Exclusive Interview: Pop Culturalist Chats with The Shuroo Process’ Emrhys Cooper and Donal Brophy

Emrhys Cooper and Donal Brophy are emerging filmmakers whose debut feature has become the talk of the festival circuit.

Now available wherever you stream movies, The Shuroo Process follows the journey of a freelance magazine writer who becomes frustrated with the pressures of a failing publishing world and a less than promising romantic life. When she becomes infatuated by a wildly charismatic self-help guru, it sends her on a journey of self-improvement with catastrophic consequences.

Pop Culturalist had the pleasure of speaking with Emrhys and Donal about the must-see dramedy.

PC: Tell us about The Shuroo Process and the inspiration behind the film.
Emrhys: I grew up in a very small hippie town with a lot of New Age guru types and holistic doctors. I had firsthand experience. Some of those experiences were quite painful when they involved my family. They fell for some of these gurus and actually wound up in a cult. I was scared by these figures coming in and out of our lives every couple of years.

Then about three years ago, I was staying at my friend’s house in the Catskills. The home felt like a retreat. I got the inspiration for the film while sitting on a hay bale. I let the idea marinate. Then about two years ago, Donal and I started writing the screenplay as a cautionary warning but also while poking fun at the ridiculousness of the self-help industry and showcasing the positive effects of self-development. It’s not completely sh*tting on the industry. It shows the benefits of it as well.

Donal: We’ve been in the thick of it. I lived in New York for twenty years. Emrhys lived in New York and L.A. for years. We’ve been exposed to and have fallen victim to this “best life” culture. There are these avatars that we crave for ourselves—either online, through social media, or sometimes even in our own heads. There’s this culture of “best life” where everyone’s kind of spinning wheels. They just want to project their best selves to the world, but really they’re not taking care of what’s going on behind the curtain. Eventually, your past catches up with you. That was essentially the kernel that we wanted to portray with the film.

PC: As you were both writing this script, did you have these particular actors in mind? What was that casting process like?
Emrhys: I saw Donal playing Lord Henry in a wonderful production of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Then I saw him in another play. I thought he had such charisma. He was so effortless, and it gave me the idea to cast him in The Shuroo Process. A few of the characters are based on people that are pretty close to us. Then we had quite a few actors who we had in mind while we were writing it. Olivia Sui and I were working on a film. She was so fun. We wanted the characters to reflect the types of people that go to these retreats. But while we were writing, we were thinking of specific actors like Taylor Bagley as Seraphina.

Donal: Casting is funny. Whenever you’re writing a script or making a movie, you can spend hours having fun with producers and casting. We’d be like, “Wouldn’t X be so good as Y?” But the reality of casting is quite interesting. It’s very different. It’s a real business, and we were very lucky to get involved with two incredible veteran casting directors out of Los Angeles: Sharon Lieblein and Fern Champion. They liked the script. They really went to bat for us every day when they were sending out the casting notices. Then one of our executive producers, Jamie Moss, came on board. He has a wonderful resume. He did X-Men: First Class and Planet of the Apes. When he got involved as an executive producer, a lot of agents started to take the project very seriously.

Then they started to pitch their A-listers. We were so shocked with the names that we were sent. A lot of the time it’s a bit of smoke and mirrors. They’re never available, but nonetheless it was interesting to think of the possibilities, especially for the role of Jane. We were like, “Oh my god. That there’s even a small possibility that we could work with these people is amazing.”

Emrhys: For a first movie, it was a dream come true to have such talent. I mean Fiona Dourif was better than we ever could have imagined Parker being. She made it her own. She jumped off the page. I really feel like a lot of directing is casting the right actors and trusting the actors. I was acting in it as well. It made it effortless that so many of the cast didn’t need a huge amount of direction. They ran with it and it was great. It was great to see our writing come to life. A lot of the time it was better than we hoped.

PC: This film does such a beautiful job balancing drama with comedy. As screenwriters, is one genre more difficult to write for?
Donal: Comedy is the hardest. Getting it right, especially when you’re doing the dead-pan weirdness, is a very fine line. But I think we managed to pull it off.

Emrhys: Comedy. There’s a lot of humor to be had in the situation. It’s situational humor. Thank you for noticing that. We are a little bit bonkers and eccentric. The world that we created in Shuroo lent itself to both. We wanted to have that push and pull of heartfelt emotional moments and then the cathartic release of laughter. Without giving any spoilers, there’s a situation that happens to the D’arcy character. The audience is laughing, which is funny considering he’s in absolute pain. But we did that intentionally, especially when it came to scoring the movie. We wanted the composers to bring out the humor. We actually created that juxtaposition within certain situations with comedic music. The audience knew. We were giving them little clues to laugh.

PC: This film has made its way around the festival circuit and it’s been incredibly well received. What has that response meant to both of you? What do you think is resonating most with audiences?
Emrhys: Good question. It means the world to us. This was a real passion project, and being first-time filmmakers we didn’t know how it would end up. Getting a movie made is hard. Getting into festivals is even harder. There is so much competition. Getting it sold is a dream come true. It’s out there for the rest of the world.

