Q&A

Viva Seifert Actor, musician How intense was the shoot?

It was awkward, hard, cold and strange. Exactly what it should have been. You know, that’s my [character’s] situation, so I think that helped. For the last one, we did that in a different room. And I sit down and go, “Oh, this is a nice new room, isn’t it?” It was bigger, and it was warmer, and I could really relax getting into it – basically doing my confession.

What about the guitar scene? Did you prompt that, or was it in there from the beginning?

I don’t know that it was there from the beginning, but Sam shot me an email saying, ‘Can you play guitar?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m not really a great guitar player. I can play drums.’ And he was like, ‘Hmm. I don’t know it’s going to work so well in the police station if you get out your drums and start singing.’ I said, ‘Well, I can play a guitar, so what did you have in mind?’ And he sent me the murder ballad. He changed the words; I changed the chords. We just made it work for both of us, basically. But, once again, he didn’t even hear me play it [beforehand]. I played it twice, and he was filming both of them.

How about your acting choices? Were you guided much there?

Sam guided me at the beginning, but as soon as he said “Action!” it was up to me to just go and interpret. And we’d worked together before, so he kind of trusted me, and knows what I do. But we were very much against the clock. We did finish. After the end of the week’s filming, we both said, ‘OK, now we’re ready to film. That should have been our rehearsal.’ But I suppose that’s also something that’s quite nice, because it’s a raw and fresh performance.