ComingSoon Senior Editor Brandon Schreur spoke to Anthony Michael Hall and Richard Bakewell about the new emotional sci-fi movie Roswell Delirium. Hall discussed what drew him to star and produce the film, while Bakewell talked about his experiences writing and directing the unique, low-budget project.
“In an alternate 1980s America ravaged by nuclear fallout, young Mayday Malone intercepts an intergalactic distress signal on her ham radio, leading her to Spacerock—a mysterious site near Area 51,” a description of the movie reads. “Exposed to lethal radiation, Mayday’s health deteriorates rapidly. Desperate, her mother returns to Spacerock, hoping alien intervention can save her daughter.”
Roswell Delirium is now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
Brandon: Anthony, you star in this movie, but you also produce it through your company, Manhattan Films, which I think is awesome. Can you tell me a little bit about how you got involved with this project and, especially, what made you want to be involved as a producer? Was there anything about this movie that personally spoke to you that made you say, ‘Yes! Get me in there!’?
Anthony Michael Hall: Yeah, it was just the quality of the script. I was really impressed with Rick’s writing and the fact that it was a very ambitious film. It’s really character-driven and really rich in story. It’s interesting, when you watch a movie, so many people are used to sort of trying to figure out the film. As we watch the film, we’re trying to get to the ending, in some way. With this, I thought there was a lot of surprising stuff, a lot of interesting character stuff, and a lot of reveals. I think that’s really interesting. I think many modern-day audiences want to stay on their toes; you want to be interested, intrigued, and pulled in by something. I was really drawn to the script, I was really impressed with Rick’s writing.
In terms of my company, this is something I wanted to do many, many years ago. When I started out as a kid actor, I knew, working with John Hughes, I was so inspired by him. I thought, in the long run, this would be great. I’m proud to say this is the second project for my company, Manhattan Films. And Rick’s company is LightForce Films, he was kind enough to join forces with me.
I kind of came in towards the end. Rick did a lot of the prep work himself, and I’ll let him tell you about that. But it was really a labor of love, as all independent projects are. It was a movie we shot in about three weeks. Rick led the charge, he was really great. He’s an experienced cinematographer, he’s a filmmaker, and he’s made multiple films already. It was really a fun project to join forces with.
Totally. That jumps into what I wanted to ask you, Rick — the whole time I was watching this movie, I was thinking that writing and directing this project must be so hard because there are so many different tones going on. The timeline moves around in a really interesting way, and you have elements of sci-fi and world-building with everything that happened before the story actually starts. Then, at the end of the day, I also think it really reads as a personal story about a mother and her daughter. Can you tell me a little about how it was balancing all of this? Was it hard to come out with an end product that turned out this good?
Richard Bakewell: For me, I don’t think it was that hard to have it turn out the way it did. I felt like, when we were making the film — writing it was probably the hardest process because you write a draft, you hate something, you’ve got to go back and change it, and then try to connect the pieces, the tissues all together. Filming the movie, people would come to set even when they weren’t supposed to be. They just wanted to come hang out and see the other actors perform, they were so invested. I remember my friend Scott, who did the media management for the film, every day he’d come to me and go, ‘It’s working.’ He’d look at the scenes and say, ‘It’s working.’ You could just tell people were so excited about it.
For me, I think I was the only one who knew the entire story so well. So, when we were in the edit, I could really piece it together. I had two other editors who started on it, and they didn’t really do a good job. They just weren’t connecting the film in the way that it should be and finding the performances that I knew were there. So I kind of stepped in and did that to bring it all together. But it is a hard balance — there is humor in the ‘80s parts of the film, but you don’t want to have too much humor because then it starts to make it a sitcom. That was hard to kind of dial back, but we had to dial back the humor and let the drama and delirium, in a sense, take over. That’s what the film is really about: this girl who’s had a lifetime of trauma and having to bridge all these thoughts, whether they’re real or not, and come to acceptance in the end.
Oh, sure. And that jumps into the character you’re playing, Anthony, because you do have a lot of those scenes where you’re unpacking that trauma. I thought you and Ashton Solecki had a really good back-and-forth. All those scenes, I was so invested in trying to figure out what was going on. What was it like filming those moments and getting to act in those scenes?
Hall: First of all, just to acknowledge Ashton Solecki, because, early on in the process, Rick sent me her audition tape after we joined forces and agreed to make the movie together. He said, ‘You’ve got to check this girl out.’ And she was really impressive. Even from her audition, I could tell she was a really interesting actor. I think acting is in the eyes, anyway, and less about all the yak coming out of your mouth sometimes.
But she was really invested, as Rick said, as was everyone in the film. So it was really fun for me. What I wanted to do with the role of Jerry Baskin that Rick created was just let him be a guiding light or a paternal spirit. I’ve actually been in therapy in my life, at different junctures, and it’s a very helpful, very interesting tool to incorporate into your own life. What’s interesting about therapists is that they can’t lead in any way. They can’t lead the conversation. So you really have to be an active listener, which is also the task of an actor. You have to be really invested in listening to the other person. So I tried to give it that.
