tyler: The Skybox, it was a place in the mall â
Quinn: Thereâs a giant TV screen, we used to watch when we were on TV.
Tyler: Yeah, it was a sportâs bar with an arcade in it, a great arcade, really big, we could go eat and then just hang out we had a good time.
Did you guys see the movie last night?
Tyler & Quinn: Yeah.
What did you think of it?
Quinn: I think it turned out great.
Quinn: It was very rewarding to see all of our work put together after only seeing bits of it in the trailer and when we were doing ADR, so I think when we saw it all together we were all just like, wow, it turned out really good. I had been a little bit worried that it would look just too crazy, but I think it really did turn out great, and didnât really come to -
How are you guys going to celebrate the holidays this year, do you have any travel plans?
Tyler: Iâm going to head home for about three weeks, go back to New York, go back to the cold, the snow, get a little bit more of that, hang out with my family, and then come back to L.A. just to have a good time and probably work, Iâll do some other things, but right now Iâm not focused on a career. Iâm doing this because I love it. This isnât just for â you know, okay, Iâm doing this, Iâm doing that, okay, we have to make sure Iâm working here, itâs just because I love it, Iâm just going with the flow of it.
Quinn: I live in New Jersey, so Iâm going to stay in New Jersey, because Iâm taking my vacation in California now, and pretty much go to visit my whole family and eat dinner.
What gifts would you like to get for the holidays?
Quinn: A lot of stuff. Iâd like mostly stuff for design, because I like to design clothing.
Tyler: You know, Iâm at a point now where I can truthfully say I donât really want anything, thereâs nothing that I really want, everything that Iâve ever really wanted has happened. And Iâm content, Iâm full, I just want to go back home and hang out with my family, watch them get stuff and be happy.
So youâre cool with all socks and underwear?
Tyler: Oh yeah, socks, underwear, bring it on.
What gift will you be excited to be giving this year?
Tyler: I havenât really started buying gifts yet, but I know there are certain things that everybody has wanted, like an iPod or a videogame, and I just love the fact of seeing them open it, and seeing it there, the one thing that theyâve been wanting all year, itâs right there. I think thatâs one of the best feelings you can have.
Quinn: Because then theyâre so happy and theyâre like, âOh, thank you,â and you feel so good because itâs like you gave them what they wanted and theyâre so happy.
What projects do you have lined up for next year?
Quinn: Same here.
Any problem coordinating the TV show with this film?
Quinn: In
Do you guys have school on the set?
Quinn: Yeah.
How did that work out, youâre all in different grades, right?
Quinn: The tutor gave us our work, and if we had trouble sheâd help us on it, but we were really only working on the stuff that our school gave us â well, I was, because I go to a public school.
Tyler: There was no problem with it, I think whenever you have kids together in a room doing school, youâre going to create your own little school without walls, itâs going to be classes, math, but I think the one thing about it is, everybodyâs doing something different and you have one-on-one with that teacher of what youâre really doing, itâs not she has to move on quickly to the next thing. Or just to have a schedule, thereâs no real schedule when youâre working on a movie with school, if you need some extra time on one thing youâve got it.
What grades are you both in right now?
Quinn: Iâm in sixth.
Has it gotten easier to play the young Chris Rock?
In the core group of actors, who was the jokester?
Quinn: I think everyone, Iâm sorry, but everyone was always joking.
Tyler: We werenât serious, we werenât very professional actors â you canât expect that from five kids together shooting this crazy movie, doing all these things. We were just having fun, messing up lines sometimes.
Quinn: So many times.
Tyler: Yeah, a lot of times, just having fun. It was free-flowing because it wasnât a certain amount of time, like a series we have a week to get it done and it needs to be done now, we had two and a half months to shoot what, some 125 scenes, it wasnât that hard.
Quinn: Itâs not that many.
Tyler I know, itâs not that bad for two and a half months.
Did you all read for the roles that youâre playing in the movie?
Quinn: I read for my role originally.
Tyler: You know at first when I read the script there was a mix up of the names, so they told me I was reading for Spencer. But I was like, wait a minute, I kind of like the Charlie character, but they were like, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, Iâm so sorry, Iâm so sorry, youâre supposed to be Charlie. I think there was something about him that just â heâs just glowing, heâs a warm person, heâs very optimistic, he can look at a disaster and say, âWell, at least Iâm not dead.â
When you first get out of the room you all do what you really want to do â if you could just get away and do whatever you wanted to do, what would that be?
Quinn: Well, itâs a question, would I get in trouble?
Itâs a fantasy, no.
Quinn: Iâd go on a vacation with all my friends and spend a bunch of money, my parentâs money.
Where would you go?
Quinn:
Tyler: If I was unaccompanied youâd all better watch out (everyone laughs) I would probably do the same thing, just hang out, just do stuff that Iâve always wanted to do, be sick half the time, hurt myself a couple of times doing some stupid stuff, but Iâd hang out. A lot of the stuff that we did in the movie I would probably do, Iâd eat everything possible, everything I couldnât really eat, take a golf cart and just drive recklessly, try out everything in the store.
Coming from
Quinn: Well, my mom had done some TV and commercials before I was born, and so when I was born she knew I had a really big interest in acting because I was always acting in plays with my dolls, and they were sort of boring, because Iâve seen them on tape, they always involved a lot of singing and dragging them around by their hair. But she saw that and I guess she really wanted to get me started in acting, because she knew that I had the interest that she had, only she wanted to get me started young. So she took me to some agents and I got accepted when I was really young, I was only three, and thatâs where I started.
Tyler: The question ties into the movie actually, I just came out to
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