Exclusive Interview: Writer-Director Robert Rippberger and Actor Booboo Stewart Chat Those Who Walk Away

Writer-director Robert Rippberger and actor Booboo Stewart are lighting up the screen with their innovative new project Those Who Walk Away.

Shot in several continuous takes, Those Who Walk Away follows Max (Booboo Stewart) and Avery (Scarlett Sperduto) who meet on a social media app for a first day. They end up at a haunted house only to realize the trauma they share may either save them or erupt into an unforgettable nightmare.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with Robert and Booboo about Those Who Walk Away, the challenges and freedoms of filming in this style, and the inspiration behind the film.

PC: Robert, could you introduce us to the inspiration behind Those Who Walk Away?
Robert: The film was very loosely inspired by the Ursula Le Guin story, Those Who Walk Away from Omelas, which poses a moral paradox. If you live in a utopia, how do you navigate that utopia if it’s based on others living in squalor? I took that approach looking at this Weinstein era. What happens when people know about what’s going on? What’s their responsibility to say something about what they saw or what they knew? We reference it with Rotcreep, who touches you and you rot from the outside in. What is it like to be somebody who’s experienced something like this and has to live with that headspace?

PC: Booboo, you’ve done it all throughout your career. What was it about this particular project and character that stood out to you?
Booboo: The project itself stood out immensely because of the idea of making a one-take movie. That right there caught my attention off the bat. I was like, “I would love to try that.” There were so many things that attracted me to it. I love the character. I love what he was going through. I love how Rob took an idea and explored it through a genre where it’s usually not explored. It’s very interesting how you can take a subject and put it in a different setting and explain it through someone else’s eyes. I thought that was really interesting. I really love that. I love the creative freedom we had in making this film. I thought the process of making it was going to be a crazy ride.

When I read the script, I asked myself, “Am I going to want to do this every day for the next part of my life? Is this something that’s going to excite me? Is the character someone I want to play and someone I want to dive into, discover, and take the time to learn about and build? Is it a set that I’m going to feel fulfilled on?” It was about answering all of those questions, and they were all yeses.

PC: Great answer. Robert, these characters go on an emotional rollercoaster throughout the film. What was the casting process like finding the actors who would be able to tackle such a wide range of emotions?
Robert: The big thing is I was very upfront about what we were asking from them and I didn’t make any indication that this would be easy. I had a lot of different ideas of fun. For me, this is all fun.

Booboo: Different ideas of fun. [laughs]

Robert: For Booboo, it was fun, but I knew that I needed to find people that I could really trust and depend on. It’s a different thing as a filmmaker to not have any takes or cutaways. With very prominent films, it’s always like, “We had to cut around because of this actor and that actor.” You don’t have that when you do a one-shot film. I knew that I really needed to find people that I trust and whose body of work and work ethic I really respected.

That led to finding Booboo and working with his dad Nils [Stewart], Bryson JonSteele (the young boy), Grant Morningstar (the brother), and Scarlett [Sperduto], whom I had worked with prior. It was a series of conversations where I started off the meetings like, “I’m going to try and talk you out of this. If you’re still on board, then we’re at a good place.”

PC: Booboo, this is a much darker and grittier role than fans have come to expect from you. Did that change the preparation? How did you get into this character’s mindset particularly towards the end of the film when everything is amplified?
Booboo: It’s so hard to explain. Like I was saying earlier, I always start every project wondering how I’m going to do it all. I look at every project like that. That fear of not knowing pushes me to do a lot of discovery in terms of finding who the person is. That’s where I start every character. I try to figure the character out. This is where he is in this part of his life, but what led him here? It’s about creating those little bits so you can give the viewers a glimpse.

I just try to backtrack. I try to figure everything out. I’m like a little detective. I get a notebook and I start writing. For this one, I was doing a lot of writing, a lot of figuring things out, a lot of talking with Rob about what different things meant. But he gave me a lot of freedom to really explore myself. It’s so hard to explain. Especially for the later scenes, it was such a whirlwind. It’s hard to pinpoint what I did for that.

