Posted in: Exclusive, Horror, Interview, Movies | Tagged: All My Friends Are Dead, AMFAD, Cineverse, exclusive, horror, interview, Jade Pettyjohn, marcus dunstan

AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead: Jade Pettyjohn on Embracing Horror

Jade Pettyjohn (Monster) spoke to Bleeding Cool about starring in her first horror film in Cineverse's AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead.

Jade Pettyjohn emerged as an up-and-coming actress in Hollywood long removed from her child star days. While she's no stranger to playing older characters like rebellious teenagers or young adults in dramas like HBO's The Righteous Gemstones, ABC's Big Sky, CBS's Fire Country, Hulu's Little Fires Everywhere, and the Netflix miniseries Monster, the actress is always ready to take on her next challenge. Surprisingly, that would be Cineverse's #AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead, her first horror film as the lead Sarah. The film follows a group of college friends who rent an Airbnb for the biggest music festival of the year. A weekend of partying quickly takes a turn, as the group is murdered one by one, according to their sin. Pettyjohn spoke to Bleeding Cool about working with director Marcus Dunstan, what she loves about horror, her biggest challenge on set working in the genre, what she learned from the experience, reuniting with her School of Rock Nickelodeon series co-star JoJo Siwa, and more.

AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead Star Jade Pettyjohn on Her First Horror Film

BC: What intrigued you about All My Friends Are Dead?

JP: All My Friends Are Dead intrigued me in several ways. I've never been in a horror film so that was exciting. Hearing Marcus Dunstan directing was exciting because I'm such a fan. This is such a wild ride of immense gore and everything you love out of a classic slasher, and then also using humor able to disarm people to the darker themes we explore in this film. The character I play, Sarah, is wild and unlike anything I've done before. I was excited to have the opportunity to play her.

Did you grow up a horror fan?

Yeah, I love watching horror films. I love feeling a lot in movies. You go to the theater and you're physically laughing, screaming, shocked, surprised, crying, and all of that. Horror movies offer such a great into that experience.

How do you describe a set Marcus ran?

Marcus created a free environment for all of us to create. He came up with a wonderful tone and vision for this film, and he knew what he wanted, while being the most generous director I've ever worked with. He also gave us the space to improv when we wanted to try new ideas and things we might not be able to do with other directors. We were able to try different options for things with him. Everyone had an incredible time working with him.

What were the biggest challenges in your first horror film?

You need physical stamina when doing a horror film. There were a lot of stunts. There's also just a lot of screaming. I learned it takes eight days for your voice to recover from a single scream and I was doing quite a bit [laughs]. I learned how to deliver every day physically and what was required of the piece while ensuring my body was good and strong. Also, it's important to balance, I was adamant about making sure I understood Marcus's tone for the film because there's a lot of gore, horror, and shock, but also quite a bit of comedy, and some drama. There's a real heart and throughline to this story. Being able to balance that and understand what it was going for was important to me.

Did you feel you've evolved as an actor because you did this movie?

I do. It was a wonderful experience for a group of people loving this genre, and story, and taking it head on. I put my fake blood, sweat, and tears into this film, and cared about making it as great as can be. I learned a lot about myself and social media from this process. I learned from these crazy characters what not to do. Don't be like these characters! [laughs]

Can you break down the chemistry you had with your costars like JoJo [Siwa], Jennifer [Ens], and Justin [Derickson]?Lucki

ly, the chemistry was so great. I'd worked with JoJo before coming from the Nickelodeon world, reuniting with her was incredible. She's a dedicated, confident, and fun person to work with. It felt like nothing had changed since we worked together before. With the rest of the cast, it was my first time meeting everyone else on the first day of the set. You never know what chemistry will be working together and we struck gold. Jen, Justin, Jack [Doupe-Smith], Julian [Haig], JoJo, Jade, there's a lot of J's in here [laughs]. Ali [Fumiko Whitney] and Cardi [Wong] are incredible actors and talents, but they're also good people, which made the experience a delight. We had instant chemistry.

Is there any other genre work you're hoping to do you haven't tackled before and are ready to take on for a challenge?

All of them! As an actor, I love telling stories that scare me and feel like a challenge in some way, which is what the horror genre does, because I wasn't familiar with it. There was a challenge involved I love. I love the idea of playing everything I love. I love horror, drama, comedy, action, sci-fi, and rom-coms, give me all of it. What drives me is not necessarily just the genre, but a story that means something and there's some element of the character or the story that feels or poses a challenge I want to overcome. That's important to me.

Written by Josh Sims and Jessica Sarah Flaum, #AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead is playing in select theaters, and available on digital and on-demand.

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