For best friends Becky (Grace Caroline Currey, Shazam!) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner, Runaways), life is all about conquering fears and pushing limits. But after they climb 2,000 feet to the top of a remote, abandoned radio tower, they find themselves stranded with no way down in Fall, an adrenaline-fueled thriller from filmmaker Scott Mann (The Oath).
Now, Becky and Hunter's expert climbing skills will be put to the ultimate test as they desperately fight to survive the elements, a lack of supplies, and vertigo-inducing heights.
Earlier this month, we caught up with Grace and Virginia to learn more about how they prepared for perhaps the most intense and physically demanding shoot of their respective careers. Heading into spoiler territory to break down some key sequences, they also detail their preparation, how they got into the mindsets of the two best friends, and unique experiences on set.
What you may not know is the tower Becky and Hunter scale in the movie is 2,000 feet high, but the actors were on a 100-foot high tower atop a mountain...essentially meaning they were also that high above the ground!
Explaining the impact that had on their performances, Grace and Virginia also break down what they went through while making Fall and how their real-life friendship made the gruelling experience that little bit easier.
You can listen to the full video below and, at the 14:50 mark, you'll get some exclusive updates on Shazam! Fury of the Gods and a possible Runaways return.
I had so much fun watching this movie, so I can only imagine how much fun you had making this thing.
Grace: [Laughs] Yeah, it was crazy. It was the most insane experience. I don’t even know if ‘fun’ is the right word.
Virginia: [Laughs] It was so intense and stunt-heavy. I don’t know if it was super fun while we were making it, but definitely, the movie is very fun itself.
Grace: Yeah, I was crying the whole time [Laughs]
I’ve read comments from Scott about how he shot the film, explaining that the top of this tower was placed on a mountain meaning you were essentially as high up as the characters in the film. Is this the craziest shooting experience you’ve both had?
Grace: It was so immersive. The first time we climbed up the tower, Scott led the way, and Ginny and I got to the top, I teared up. The views are so insane. You actually feel that drop in your stomach when you look down and the ground is so far away. I’m so glad I got to have that acting experience. You don’t usually get that. A lot of the time, you’re on the sound stage with green screen and fans, but we were actually out there in the sun, in the wind, sweating away.
Virginia: It really made our job as actors so much easier. We were actually in that environment, it was over 100 degrees outside, we were in the desert, it’s hot, and we felt afraid. It really made our jobs so much easier [Laughs].
It was crazy to me to see you both out in the open but still feel almost a sense of claustrophobia given how small that platform you’re on is; was there a sense of that on set as well?
Virginia: Definitely. The platform is as small as it looks in the movie. There’s a line saying it’s a pizza-sized platform, and it was. It was Grace and I one hundred feet off the ground on this tiny platform for a month almost very day. There definitely was a sense of claustrophobia. We were doing each other’s makeup touches up there because makeup couldn’t reach us. It really was just her and I in this tiny space for so long, so thank God we got along. [Laughs]
Grace, Becky is having to balance this harrowing climb with the fallout from her husband’s death. How do you go about preparing for a role that demands as much from you emotionally as it does physically?
Grace: It really does [put me through the wringer], doesn’t it? Because she is in such a state of trauma throughout most of the movie and she’s experiencing different waves of anxiety attacks and triggered fear that’s crippling, there’s just such a mental war she’s going through. I like to map out my characters, so I tried to map out her emotions, especially considering we were filming not at all in continuity. Everything was in a different order and, sometimes, Scott would come along at lunch and be like, ‘Oh, we have to film a totally different scene than planned. Surprise! Here are seven pages.’ The wind was so insane, we’d have to make adjustments. Or it was the lightning and storms. I had to be really disciplined and have mental gymnastics on top of the craziness of the stunts. Ginny and I were going to the gym every day for those stunts.
And Virginia, little do we know at first, but Hunter has her own reasons for grieving Dan. What was the biggest challenge of bringing that into your performance without giving too much away early on?
Virginia: I think it’s cool that it’s a story of two people grieving in entirely different ways. Becky has really internalised it and Hunter has tried to mask it by creating this huge personality and doing all these crazy adventures. She’s completely trying to distract herself from her grief rather than facing it. It’s really just two people who have reacted in entirely different ways and, with Hunter, not only is there grief, but a lot of guilt and shame there as well. All of these really dark feelings, she’s trying to mask with this larger-than-life persona she has.
Virginia, we see that Hunter is looking to become something of a social media, YouTube star; was that a fun thing to explore during the lighter moments in this movie?
Virginia: Yeah, it was really fun. I think whenever you’re playing a character a bit big like that, it’s fun to give yourself the permission to make big choices with it and just go all out and have fun. I definitely gave myself permission to do so and it was a fine line. I didn’t want her to be so obnoxious that you hated her [Laughs]. It’s walking that line between this fun YouTube persona and not making her obnoxious. That was a fun challenge.