I also felt the voice was important, that I had a calming presence, hopefully, for her in those scenes, because she’s kind of re-traumatizing herself going through all of this. What Jerry is trying to do, the character that I play, is kind of pull her out of that reality and bring her back to reality of sorts. She’s suffered, as Rick said, from the delirium, really, of this difficult relationship with her mother. She’s not sure if she’s misremembering things or if she did, in fact, meet the aliens.
Obviously, what Rick created, which is interesting, is this context where there’s nuclear fallout in the flashback scenes, which gives it a grounding and a real pathos, if you will, since she’s been affected by that. The more challenging relationship is really with her mother — she’s got to figure this out and come to some sort of peace.
I was really impressed with Ashton’s work, as well as all of the kids. What we’ve talked about in some of the interviews, we were just so impressed by all the kids. They were not only prepared, but they came to work with such a passion, a joy, and a love for what they were doing. Really, they had more lessons to teach us than we could teach them, I think. Rick was really great at guiding them and treating them like young adults. I saw shades of John Hughes in what Rick was doing because he was very personal in terms of making sure each character, each actor, had appropriate space and time. He’d work through their scenes with them, and he was always there as a resource for them. That’s really important, as a director. You want to give that guidance, but at the same time, let actors lose, in a way, and let them cut free.
So all these dynamics really came together nicely, but I really loved working with Ashton, in particular. She was wonderful. She’s a talented young actress and a really smart lady.
Definitely. That dives into what I wanted to ask you next, Rick. Anthony and Ashton aren’t the only great actors you’ve assembled here; I got so excited when Reginald VelJohnson showed up. It’s like, ‘Oh, I know him! Die Hard, that’s awesome!’ But your main star, Kylee Levin, I wanted to ask about her because I hadn’t seen her in anything before. I thought she totally nailed it. How did that casting come about? How did you find her, and what did you think she brought to this role?
Bakewell: Well, I cast her in a short film in 2018 called The Rabbit Hole. It was like a 30-minute short, and that was kind of her audition. She was nine years old when we shot the film, and I told her after we had the premiere, ‘I’m going to write something else for you.’ I kind of wrote this film around her strengths. I knew how good she was, so I kind of built the story around what I knew she could do as an actress and things that she had gone through in her life. It was like, ‘Oh, here’s already a girl who I know so well,’ and I kind of just gave her the role, I didn’t even make her audition.
And we worked very closely. I wrote, I think like draft fourteen, and I had her and [Arielle Bodenhausen] come to the Roswell house, where we shot it. We rehearsed the whole movie, they read the entire script, we shot it, and cut it together, and I was like, ‘Really, we could film this right now, because she was really so good and just really connected to the character.’ She was doing the work. We shot it during the pandemic, so there were a lot of regulations and stuff, and things we had to go through. There were days when we filmed some of the scenes — I won’t give away some of the scenes — where I couldn’t separate myself from her. Watching her go through things, I started getting very emotional because I couldn’t connect that it was an actor. I was like, ‘Oh, it’s Kylee, she’s experiencing this,’ so I was just really upset. That’s how good she was, she really got me a lot of the days on set. But I kind of knew what she could do, I kind of just let her go.
Hall: I just wanted to add something to that. I think, with child actors, a lot of times they can be viewed through the lens of, ‘They ham it up too much.’ I think, at the core, kids are just so helplessly honest and real. They’re themselves. I think that’s such a leg-up when it comes to acting. Acting is almost a misnomer from what it is; you really want to be as real and connected as you can. And, obviously, children are just like that normally. They’re just curious, interested, and unafraid. That really came through. But I agree with what Rick said, Kylee was really impressive. She really did a great job and understood all the emotional beats. She was a total pro on the set.
And that totally comes across in the movie, I thought she was great. It really worked. I also wanted to ask both of you just about the 1980s influence in this movie. I feel like that plays a really big role with all the references. Even though we are in this alternate history timeline, I love how you still worked that influence into the movie. What do you hope audiences take away from that? And, Anthony, I know you were acting in the ’80s with The Breakfast Club and everything. I know that your scenes in here are more in the present day, but was there any deja vu going back to a set and it’s all ‘80s themed?
Hall: Yeah, it was kind of fun. I also spent a couple of years doing The Goldbergs. But let me go on record and say that I never meant to represent a decade. I’m not trying to be Mr. ‘80s at all. I think the gift and blessing is that I’ve had such a long career, and I’m still chipping away at it, still rocking. But I’m just grateful for it. I think Rick, it’s a testament to his script, there were a lot of callbacks to TV shows, even commercials, or things that people of a certain age, old people like me and Rick, that our age group would get. I thought it was very smart that Rick embedded that in the script throughout.
Bakewell: For me, when I made the film in alternate ‘80s, I really wanted it to feel familiar. So there are so many references that are hidden. Some people will never get some of those, but there are some things — I remember when we had the premiere, one of my friends came, and there’s a scene where Kylee is taking her corn on the cob and rubbing it on a piece of bread with butter. My friend goes, ‘That’s from War Games.’ I’m like, ‘How do you remember that little moment from War Games?’ It was little things like that that people caught. That’s the fun of it, when people catch those things. We want it to be familiar, but at some point — there’s nostalgia, but then it gets very serious. The nostalgia part is fun, and that’s what the ‘80s were all about, which is feeling good. I think we need that more than ever these days.
Thanks to Anthony Michael Hall and Richard Bakewell for discussing Roswell Delirium.
