King learns to smoke fake pot for role
At just 16, Joey King is already a showbiz veteran.
She’s starred in the film Ramona and Beezus and had parts in countless major projects, from Fargo to Oz the Great and Powerful and the upcoming Independence Day: Resurgence.
But until recently, she hadn’t had a chance to play a more mature role. So she ventured up to Manitoba for the Canadian indie dramedy Borealis, from director Sean Garrity. There was just one problem. “I got on set and I knew that my character had to smoke marijuana and I had never inhaled anything,” says King, whose visually impaired, pot-loving character goes on a road trip with her debt-ridden dad.
“So I went to (writer/star Jonas Chernick) and I was like, ‘Listen, I’ve never inhaled anything. Do you want to teach me how to smoke this fake pot?’ He was like, ‘Absolutely.’”
The fake pot “smelled like lavender but tasted disgusting,” King said.
King’s character suffers from a condition that will soon leave her completely blind. Her father, a compulsive gambler played by Chernick, decides to take her to see the Northern Lights in Churchill, Man., before she loses her vision.
King, who won a best actress award for her role at the Vancouver International Film Festival, wouldn’t reveal much about her character in Independence Day: Resurgence, due out in June.
“I cannot wait for that to come out,” she says. “It’s going to be an absolutely insane movie and it’s going to be bigger than anyone could ever expect.”
Borealis opens across Canada this spring.