"A Killer Performance..."

Max Thieriot made his initial splash as a teen actor in films like Catch That Kid, The Pacifier, The Astronaut Farmer, Jumper, Chloe, and My Soul To Take. Now at the age of 23, he hopes to gain his biggest audience yet in the horror film House At The End Of The Street.

Thieriot plays Ryan Jacobson, a neighbor with a dark and grisly past in his family, who is the object of affection for Elissa, played by Jennifer Lawrence. He shared how he researched the mysterious traits that would become this character.

“Honestly, I watched a lot of videos of a lot of people who have done some really terrible things in their lives, a lot of YouTube videos, famous so-to-speak psychopaths,” Max says, “I read a lot of interviews, a lot of information, they had actually a lot of similarities, and try to bring on those. I think one of the important thing about playing someone who kind of feels no regret almost for some of the things they do…it sounds like a weird thing. In an interview, Charles Manson, they once asked him, ‘Do you feel anything like remorse?’ And he said, ‘Remorse for what? You people have done everything in the world to me. Does that give me equal right?’ And then they came back and they asked him if he was guilty. And then he said, ‘Guilty? I wouldn’t do anything that I felt guilty about.’”

“And so, kind of just tried to figure about what that all means and wrap your head around some crazy stuff,” he adds, “But at the same time, I wanted Ryan to be kind of compassionate and affectionate and somebody who everybody cares about and [Jennifer Lawrence’s character] Elissa would be willing to approach and be in the form of this relationship. So definitely [director] Mark [Toderai] helped me a lot. We talked about it a lot, went into all sorts of character development, research, and really

"A Killer Performance..."

sort of putting together what made Ryan tick. And it was my job to try and make sure it all came across as that.”

Max was asked if he was able to tackle such a complex character by the movie being filmed in chronological order.

“No, we didn’t have a huge budget,” Thieriot reveals, “We had a kitchen, and we had to film every scene in the kitchen. All the house stuff basically, there’s both sides of the story that happens in the house and we had to film all of those at the same time. And so, as an actor, you just have to remember, ‘OK, going into this now. Take a deep breath.’ It’s a problem, but at the end of it, you just want to go to the casino every night and go gamble and forget about everything.”

Thieriot talked about how it felt playing a character with such a dark family past.

“Yeah, I’m like, ‘Ugh, I’m fucked up right now,’” Max admits, “Definitely, you feel good about it. It’s rewarding and it takes a lot of time to just be alone, lots of locking yourself up and solitary confinement in my room, so to speak, and not watching TV, just sitting there and keep reading everything, and kind of thinking about everything and watching interviews and back to watching psychos and watching interviews and not talking to people, especially for those scenes. The other stuff, I can get back to my normal deal here.”

Max talks about the most challenging scene he did in House At The End Of The Street.

“The most challenging scene was probably, I would say the scene, and it’s not as long in the film now as it was when we filmed it, I believe, and my favorite take actually was when they pull the focus, and so, I don’t think they used the take that I liked, but it was the scene in the basement bedroom downstairs where Elissa is

"A Killer Performance..."

in the chair and Ryan has to figure out what he is going to do, now that he has Elissa,” Thieriot answers, “And now he has to figure out what to do now because it’s too much for him. He’s got to figure out the solution to having one. And so, that was probably the toughest scene, I think.”

Thieriot was asked what it was like working with Lawrence, who has this release hot off the heels of her biggest film to date, The Hunger Games.

“Not a lot of rehearsal time coming up with that, say we just spent a lot of time,” he says, “I didn’t know anybody in Ottawa and neither did she and we became like a tight-knit family while we were up there and we had just spent so much time together that it helps, that it makes everything come off as being so much more real.”

“As soon as the camera was off, everything would be normal and would act totally normal,” Max continues, “It was fine. And then, rolling alright and then, boom, it was just back to that, so that was kind of funny. Because she was flipping out and being friends and not.”

Max was asked if he gave Lawrence any advice on how to scream, considering the powerful set of lungs he displayed in The Pacifier.

“No, I steered clear of that,” he answers, “I’m terribly afraid of singing in films and stuff. I don’t know why I think at times I can be a country music singer and then, I’m like, wait a second, I hate singing in front of people. I could never be a country singer. I didn’t have a lot of advice.”

