Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with The Call’s Erin Sanders

Erin Sanders is turning heads as one of the leads of The Call. Starring opposite Lin Shaye and Tobin Bell, The Call tells the story of a group of small-town friends who must survive the night after a tragic event brings them together at the home of a sinister couple.

Pop Culturalist caught up with Erin to chat about The Call, stepping into the role of this multifaceted character, and the film’s important message about being accountable for your own actions.

PC: Tell us about The Call, your character, and what drew you to this project.
Erin: The Call is an ’80s fantastical horror journey that follows four young people navigating the guilt and results of the traumatic things they’ve experienced and participated in throughout their lives that have led them to this really big, meaningful experience they get to share together in an old creepy house with some old creepy people played by legends Lin Shaye and Tobin Bell.

I was really drawn to the role of Tonya because she’s this fully fleshed-out character. She doesn’t exist as a trope in a high school flick or as a trope in a horror flick. She has a journey and a back story and an emotional life that I was able to dig into and build upon in ways that felt unique and personal and specific to me and to my portrayal of her. This culminates in the final act of the film. I won’t give away how that all comes to fruition, but there’s a dark side to Tonya, and I love being able to explore that.

PC: The film is a love letter to the classic horror films of the ’80s. Did you turn to any of them for inspiration?
Erin: Absolutely. I turned to classic horror films like Halloween, The Shining, and Scream—classics with those high school archetypes. Then some more current films that I absolutely love like Creep by the Duplass brothers, and Creep 2 is actually great too. Which, how often is the sequel as good as the original? Not very often. I love Creep because it’s done on such a low budget and it’s so effective. A lot of the intrigue is what you don’t know, and also the length to which people will go to not make a moment too awkward and to not offend another person. I feel like it’s similar to the characters in this film. They keep moving forward at the expense of their own intuition. Even though they can sense that bad things are afoot, they keep moving forward because they don’t want to offend the people around them or create an awkward moment. They keep moving forward against their better judgment.

PC: Great answer. Like you were saying earlier, there are a lot of different layers to each character. They each have their own skeletons in their closets. How did you prepare to tackle Tonya’s arc in the film? How early on did you know about the secret that she’s keeping?
Erin: I knew about the secret before I took the role, which I really appreciated them entrusting me with that. It was important for me to know that. Her secret is definitely buried in a safe in her mind. It’s hard to know as a viewer how often it’s on her mind. It’s something she has created almost a separate personality around to where she’s able to embody a version of her that didn’t commit the acts that she in fact did.

She exists in this fantasy world. I think that’s how she’s able to continue being a person without eating herself alive with her own guilt. I think it’s something that surprises her when she is triggered by something going on in her current life. Then she has to digest and swallow that information almost like it’s new information over and over again throughout the course of her life.

PC: Like you were saying earlier, you star opposite two legends in this genre. What was it like collaborating with Tobin and Lin?
Erin: Tobin Bell and Lin Shaye are such legends. They’re iconic and they come with so much experience. It’s really fun to learn the process of other actors. When you’ve worked in enough films, you develop your own specific personal process, which is true for each of them. I find that they’re both really focused. Tobin has more of this serious, quiet focus. Lin has more of this electric, emotionally charged, living-right-under-the-surface focus and approach.

Each of them locks into the material in such an intense way and remains locked in with you, the actor, if you choose to stay locked in with them, which I certainly did. That will always be my preference. It’s to stay locked in with my fellow actors while we’re filming a scene so that we create this world and we live in this very specific world together until that piece of the project is complete. I love that each of them has that same interest—that shared interest of creating this world together and really living in it.

PC: You’ve built this illustrious career in the industry for your dramatic and comedic roles. What has the transition been going into the horror genre? What was the biggest takeaway for you from this project?
Erin: The biggest takeaway for me is that horror doesn’t have to be that different than other things I’ve done. There’s an emotional throughline for each character, and if I’m being really honest and authentic, that doesn’t change. It doesn’t change regardless if my character is committing heinous crimes or if she’s scared out of her mind or if I’m working in something completely different and she’s falling in love or just going to work, versus really big life-changing moments in her life. Staying truthful to the emotional life is what makes a viewer invested. When I’m watching something, it’s about how I’m impacted emotionally. That’s why I’m locked in on something that I’m watching, and it’s why I come back to it and want to rewatch it. So bringing that authenticity and emotional life to everything I do is how I make it the best it can possibly be. That’s true for horror as well.

PC: We’re seeing another golden age for the horror genre as another medium to tell really cool stories. With the film out now, what do you hope audiences take away?
Erin: I hope audiences take away that we all have our skeletons in the closet that haunt us—the things that we’ve done or participated in in small or great ways that won’t leave us alone when we close our eyes. The only way for us to heal in that regard and not create more experiences that haunt us is to be really thoughtful and intentional about the way we engage with other people, consider other people’s feelings, tell people you love them, and be responsible for your actions and how they impact the world. I think what’s so scary about this film is that it really ultimately is about the things that real people do that continue to haunt them throughout the course of their lives.

To keep up with Erin, follow Twitter and Instagram. Watch The Call on VOD today!

Photo Credit: Max Montgomery