In terms of training, I’m no climber, but you both me convinced; was it quite a gruelling process to master that side of things before shooting?
Grace: I mean, Ginny and I have enjoyed bouldering and climbing recreationally indoors. Unless, Ginny, something has changed and you’ve gone and climbed outside in the last…
Virginia: [Laughs] I have not!
Grace: You know, it’s not like we’d never touched a climbing wall. I’d befriended some people at a climbing gym a few years back who were actually really good climbers and teaching me the technicalities of it. It was fun when I first spoke to Scott as I started nerding out about the correct way to utilise your energy as a climber and not wear your muscles out which I think helped convince him that I’d be up for climbing a very tall tower in the middle of the desert [Laughs].
Virginia: I watched Free Solo and a lot of those documentaries just to get into the headspace of someone who doesn’t have a rational fear of heights. How does their brain operate and how do they not have that fear? It’s just fascinating what these climbers are capable of.
[SPOILERS]
Now we can talk spoilers for the movie, how did you both react to that huge final act twist with what happens to Hunter? It’s such a gut punch watching as an audience member.
Virginia: It gets really dark and, for me, the challenge as an actor was I wanted to leave enough Easter Eggs so that if you watched it a second time, you might pick up on the fact I tried to act a bit more monotone and she doesn’t catch the backpack and she says no to water. Little things if you watched it a second time, you’d maybe pick up on, but I didn’t want to give too much away where you knew the twist was coming. That was an interesting line to walk and to play around with that and the big reveal with my messed up face and all that.
Grace: I know when I read the script and it just continued to get worse and worse with her condition, the circumstances, and Becky’s mental state because she’s hallucinating…it just made me want to do the project even more.
Grace, that scene near the end of the film with the vulture is very brutal and very bloody; what was that day on set like for you?
Grace: Gosh, it’s so cathartic for her to finally get a food source! We tease it at the beginning when Hunter is like, ‘You know, you’d do the same if you were out here. You’d kill.’ I’ve got to say, it felt really empowering. Brutal is a great word. I think something that was fun to play with was even though it’s a heroic moment because she’s that much closer to saving herself, it’s also this moment of awe and sadness because you’re taking this life. It was fun to still feel miserable about it because she’s gotten to this point of, ‘Oh God, I’ve killed a bird with my bare hands and now I’ve got to eat it.’ It was pretty wild getting to dig into the bird and it felt very animalistic, honestly.
[END SPOILERS]
In terms of how being up there affected you, do you think this movie and, more specifically, your performances, would have been as good had you been shooting on green screen?
Virginia: I’d love to say I’m as good as an actor to feel the same, green screen or not, but truthfully, it made such a difference. I don’t want to speak for Grace, but for me, it made such a difference being able to interact with the environment. When you’re on a green screen, there’s no wind, there’s no outdoor noise…your voice wouldn’t match the environment you’re in. All of these little things…it just becomes so much easier when you’re outside and have them all to work with.
Grace: The elements would beat us down so aggressively every day. When you’re out there in the sun and heat, not to mention the bug infestations we had and all sorts of wild Indiana Jones madness, the texture of your skin changes. You can feel the skin on your body moving differently when you move your face. I know that’s a little meta, but it’s just such a different texture to actually be outside compared to being in a soundstage with a fan blowing in your face. It would be hard to access the grit of actually being outside. I’m thankful we had that and it’s partially the reason I teared up at the top of the tower because I went, ‘Oh, this is going to make my job so much easier.’
When you are working on an emotionally and physically demanding project like this, is it possible to have fun on set do you think?
Virginia: I definitely had fun at times. It’s very serious and the physical aspect was incredibly draining, but sometimes, you’re in just such a ridiculous position on set like being asked to drop yourself off a 100-foot tower, all you can do is laugh. It just feels so insane.
Grace: Yeah, the adrenaline rush we would get from doing stunts was pretty fun and wild. It was a spectacular experience. Yes, the content is pretty serious, but there are also those moments of movie madness where the wind wasn’t matching, so they had this leaf blower they brought in to blow on our faces. They’d get in the cherry picker [Laughs] and blow this leaf blower at us. There were so many comedic moments of, ‘Oh my gosh, this is ridiculous.’ Sometimes, the serious nature of the material and the movie magic lengths we’d have to go to to match continuity…I definitely lost it a few times and had some moments of the giggles Scott wasn’t appreciative at all [Laughs].
Virginia: I also think it’s important on a movie like this, because it is so dark and can be so draining, that you allow yourself to have those moments and some relief and a break from the intensity to just laugh and not take it all so seriously 100% of the time.
Fall is now available on Digital and hits Blu-ray and DVD on October 18 from Lionsgate.