Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with Honeydew’s Malin Barr

Malin Barr is an award-winning actress who’s known for the dynamic characters she’s brought to life in projects like Beach House, Top Dog, The Beta Test, and CBS’ Bull.

This year, she makes her first major venture into the horror genre in Devereux Milburn’s Honeydew. Starring opposite Sawyer Spielberg and Barbara Kingsley, Honeydew tells the story of a young couple who are forced to seek shelter in the home of an aging farmer and her peculiar son, when they suddenly begin having strange cravings and hallucinations taking them down a rabbit hole of the bizarre.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to chat with Malin about Honeydew.

PC: What drew you to Honeydew?
Malin: As soon as I read Honeydew, it came off the page as something special. It was strange and peculiar, yet humorous. That’s what spoke to me straight away. I’m actually a little scared of horror films. [laughs] It’s not my go-to genre when I want to watch films. I wouldn’t pick it. I’ll watch something else before I watch a horror film.

I was traumatized after watching The Ring when I was little. But this was so different. It was such a sharp script. Devereux [Milburn] is such a brilliant writer. He knows how to create a specific vibe and add a special touch to his script. That immediately drew me to this project. It felt smart. It felt like there was a commentary on food shame and America’s food industry.

The first few scenes I read for the audition were between Rylie and Sam. Their relationship and their bickering came off as so comedic to me. It’s really awful if you’re in that relationship, but from the outside, it’s very comedic. I loved how he wrote the scenes and created this relationship between them. Sam is really distraught, lazy, out of it, and naive.

Rylie is the person that’s in charge in the relationship. She’s controlling. I keep referring to her being a Virgo because I’m a Virgo myself. She’s trying to control him and their relationship in order to fix it. That becomes the reason that they end up where they do. If they had a better relationship, maybe they wouldn’t end up there. That was what drew me in.

PC: What was the preparation like?
Malin: Building the character of Rylie was such a fun trip. I found little traits that I could connect with. Hopefully, I’m not as controlling as she is. [laughs] When I was working on the character, I found so many little things that contrasted with Sam. When we did our first reading—Sawyer [Spielberg] and I—our chemistry was so great. He’s such a fun and talented actor and guy. We found the relationship and chemistry really quickly. It’s all about working with a great team. We both knew Dev had a strong vision of what he wanted for the film and the characters. We got to come up with some of the backstory with him. It was a really fun process.

PC: With this being your first major venture into the horror genre, did anything surprise you? What was the biggest takeaway?
Malin: The entire experience was new to me. I realized that I get scared pretty easily, so maybe I should do more horror films. [laughs] It’s funny because I did two horror films that year. But it was really fun.

My takeaway with horror films is just to do your work beforehand. You have to be in the moment and let everything play out, which Dev brilliantly let us do.

Like I was saying earlier, I’m a Virgo. I like to prepare myself a lot before, so I did a lot of work beforehand. That made it a lot easier to let all the work that you’ve done go into play when you get onto set. It went really smoothly.

To keep up with Malin, follow her on Twitter and Instagram. Honeydew is available anywhere you stream movies.

Photo Credit: Robert Grima