Pop-Culturalist.com

Cree and Felix Mallard are two of the stars of the must-see new film, Turtles All the Way Down.

Based on John Green’s bestselling novel, Turtles All the Way Down tackles anxiety through its seventeen-year-old protagonist, Aza Holmes (Isabela Merced). It’s not easy being Aza, but she’s trying…trying to be a good daughter, a good friend to Daisy (Cree), and a good student, all while navigating an endless barrage of invasive, obsessive thoughts that she cannot control. When she reconnects with Davis (Felix Mallard), her childhood crush, Aza is confronted with fundamental questions about her potential for love, happiness, friendship, and hope. Cree and Felix shine in their respective roles, bringing layers and depth to Daisy and Davis.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with Cree and Felix about Turtles All the Way Down, their preparation, and finding the contrast in their characters.

PC: Cree, this film does such a beautiful job honoring the source material and tackling important subject matters like mental health, class, and the coming-of-age experience, but it also finds a lot of ways to incorporate moments of levity. Your character in particular gets to play in all of those different beats. How much of what we see in the final product is scripted versus improvised? How different is that mindset for you as an actor when you’re bringing the laughs as opposed to those more dramatic moments like the car scene at the end of that closing monologue because you do both so effortlessly?
Cree: Thank you so much. Oh my goodness. I’m blushing. The script stayed very true to the book. Most of what is in the movie is very true to the script. Hannah Marks, our director, was really kind and generous and did let me play around a lot, especially with the humor. It was very collaborative in that way because she’s also a talented actor and a very funny person. Even in between takes, we’d be sometimes workshopping silly things we wanted to throw in. I would say that most of it is scripted but they left some of my stupid in there, but there’s some long B-roll of jokes that were never going to make it, but were for us on the day.

In terms of switching beat to beat, I appreciate your question, because that’s something that really attracted me to this role and to this project, it’s the multi dimensionality of her. I have great respect for the funny best friend and that’s necessary. It’s a lovely trope but I really appreciated the way that John in the script really dug in deeper, peeled back the layers, and made a lot of the qualities of her that may seem like they’re just there to be funny or show quirkiness and gave them new life and new reasoning. I really respected that. I was really intrigued by that, especially in the scene that you mentioned in the car. It’s their big break up. It’s an uncomfortable part of the mental health conversation in the film. How does your struggling affect the people around you? How does it hurt them? That’s really uncomfortable. I think Daisy has a lot of fans and people who don’t like her because of that aspect of the storyline.

I felt like if I could have it be even a fraction of the layered, deep, multi-dimensional that John did in the book and our writers did in the script then I’d be happy. That was my main concern. It definitely was really exciting for me as an actor to be able to bounce back and forth.

PC: You accomplished that. Felix, throughout your career, you’ve gotten to play such a wide range of characters, and each is so different from the last, which is such an interesting parallel to Davis’ journey who wants to be seen more than for his wealth. It’s really his relationship with Aza where they hold space for each other to be their most authentic selves. You brought such a groundedness to his journey and that dynamic. As an actor, how did you create the space for yourself to tackle the richness of this character? Did you channel any of your own personal experiences?
Felix: That’s such a beautiful question. Thank you so much for those words. That’s really humbling and making me blush now. [laughs] Similarly, I was so lucky that Davis was a nuanced and layered character. John never creates characters that are one thing. Where the joy comes in is the messiness or duality of these characters.

Looking at Davis, there’s a lot not to like. Billionaires are not the people that we want to be celebrating right now. The challenge as an actor is to go in and really figure out who he is which is such a joy. When you dig further in, the more you look at his circumstances, he’s someone who’s incredibly lonely and who’s incredibly desperate to be seen or to be understood at the very least. He wants to love and be loved. That’s such a fun tapestry to capture. To be able to go into the book and do all the homework was such a joy.

As far as bringing myself to the age, it was about what I was feeling at that age and what it’s like to grow up. That’s fairly ubiquitous with everyone. Everyone feels a certain amount of loneliness or a desire to fit in and be understood and what not. You hopefully find that over a period of years rather than this one big coming-of-age experience. That’s what I tried to pour into it as much as I could. It was how lonely I felt when I was that age or how angry or frustrated I was and how desperate I was to turn to give love and receive it.

Make sure to follow Cree (Instagram) and Felix (Instagram). Watch Turtles All the Way Down on Max today.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Max