The following interview for Backstage’s on-camera series The Slate was compiled in part by Backstage readers just like you! Follow us on Twitter (@Backstage) and Instagram (@backstagecast) to stay in the loop on upcoming interviews and to submit your questions.
Ever since 2017’s “Happy Death Day” amassed an unexpected cult following, Jessica Rothe has been keeping us on the edge of our seats. Now she co-stars as Samantha on Gillian Flynn’s (“Gone Girl,” “Sharp Objects”) small-screen adaptation of the 2013 British drama “Utopia”—and she doesn’t disappoint. Speaking with Backstage, Rothe explains how and why she dove into the violent, conspiracy-laden world of the Amazon Prime Video series, what’s next for the “Happy Death Day” franchise, and how she used Backstage to get her start.
Rothe loved diving into Gillian Flynn’s mind while filming “Utopia.”
“One of the biggest draws, if not the biggest draw, was definitely Gillian Flynn. Funny enough, I had actually encountered this project years ago. It was supposed to be with HBO and David Fincher back in 2014 or something like that. But I think it really found the right home with Gillian and with Amazon because she has such a dark and deliciously twisted mind, and with her previous work, ‘Sharper Objects’ and ‘Gone Girl,’ it became so clear to me that she’s just the master at these kinds of high-stakes, terrifying, wonderful adventures. But her characters also have so much heart and they’re really, really human.
Her character, Sam, let her inhabit a part of herself she doesn’t usually get to.
“[Sam is] just such an incredibly passionate, vocal, vibrant young woman. And it was a really incredible opportunity to jump into the shoes of someone who is so unapologetic because I’m very much a people pleaser, and that’s one of my base operating places, so [it was great] to be able to be someone who doesn’t give a eff about what anybody else thinks.”
Why Horror Films Are a Good Career Decision for Actors “Utopia” ended up being the kind of story we need right now.
“We finished shooting this in September of last year, so it’s been almost a year, which is insane. And none of us could have ever guessed the parallels that would be happening when the show was released and what’s going on in our world…. It allows us to process things in our own lives and emotions we have without getting too close, as if it were something that felt a little more grounded and more realistic or kind of jarring because it was too close to home. But not only can people process in that way; there’s also a lot of hope in the show even though it is so dark and so twisted and so wild. I think at the root of it, it is a show about a group of unlikely heroes who will stop at nothing to save humanity, and I think we need more stories like that right now. I need more stories like that right now.”
Rothe doesn’t want work that comes easy.
“I like to look for projects that scare me, because why do something if it’s going to be easy? But I like challenges and I love working with people who are better than me because I want to learn, and that’s the way that you learn: you surround yourself [with] people who, whether it’s they’ve been doing this longer or they have different life experiences or it’s an incredible filmmaker-auteur who has a vision and passion and a very specific style. I think that that’s what’s so exciting about [acting] is getting to meet people like that and getting to be exposed to different ideas and different ways of life.”
Besides basic preparedness, she thinks passion is the key to success in auditions.
“Be prepared. Know your lines. Find the part of the character that you really relate to and makes you excited and passionate about the project, because I do think that passion and being excited about something can take you a really, really long way. And if you’re not, and if you’re kind of just phoning it in, not only are you wasting the people watching you’s time, but you’re wasting your own if you don’t want to be doing it. It’s a hard enough job.”
She would tell her younger self not to discount any job.
“There are going to be jobs that you think are the one that would make your career and it’s not. And then there are going to be jobs that you think are just a little fun, silly job you’re doing, and that’s going to be the one to make all the difference. There is no one ‘big break.’ ”
There’s a concept in place for “Happy Death Day 3.”
“Chris [Landon] has it totally figured out, and of course everyone who was involved with the films would really love to make it, but we also only want to make it if we can make it in the right way because I think that we owe it to our fans, we owe it to the genre of comedy-horror, to finish it out in a respectable and correct way. And so I hope that will happen someday. Maybe we’ll pull a ‘Halloween’ and in 20 years I’ll get to be badass Jamie Lee Curtis and come back and get some Babyface.”
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