Woodstock was the perfect place to have the world premiere because we shot thirty minutes out of Woodstock. That was so cool. Fiona Dourif and Brad Dourif are from Woodstock. Then we played Bhutan, India, New York, and we finished at the UK Film Festival. We got the Audience Choice Award. It was a perfect little festival run. We never anticipated getting awards. It was really cool. It was the icing on the cake.

Donal: What has it meant to us? When you asked that, I realized that I’ve never really asked myself that. We’ve been running on empty these past two months. We’ve been trying to get so much done. It’s been such a whirlwind.

But I suppose looking back at the whole experience, Emrhys came up with the idea. We wrote it together. He directed it. I starred in it. We produced it together. We were basically the post-production supervisors. We haven’t really had a lot of time to reflect on the whole process. But now we see the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s just gratitude. It’s very humbling. We’re both normal, middle-class guys from the UK and Ireland. Sometimes you have to pinch yourself. I just can’t believe that we did it. I can’t believe we pulled it off to be honest with you. It’s amazing.

Emrhys: One of the fans on the internet said, “I’ve watched the movie five times already.” A lot of people are saying it’s their favorite film. Hearing that is so heartwarming because there were so many challenges along the way. To hear that it’s touching the audience emotionally, that’s the best news we can really have.

PC: Emrhys, this is your feature film directorial debut. Did anything surprise you about the experience? What was the biggest takeaway?
Emrhys: Everything surprised me about the experience. I had directed a short film and thought I knew what I was doing. I’m glad that I went into it openhearted. I had to figure out a lot of things, especially in terms of what each department did. I had an inkling of what everyone did, but it took me a while to really figure out how to help run the show and make it seamless. I had to learn on the job. I feel so grateful because now I have such a deeper understanding and respect for what everyone does. For that, I’m really grateful.

PC: Donal, this is your debut as a writer. Did anything surprise you about the experience? What was the biggest takeaway for you?
Donal: It surprised me how therapeutic it was. It was a cathartic experience. The greatest thing about being a writer is being able to put your humor and your pain down on the page and then get to see other artists play it out. But nothing really prepared me for how emotional I would get. We wove a lot of scenes from our own lives into this script. Seeing them up there for the world to see and seeing talent like Fiona playing them out was very intense. The biggest takeaway was how cathartic it was.

PC: You’ve both worked on projects of all sizes. What is it about independent filmmaking that excites you as creatives?
Emrhys: You don’t have to answer to anyone. That was a luxury, and it might never happen again because we literally raised the money ourselves. We did everything. We didn’t have to answer to another company. That’s the most beautiful thing about making something independently. It was our vision. That’s also scary because if it goes wrong it’s all on us.

Donal: No matter what way you slice it, it’s been a successful project. As a result, a lot of other doors are starting to open for us. The first thing that I realized is that it will never be like that again. It’ll never be just him and I out there making it work. We were laughing last night that there were certain jobs on the set that people weren’t getting paid enough to do, so Emrhys and I had to do them. One of the toilets was backed up and we were like, “Well, we can’t ask anybody.”

Emrhys: I did it.

Donal: Emrhys did it. There are so many stories that we have. They will be with us for the rest of our lives. We’re partners in life as well. It was such a beautiful experience.

PC: With the film out now, what do you hope audiences take away after they see it and what’s next for the both of you?
Emrhys: One of the things I hope people get to see is that despite the weekend being a bit of a disaster each participant has a breakthrough. It shows the audience that by taking a step, letting go, and seeing what is causing you pain, by getting to the source of that, you can do it yourself. It’s about taking that first step. Some of the feedback has been about how people have looked at their own lives. It’s amazing that our work can inspire growth, change, and enlightenment.

Donal: It’s never too late for love as well. That’s one of the messages that we wanted to get across. You never know what’s around the corner, so you have to keep faith and know that enlightenment comes in roundabout ways.

Parker, for example, thought she was going to have some conventional experience and then she’d be “fixed.” It wasn’t a conventional experience, but she was “fixed” in a sense because she found her passion again. Emrhys and I are big believers in doing the work and doing what you love.

Emrhys: Have a purpose. That’s what Parker ultimately found. She didn’t achieve some sort of nirvana through meditation. She found her work. She found her writing again, and that was what brought her back to life. My wish is that people find something that they’re passionate about and that will get them through the hard times.

As for what’s next, we’re decorating and furnishing our house. We have quite an exciting slate of projects with our production company that we formed last year called Idyllwild Pictures. The next one is going to be called Historical Homos with Zachary Quinto. It’s a podcast and we’re going around the world in 80 days. We’re really excited about that. We have a couple of movies that we’re hoping to shoot next year. We’re going to take a little breather this December after this madness is over.

Make sure to follow Emrhys (Twitter/Instagram) and Donal (Instagram). Watch The Shuroo Process anywhere you stream movies.