“I was like, ‘Good luck. I’m glad this is you and not me right now. I did this once and I’ve been avoiding it ever since,’” Thieriot says, “But no, she has a better voice than I do. She got right through it. It’s different

"A Killer Performance..."

when you’re not used to sing it. I get it. It’s still performing and I can change the way my voice sounds, but I don’t want to belt it out for everyone else to hear. I don’t know.”

Thieriot was asked if people are going to be able to be scared of his performance considering the age of instant gratification and spoilers the Internet can provide.

“I think inevitably some people are going to find out because if somebody goes to see the movie on Friday, it will be everywhere online,” Max says, “It happens if you are curious, but I think there’s always going to be the type of people who want to know what they are getting into and those who want to be surprised by what they are going to see. And so, personally, when I watch a film like this, I don’t want to know what’s going to happen.”

“Because I want to experience that all as it’s happening, but it’s definitely hard because there’s only so much I can say and so much I can give away and trying to answer questions where I don’t sound like I’m giving away things and it’s difficult,” he continues, “In Disconnect, where I like I play an Internet webcam stripper where I can tell you that straight up, like I’m that and naked half the movie. Well, there you go. That’s what’s going to happen. If you want to see me pretty much naked most of the movie, go see Disconnect. It’s difficult when you have something like this and you kind of have to hide the secrets and the things you don’t want to reveal too much.”

Max talks about his first reaction to the script.

“Honestly, when I read the script for the first time, I was so shocked by the ending that I never saw it coming when I read it,” Thieriot says, “I legitimately never saw it coming. And I’ve read enough scripts where

"A Killer Performance..."

I feel like most of the time, I can kind of see, especially in the thriller/horror genre, maybe in like romantic comedies and romantic type films, where it’s like, ‘OK, that happened and this and alright.’ It becomes a total formula and you see exactly what’s happening. And this script for me, after I read it, I was legitimately surprised and impressed by everything that happened. When I read it, I was just blown back and I had to walk out my bedroom and I had a bunch of friends over.”

“I walked into my living room and I was like, alright, I got to tell you what just happened with this script, let me explain because it’s weirding me out here,” he adds, “Like, you’re not going to believe it, it’s crazy. And so, pretty much, that originally and then, I met with Mark and I got a sense of how passionate and devoted he is to what he does, not that other directors that I’ve worked with aren’t passionate and devoted to what they do, but there’s something special about Mark, he’s a different kind of guy, and I had a lot of faith and a lot of confidence in him instantly and I thought, this guy can pull this off.”

Thieriot was asked if he was able to put a character like Ryan behind him after filming.

“I watched a lot of interviews,” he remembers, “Ted Bundy was one of them, just to kind of see how they reacted to all these scenarios. I think I had like a pretty big break, the fall. I think I went on a backpack trip on the mountains with a couple of buddies, so that was good and that kind of got me away from everything for a while.”

“Just in the outdoors to just forget about it and eat freeze-dried mountain house foods for a couple of days,” Max adds, “Let me kind of breathe and get away

"A Killer Performance..."

from it all, backpacked into the wilderness. Then, after that, it was all of a sudden, you’re thinking about the next thing basically. What’s next? Well, let me know. What’s the next thing from here.”

Max was also asked about the next movie he has coming up.

“Foreverland came out in Canada,” Thieriot reveals, “It came out in a limited Canadian release and it’s in all sorts of film festivals, like it was just in Ireland and stuff. And so, I don’t know when it’s coming out in the States and I suspect it will be fairly limited, but that being said, I’m sure it will be in L.A. and New York and those types of cities. But filming in Mexico was awesome. I filmed there once before. I filmed Jumper there for a couple of weeks once before in Ensenada, but this time, it was cool, because I got to experience a lot more of filming in Mexico as Mexico.”

“We filmed in La Paz down in Baja and we were down in the desert,” he adds, “It was awesome. In the film, you get to see a lot of that. Celiana [Cárdenas], who is the director of photography, captured this beauty and this amazing light that Mexico has and the desert has, so it definitely was a good experience. Everybody worked really hard and we got a lot of work down there and a lot of good scenes.”

Thieriot was asked whether or not he believes House At The End Of The Street will be the film that will put him on the road to stardom.

“I think that’s why I’m going back to the basement motel probably,” Max claims, “I think this is a role I’m very proud of. I’m proud of the movie as a whole, but I also think that, even though it’s not coming out right now, I think that Disconnect will define me more, my character in that, but it’s very different, but

"A Killer Performance..."

I think this will be hopefully one of the films that does.”