One thing I did that I’d never done before was look up the scariest sounds that I could find online. I’d have my headphones in and I would listen to those sounds before the take and let it take over my body. It was a lot of that. It was more about conjuring up the right feelings and letting that take over rather than thinking “How do I get to that point?” It was a lot of being in touch with how I was feeling and letting the set take over. One great thing that I love on a set is when everyone is very respectful of each other. I felt that that was a big thing that was happening on our set, especially when it came down to those later scenes. Everyone gave the floor to the actors and Rob. I thought that was really, really kind of everybody.

It allows me to be really immersed in what’s happening. The set was beautiful. I rely a lot on that to put myself in that place and be present. I was letting the feeling of the house and what we were doing take over and not have any interruptions. That’s how I did it for this movie.

PC: Great answer. Robert, not only did you write the screenplay, but you also directed and produced it. At what point did you realize you were going to wear multiple hats on this project? How challenging was that?
Robert: We shot this during the pandemic and there was so much going on. I remember asking Sam Raimi, “Do you see producing and directing as conflicting?” He was like, “No, no, no. It makes you a better director because you know exactly where to move things.” This was such a core piece of that. And then writing it, I needed to know how to pull it off. We even put directions in the script itself because it was our roadmap. Having all three hats was really crucial.

At a certain point, you have to take off your producing hat. We had another producer, KT Kent, who was really valuable. I knew that I was in trusted hands and that I could take off my producer’s hat and take on the directing side. We took a huge, huge risk on this film. With the investors, I had to personally sign that if COVID became a problem I’d be personally financially responsible for making up any shortfalls. We also didn’t know if we would actually be able to do it.

After the first day, it was a done deal. I knew it was going to happen. I knew the people. I knew the team. I knew what everybody was capable of. The first day was very challenging. It’s a lot of moving parts—and that’s just the first three minutes. Then we have another fifteen that we have for that particular take. It wasn’t until I think much later that everybody was like, “We didn’t think we could make it through the first day. We didn’t think it was possible.”

I was like, “What are you talking about?” Of course, I was like, “I never doubted it.” [laughs] But I think that sort of charge and having a hand in the writing, directing, and producing gave me the confidence that I knew exactly where we were at every step of the way. That confidence spilled over to everybody else so they could say, “Yeah, we can do this. We can indeed pull this off.”

Booboo: There was one day when we’d literally had one take to get the longest shot of the movie. It’s shorter in the film because of the effects. In real time, the shot was twice as long. We had one take. I remember Rob gathered all of us. The crew was very small, maybe because of COVID and budget reasons, but we became a great family.

He gathers all fifteen of us and we’re all standing around him. Rob’s like, “Okay, guys. We only have one shot at doing this. Let’s do this right.” He gave us this little speech. I remember not even being that nervous because Rob’s confidence in what we were going to do was so strong, and everything that we had done before and the preparation had been so thought out. I remember not even being nervous for the scene. It was the only time we had one chance to get this huge shot. It was a great little afternoon.

Robert: Even when we only had one day, if we had a very cushy day, that meant we had two and a half. [laughs] We also chose to shoot during golden hour. The crew needed to hide in every scene. There are a lot of funny moments when myself and four other people are hiding behind a car. With film, you see everything. It was also a challenge with the lighting. Diego Cordero pulled off miracles. There were so many interesting new challenges making a film like this. But the team was so creative and hardworking, and we could not have done it without each and every one of them.

PC: Booboo, for you as an actor, what challenges/freedoms does that give you when you’re filming in this particular style?
Booboo: I mean, the obvious challenges: being where you have to be at a certain time and all of that. I was on set last night and we had to do a scene where we just walked twenty feet, and we kept missing our mark. Then I think about what we did, and we walked through an entire town. That was definitely one of the challenges. On the first day, I was so nervous. I was like, “Oh, my God.” But thankfully, my character is supposed to be nervous at the start.

