Fresh off a recent turn in “The Hunger Games” universe at the end of last year and a cameo in Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds of Kindness” earlier this summer, Hunter Schafer is quickly returning back to the silver screen with “Luz” filmmaker Tilman Singer’s “Cuckoo.” The film centers on 17-year-old Gretchen (Schafer), who is forced to leave her American home to live with her father in a resort in the German Alps with his new wife and family, before things very quickly spin out of control into a surreal horror nightmare.
Three months after the Season 2 finale of “Euphoria” aired, Schafer flew to Germany to star in her very first feature film. “Looking back on the experience overall, the biggest difference is that I started ‘Euphoria’ in 2019 and it’s still going now. And then with something like ‘Cuckoo,’ with this experience, it lives solely in those three months [of production], at least for the process when we filmed it,” Schafer said in an interview with IndieWire. “Both are really exciting in their own ways, but I liked how secular and special just those three months were.”
Filming took place in just 35 days and was shot entirely on 35mm film. With such intense scenes, one may think that the stakes are higher as you have more limited opportunities for endless takes. “I mean, yes and no,” Schafer said. Luckily for her, she has been no stranger to this.
“I think film versus digital always sort of changes the structure of filming,” she said. “I’m thankful that we shot pretty much the entire second season of ‘Euphoria’ on film, so I had some experience working on film before. But I really enjoyed that rehearsal becomes much more integral to the process with film, because you do have to be more precious with the actual material of film and how much you use. You really have to be more intentional about rehearsing and I fucking love rehearsal. I’ll take it whenever I can get it.”
The film premiered at the 74th Berlin Film Festival earlier this year. Outlets and social media have since been quick to try to label the rising movie star a “scream queen.” Schafer herself is not so keen on the label.
“Honestly, I mean, just from like a terminology perspective, I feel like a scream queen title is for people who have done multiple horror movies and this is my first horror movie,” she said. “I don’t know if I feel very deserving of it yet. It’s very sweet, the intention, and obviously, it’s a fun word to say, but I would not call myself that cool.”
With a festival premiere like “Cuckoo,” the waiting game for its release can feel heavy, with six months between the festival and the theatrical opening. Even with that break in between, Schafer isn’t one to get caught up in reading reviews.
“Honestly, it’s kind of nice that I’ve had this much distance from it now. I don’t know, I only do projects like that I really believe in,” she said. “You have to be careful sometimes reading critiques and reviews and whatever. I don’t really care what anybody thinks at the end of the day, too, because I had such an amazing time making this movie, and I love the movie. That’s my experience with it, and it doesn’t matter. Of course, I hope it does well at everything and that people do find meaning and do have a good time watching it, but at the end of the day, I got what I wanted out of it.”
First footage of the film online saw Schafer brandishing a butterfly knife, effortlessly pulling it out from her pocket. Director Singer had sent her one as soon as she got cast so that she could start practicing. “Tilman had one too, and we’d practice on Facetime together,” she said. “It’s also just a really fun, kind of fidget toy to mess around with. It’s not something that I really have to, like, force myself to learn. I just had it laying around my apartment and would pick it up whenever I was bored and mess with it. I did that for two years waiting to film this movie. I could do the basics by the time we filmed.”
Not only did she learn how to become a knife-wielding pro, but Schafer also learned sign language and bass guitar and sang on screen for the first time. “That was no improv [laughs]. I learned bass guitar for this role. Simon Waskow wrote the music and the song for the movie, and I got lots of time to rehearse it, practice it, and whatever.”
“It’s also kind of nice, because Gretchen is supposed to be like an amateur musician,” she continues. “It’s not supposed to be like a Grammy-winning, teenage girl messing around on a guitar. That kind of lifted some of the pressure off as someone who’s not really a musician. I had fun with it and then we ended up recording the song in our hotel bathroom at the end of this year.”
As Schafer gets ready for “Cuckoo” to be shared with the world, she is also celebrating David Lowery’s upcoming A24 melodrama epic “Mother Mary,” co-starring Anne Hathaway and Michael Coel, which wrapped just over a week ago. At the premiere of “Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” last November, Schafer told IndieWire that “it was a lot of fun, and I think people are going to be mind-blown.”
“I had so much fun with that movie,” Schafer said, looking back at the production. “We just finished pickups a couple of weeks ago. I grew up watching Anne Hathaway, so that was just so surreal. And then Michaela Coel, I’ve said it in interviews before I got to know her, where she [has been] like a huge figure for me as far as like, I want to be like her when I grow up, and I want to do what she’s doing. To work closely and also just get to see her really head first in her project is invaluable to me. I’m very lucky to call them both friends now.”
Grammy-winning producers Jack Antonoff and singer Charli XCX have written and produced original songs for Lowery’s film. In the spirit of Brat Summer, we asked Schafer if she had heard any of Charli XCX’s new music for “Mother Mary.”
“I’ve heard a couple of snippets,” Schafer said. “Other than that, I don’t really know, yeah, I don’t know too much. I’m really excited to see how the experience of watching this movie is going to be, but for now I just have to use my imagination.”
Fresh off the news that production for “Euphoria” Season 3 will commence in January, and a bombshell report about Zendaya and Sam Levinson, we asked Schafer her thoughts on constantly getting asked about the HBO series with nearly any interview she does. “I’m pretty used to it at this point,” she said. “I get it. Also, it’s like, that show was my entryway into this world. But yeah, it’s something I’m used to and have to navigate based on where we’re at in making the show.”
Earlier this year, Schafer spoke in a GQ interview, where she said that she doesn’t want to be identified solely by her transition story, saying that she has “gotten offered tons of trans roles, and I just don’t want to do it. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s a privilege, but it’s been very intentional.” Just a few months later, we asked if she still stood by what she said.
“I mean, that article got a lot of pick-up, so I think the message was sent to a degree,” Schafer said. “I look back on it, and I definitely meant what I said, but also, just right now, this, like, ebbs and flows for me all the time. I want to make stuff about trans people someday, [but] hopefully, the next time I do a role or something like that, it will be for something that I’m a part of making.”
“Cuckoo” hits theaters on Friday, August 9. Check out the film’s trailer here.
