Did being that emotional get to be a little too much at times?
Shelley Hennig: Maybe, one could argue, but it’s crazy. When I first started acting I just never thought I’d be able to go to the places that I have, but I think I felt really safe in that environment. I thought I had already gone to those places in other work that I’ve done and I was totally wrong. I reached, I think we all did, a whole new level of what is capable of grasping within myself and I’m really proud of that, but I do hope to do some romcoms for that reason.
I also read that you and the other actors had to learn how to work and operate the cameras filming you at times. Was that tricky and were there any difficulties you faced in the process?
Shelley Henning: I think that was one of my biggest challenges at first. It wasn’t weird to me, acting through a screen. What was weird to me was the technical stuff. For instance, Nelson and Leo were watching on a monitor on a TV. The TV in the living room was their monitor and they were watching from there, so they found after takes what worked and what didn’t and they suggested, “Don’t always be directly in the middle of the shot because when people are Skyping you’re never just right in the middle. You’re doing things and you’re moving around.” So they really encouraged making it as believable as possible so we had to be aware for the first day of the technical aspects of being your own camera operator, but shortly afterwards it became second nature.
This is clearly an improv heavy movie for the actors. How much improvisation did you say you did overall?
Shelley Hennig: Oh my god, a lot. But it wouldn’t have been possible without Nelson’s script obviously. You know, I hate even sometimes saying that it was improvised because Nelson and Timur (Bekmambetov) created this story that was up to us to portray, but Nelson was so up for it. We were learning so much day-to-day and he found that the improvising really helped keep things very natural. A lot of the ideas were still from the script, but we found new ways of delivering his words each time.
Is there anything you can tell us about the upcoming season of Teen Wolf?
Shelley Hennig: Well, Malia now knows who her real father is, but who is her mother? And apparently it’s the Desert Wolf. As if she didn’t have enough daddy issues, now she’s going to have some mommy issues if they can find her. I think Stiles is willing to help her, but I think some things happen throughout the season that makes her quest sort of move direction a little. But hopefully by the end of the season we get a little more sense of who the Desert Wolf is and if she’s good or evil and how it’s going to affect Malia. And they are in their last year of high school, if Malia makes it because of her grades. I think that’s the year where there are a lot of decisions to be made. Are her and Stiles going to stay together? Is she going to get into the same college he’s going to? Is he going to college? It’ll be interesting to see what happens to the pack.
That concludes our interview, but we’d like to thank Shelley very much for chatting with us. Be sure to check out Unfriended when it arrives in theaters on April 17th.