We did this whole walk through an entire town, and I essentially had a monologue at the end of our walk. I had to hit the exact mark at the end of this monologue. The challenge was being in the moment but also knowing that you have to be in a certain place at an exact time for the rest of the film to work. Those were the challenges.

This is probably my favorite moment because it was so absurd. Scarlett and I had this really long take in one shot at the beginning of the film. We were driving from one town to another.

Robert: It was a 30-minute drive. It was super important that we kept it all as one shot. I’m a purist about it. We shot on a RED camera. Literally in the camera, Diego would switch to a high-frame rate so we were shooting one frame every minute. That’s what gave it that accelerated feel while also feeling natural.

Booboo: For some reason, I forgot to put the address in my phone. We were supposed to use my phone for the GPS. I’m sitting in the car with her and next to my leg, where I think the camera won’t see it, I’m trying to put in and find the address. Mid-line, I slid my phone underneath my legs because I didn’t want the light to shine into the camera because I wasn’t supposed to be doing that in the scene. I slid it onto the console so she could see the GPS. In my mind, I was like, “Please, God, I hope there isn’t this weird orb floating at the bottom of the camera.” This is all mid-dialogue and full-on conversation.

That’s the kind of rapport we all had with each other. Before we made the movie, we had done so much rehearsing that it was really second nature. There were a lot of things that happened that weren’t expected. There was so much freedom with the spontaneous little things that would happen in the scene that we could do things like that. If we hadn’t had all that rehearsal, I would have been like, “Guys, we forgot the address. We have to start over.” I would have ruined it.

PC: Booboo, your dad is also a part of this project. How did that come to fruition? How special was it to get to share this moment with him?
Booboo: It was great. He’s the reason why I got the script. Rob had reached out to him to stunt coordinate the movie and to play Rotcreep. My dad probably brought me up. I forget how it all went down, but it was great being able to share it with him. The subtleties he incorporates behind the mask are hard. You can’t do that with your face. The subtleties he does with the character are really, really great. It was fantastic. I was a little nervous at first because while working with family is amazing it’s also hard to separate the fact that he’s my dad in the scene. But we did it. It was fantastic.

PC: This film has made its way around the festival circuit. It’s been incredibly well received. What do you think is resonating most with audiences and what do you hope they take away?
Robert: The film is very different, and that was very intentional. In fact, Booboo and I in the beginning—mainly Booboo—were like, “Let’s try and make something that’s both not a horror film and a horror film.” There are no jump scares in the film. In fact, this was our inside joke: the camera is behind Booboo when he jumps out and scares Scarlett. That’s the degree to which we were like, “Let’s not make something that’s full horror. Let’s make something different in every way, in every detail.” I think that’s what resonates. There are so many horror films out there. I’ve seen a crazy amount of films, and I sit back and look at what we were able to pull off and I’m like, “I haven’t seen something like this before.” That really fires up audiences, no pun intended.

Booboo: I agree 100% with Rob. There are so many layers to our film that can be dissected. I hope that when people are watching this movie, they lean over to somebody afterwards and they’re like, “Did you get that part?” And they’re like, “What? No.” “What about this part?” They’re like, “Oh, I didn’t even see that.” I hope that’s the vibe, honestly, both emotionally and aesthetically. I hope they enjoy themselves—but also on a deeper level too.

There are so many layers. Even while we were filming, we were discovering things, and I’ve taken that lesson from Rob. He is so fluid in how he works, but he also knows where it needs to go. Creatively and in other realms, I’ve taken that from Rob. I’ve taken those lessons with me and sprinkled them on myself when I can because I really love that way of working. It allows everybody to bring their best and to feel their involvement really does make a difference—and it does. Rob shows that in working the way he does.

Robert: It was a full collaboration with Booboo. We’re even collaborating on a new script now. We have a good way of pushing each other further and further and further.

Make sure to follow Robert (Twitter/Instagram) and Booboo (Twitter/Instagram). Watch Those Who Walk Away in select theaters and wherever you watch movies.