2 weeks Ago By Brandon Schreur
Interview: Matthew Morrison & Kayla Bohan on Playing Father-Daughter, Singing in From Embers By ComingSoon Senior Editor Brandon Schreur spoke to and about starring in the From Embers. Morrison and Bohan discussed playing a believable father-daughter duo, the film’s use of music, and more. “From Embers follows the life of a recently widowed mother (Kara Wang) as she grapples with the loss of her husband Ron (London Kim) while caring for their seven-year-old autistic son, Kevin (Alexander J.
Lee), and forming a bond with their new neighbor, Marty Baker (Matthew Morrison), an alcoholic whose passion for music is only surpassed by his love for his daughter Chloe (Kayla Bohan),” the synopsis reads. “Tackling grief, loss, and resilience, Lily’s life takes a turn when her and Kevin’s relationship becomes strained as secrets become revealed surrounding her husband’s sudden death.” Following a limited theatrical release in Los Angeles, From Embers will be shown in San Francisco, California’s from November 8-14, 2024, and in New York City’s from November 22-28.
Oh, this is my favorite. I love this. Glee and a lot of those kinds of parts for me are just like a walk in the park.
It’s so nice to have something you can just dig your teeth into and really just be an actor for and flex some muscles. For me, I read the script and I really connected with it. I thought it was a story that wasn’t being told very often.
I think a lot of it is about finding new connections after loss, but realizing that sometimes the connections we think will heal us is based on shared trauma and that’s not always a healthy foundation. Yeah, dealing with the darker side of coping and how easy it is to fall into numbing and to reach for alcohol instead of facing shame and guilt head-on. There are a lot of themes in this.
I think at the core of it, for me, a big part of it was the father-daughter bond. It kind of kept him grounded. That sentiment that there’s always someone in your life — whether they’re a close family member, a friend, a therapist, or someone you can reach out to when you feel like your world is crumbling around you.
I loved that powerful sentiment that we should always reach out and that we don’t have to carry all those burdens by ourselves. Yes, that too, spending a lot of time on set. But, really, what brought us together was the making of Panorama.
We worked on it together, we added some more music to it, and we finally recorded it in a studio. The experience, for me, was wonderful. He taught me so many things, so many singing techniques.
Honestly, that just made our bond grow. I felt like, ‘Wow, it will be an amazing experience to work with this guy, for sure.’ And it was! It was one of the best summers of my life.
Yeah, that’s the song she’s talking about. Before we started filming, she had done a version of this song that was lovely and a great foundation for it. I was like, ‘I would love to add my thing to it and I think it’d be a fun process to create this together.
’ But I also didn’t want to take away too much from what she had already created. We just went in, and dove a little deeper into lyrics and different melodies to play with. Then, also, putting it together with two voices.
In the movie, it’s just me singing it, but we did a little music video of us doing it. In the movie, I think there is some underscoring where it’s our version we’re both singing, right? Yeah. But, yeah, that was a song that we kind of created together, and it was fun.
Because it was the song that I wrote for my daughter, that’s why I felt like it was really important for me to kind of put my own take on it because I really wanted to personally connect to it a little more than from what was there from this lovely, talented teenage girl. Yeah, I’ve never had a problem with that, that’s kind of my bread and butter. But that was a part of this script when I first saw it where I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know.
’ I’m kind of trying to get away from that, a little bit, because it is such a brand for me and I like kind of being out there. It was cool to put it in the tapestry of this character, in particular, that is darker, that is going through some stuff, and that has some things to say. Also, music is something that he never really made his career doing, he never really had success.
But it’s something that he holds onto, it’s such a love for him and, obviously, a great connection point to his daughter. We didn’t have a ton of scenes but, while we were at it, he is such a cute kid. He’s so kind.
I feel like he played his character so well. I’d say it’d be pretty difficult to play someone who is autistic, but he did so well. It’s really great to see younger children acting, but he did a great job.
It was so fun working with him. I felt like our bond was pretty tight, too, mostly because I just thought he was really easy to talk to. He was the most professional cast member there was, not going to lie.
I think the hardest part about that scene was I love Kara so much. It was hard yelling at her, at this character. You go into this place of, ‘She’s not Kara.
And I’m not Matty.’ To go there and really dive into that was, I don’t think it was challenging. It was fun.
You get to take the gloves off, you go into this sandbox, and you’re just this kid playing make-believe. I get into these moments where I’m just in the place where I’m so lost in something. In particular, that scene, was really fun for me to go there.
Not necessarily challenging, but you have to add the element of, ‘Yeah, I’m supposed to be intoxicated in this moment.’ Yeah, because what’s too far? I kind of had this moment where she didn’t know I was going to grab her and I kind of just grabbed her, which kind of took her by surprise. We didn’t really have it choreographed or anything; that’s the blessing and the curse of shooting a film in 22 days.
You don’t have much time to rehearse. You just get on set, hopefully everyone knows their lines, and you just go. They start rolling and you just see what happens.
I thought that was really vulnerable, raw, and a lot of fun for me. Brandon Schreur has been writing about comics, movies, television shows, and all things pop culture for roughly five years. He's a lifelong cinephile who spends way, way too much money buying Blu-rays and trade paperbacks.
You can find him on twitter at @brandonschreur. Share article.
