Interview: It’s What’s Inside Cast on Playing Multiple Characters

ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to It’s What’s Inside stars Brittany O’Grady, James Morosini, Reina Hardesty, and David Thompson about the body-switching comedy. Directed by Greg Jardin, the film is now streaming on Netflix.

“A group of friends gather for a pre-wedding party that descends into an existential nightmare when an estranged friend arrives with a mysterious game that awakens long-hidden secrets, desires, and grudges,” says the synopsis.

Tyler Treese: Brittany, what’s the biggest challenge when you’re playing a character and then you’re playing other people’s characters within the character? It’s just Inception-level craziness.

Brittany O’Grady: Yeah, that’s a good way to describe it. I would say the most exciting challenge about this is just this is such a collaborative piece of art for all of us. So just making sure that, as a team player, I was always trying to be, or make sure I was on the same page as my peers and our director and just making sure that I came to work fully knowing what I needed to do and being flexible and being able to support everybody else on set as well. So that was a very exciting, fun challenge. But it was something where you kind of had to really be on top of during night shoots when you’re very sleepy.

James, all the characters have such history together. So how is it keeping track of all these relationships when the person you’re talking to might not be that person’s character? So it seems like a nightmare to just keep that all together.

James Morosini: One of the things that made this role really appealing was that it was actually like three or four different roles. You really have to prepare for several different characters in order to be ready for this movie. Each character has completely different relationships with all of the other characters. Those other characters happened to be also in different bodies at different times throughout the movie. So, it really was kind of this acting Rubik’s cube that you had to constantly kind of have vigilance around and then just trust that these performances were gonna be able to keep you on track throughout the time.

Reina, how is it as an actor to see your characters, some of those emotional payoffs be played by, you know, other characters and then you’re playing other people’s emotional moments there? It is, it is very, uh, surreal and unique.

Yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, you put it perfectly, it’s surreal and unique, and it’s kind of funny; I feel I get a little like, “Oh, this is so much fun. She’s playing Brooke.” There’s this warmth about it. Actually, I really liked it. I thought it was fun.

David, your character is kind of the master of ceremonies. You really set off this craziness. So I have to ask, would you actually play this game and swap bodies?

David Thompson: I don’t know. I’ve been really wary of a lot of the tech stuff going on these days. I don’t know if I trust it. I don’t think I’m interested in swapping bodies. I don’t think I’m interested in playing with any crazy new gadgets that, especially when the machine is first introduced, they all agree to it not knowing what is about to happen.

I remember we were talking about it. It’s like if I’ve brought like a medical grade piece of futuristic technology and I’ve given them what amounts to some sort of drug trip without their consent and agreement, that’s a really intense thing to do to someone. So, I don’t think I would agree to that. I probably actually wouldn’t subject my friends to that, either.