Exclusive Interview: Emile Hirsch Talks Devil’s Workshop, His Craziest Audition Story, and More

Emile Hirsch is one of the industry’s most sought-after leading men. He’s starred in critically-acclaimed projects including Alpha Dog, Milk, Into the Wild, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, and Dig.

This fall, he stars opposite Timothy Granaderos and Radha Mitchell in Devil’s Workshop. In this chilling psychological thriller, struggling actor Clayton (Timothy Granaderos) is desperate for a role as a demonologist. He contacts Eliza (Radha Mitchell), an expert in devil lore, to help him prepare and spends the weekend at her home. Eliza forces Clayton to confront his troubling past, perform dark rituals, and sacrifice a goat. Does she want to help Clayton, seduce him—or destroy him? The shocking climax will set your soul ablaze. Emile shines as Donald, the rival actor who is competing against Clayton for the role and has made a name for himself in the industry with his social presence and not his talent.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to chat with Emile about Devil’s Workshop, what attracted him to this role, and more!

PC: Tell us about Devil’s Workshop and your character in the film.
Emile: Devil’s Workshop is a movie about an actor who has been struggling for a really long time. He’s never really gotten any roles. He gets a callback to play a demonologist in a movie. He auditions on a Friday and the callback is on Monday, so he decides to contact a real demonologist. I play the rival actor that he’s trying to get the edge on, who is this annoying guy who’s constantly been working. The other actor (played by Tim Granaderos) is the same age. He’s mid-thirties, and he’s frustrated with his position in this industry. He decides he’s going to go to a real demonologist and do real Daniel Day-Lewis research on demonology. It doesn’t quite go according to plan for him. He engages with this real demonologist played by Radha Mitchell, who has some darker, more sinister sides, as you might imagine with a demonologist.

PC: You’ve done it all throughout your career. What was it about Donald and this particular script that stood out to you?
Emile: I thought it would be fun to play a comedic riff on an actor. I don’t think I’ve played many actors before. It was playing the worst actor possible, which was pretty entertaining. I had to do a lot less research than I thought. It was funny, it came so naturally to me. I realize I’ve been acting for so long now that I don’t need to do any research. I’ve been researching it for twenty-seven years.

PC: In the film, we see the lengths that Tim’s character is willing to go to to get a role. What’s the craziest thing that you’ve ever done for an audition or in preparation for a role?
Emile: I remember there was a movie about Nirvana that the director was meeting people for. I can’t remember the director’s name now, but I don’t think they made the film. I showed up to the audition wearing this ridiculous platinum blonde wig. It was so ridiculous. I remember thinking afterwards, “God, he must have thought that was so weird.” Because it didn’t look real. It looked ridiculous. It looked like a Halloween wig. I might have even had a little bit of a beard at the time. It was ridiculous because it was a darker color.

PC: Like you were saying, early on Donald is unbashful about the fact that he may not be the most talented actor but he knows how to market himself. Having been a part of this industry for over two decades, have you encountered many Donalds along your journey? Did you use those encounters in your performance?
Emile: I’ve definitely encountered a lot of actors that have qualities of Donald. I don’t know if I’ve encountered any one Donald. I probably unconsciously incorporated a lot of those qualities. There was something so shameless about the character where he admits that he’s not a real actor. He’s not an artist. He makes all of this money from social media. There is something funny about an actor that’s so quick to say that they’re not a serious actor. There’s something funny about it, especially when they’re the more successful actor compared to the struggling actor who isn’t even getting the jobs. The guy is saying that he’s not a serious actor, yet, he’s the one getting the jobs. It’s almost even more annoying.

Donald gets this impromptu idea of doing an exorcism/seance with these girls that he’s hanging out with as he’s doing drugs and partying. That’s his research. His research is non-research. Basically, he’s terrorizing these two women and it’s totally ridiculous. But there’s a little twist to those sequences, which I thought was very funny. There’s a certain amount of comeuppance that the character gets, which I found was the right penalty. The ending of that scene is even more ridiculous because Donald has a trial and tribulation. He thinks, “This will be the thing that makes my performance really good.” There are a lot of layers of ridiculousness there.

PC: This role finds you flexing both your comedic and dramatic skills. There’s a scene where Donald and Clayton are performing an acting exercise. How much of that was improvised? How much of that was scripted?
Emile: It was pretty scripted, but we definitely were riffing. I figured Donald is a guy who’s trying to get under Clayton’s skin. What would he say to Clayton, who’s this insecure guy, that would probably tick him off the most? Because Donald knows that Clayton feels inferior around him. So if he calls him stupid, that’s the biggest insult of all. The irony is that Clayton’s much smarter than Donald in a lot of ways. Donald is not smart.

PC: On the flip side of that, there’s this intense confrontation between Nikki, Donald, and Petra that gets very heated but also has comedic undertones. Is the preparation different when you’re preparing for a scene like that as opposed to the acting exercise scene?
Emile: That was a very challenging scene for me to shoot because it was so much dialogue. It was twelve pages of dialogue. I was actually working on another project while I shot this one, so I didn’t have the time to learn the twelve pages. It was a huge challenge to learn, react, and be in the moment. It took all my mental powers to get right in there and do it like that.

It was weird because we were feeding off each other in that scene. He’s very serious in that scene. As he’s screaming, he’s saying, “I’m getting into character. I need to prepare for this part,” which is inherently ridiculous. He’s making something serious out of something that isn’t really serious. He doesn’t even have the part. All he has is a callback, and he’s yelling at these girls and he’s putting this girl through this demented emotional therapy. It’s very similar to a scene out of The Master with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix. It was this mental exercise/torture type of activity, and he doesn’t even have the role. It’s very ridiculous. When you really are examining it, it’s ridiculous. He’s a very selfish, uncaring guy.

PC: Christopher wrote and directed this project. Is the filming experience different when the person who created this universe is also at the helm as a director? What is that collaboration like?
Emile: It was cool. Chris is a guy who is very pragmatic and very methodical. I feel like he really takes his time and has a good vision. He’s very patient with the performance. He likes to do multiple takes and mine for gold, which is a really cool quality to have, especially on an indie where you have to shoot at such a quick pace. To be with a director who likes that style is very cool because a lot of the times when you make these smaller films you have to move quickly due to the constraints of the schedule. Sometimes you’re getting two takes. To work with a guy like Chris who will sometimes do five or six takes, it’s nice because you feel like he’s going to get the right moments that he wants.

To keep up with Emile, follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Watch Devil’s Workshop wherever you stream movies.