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| Rahul Kohli and Katie Parker in Next Exit Photo: courtesy of Magnet Releasing |
A modest little independent film which made an unexpected splash at Tribeca and Frightfest earlier this year, Next Exit brings together a big concept, a strong script and two affecting central performances to create something which will linger in your mind. It’s written and directed by Mali Elfman (with contributions to the score by her father Danny) and is set in a world where it has been conclusively demonstrated that there is an afterlife. As institutions and individuals alike struggle to adjust to this news, a scientist in California begins a research project which will see some people die under controlled conditions in order to try to get a better understanding of the process.
Teddy (Rahul Kohli) and Rose (Katie Parker) are both, for different reasons, dissatisfied with their lives, so they volunteer to participate in the experiment. When problems emerge with their travel plans, they decide to hire a car together and drive there cross country, despite being strangers and almost immediately experiencing a personality clash. What follows is a journey which will change them both and which will keep you guessing despite what might feel like a familiar formula. As the film prepares to go on general release in the US, I caught up with Rahul and asked him how he initially got on board with it.
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| Rahul Kohli and Katie Parker in Next Exit Photo: courtesy of Magnet Releasing |
“I liked the scripts and I liked the premise,” he says. “I thought it was really, interesting the idea of people choosing to opt out when they discover that there's life after death. But I was more taken with the opportunity to kind of approach this material and his character differently to what I was doing at the time, which was Midnight Mass. We were going to shoot this road trip movie as a road trip and fly to the beginning in Kansas City and physically drive to each location on the way, getting closer to California, Los Angeles, where we would eventually wrap. And it's just one of those things where it's the right role at the right time. I was playing Sheriff Hassan and he was a quiet, dignified, stoic – a man who bottled his emotions. And I adore that character. It’s one of the highlights of my career. But at the same time, for the next role, it was a motormouth who wears his heart on his sleeve, comedic, British accent. The opportunity to play that directly after Hassan definitely played a major role in my decision.”
I agree that Teddy wears his heart on his sleeve, and he’s fun to be around, but he’s also struggling with depression. How did Rahul strike a balance between communicating that side of his character and engaging with the audience?
“That's a great question,” he says, pausing for a moment to think. “There's tragedy in humour. I don't know. I am going to absolve myself of any kind of responsibility here. I mean, I just I showed up when I needed to show up, when the scenes called for me to bring levity to it, that was my mission. And then there were very specific moments where Teddy needed to let the mask drop and show what was going on beneath that. I just followed Mali's lead”
He’s full of praise for Mali and says that her experience as a producer meant she didn’t struggle with the experience of directing for the first time.
“The best compliment I've given Mali is that you can’t tell it was her first feature. Mali had her convictions and knew how to get what she needed and what she wanted and maintain her vision at the same time. She had the perfect balance of also, you know, if I felt that I didn't agree necessarily with the blocking, if I thought there may be a different place we could take this scene or a different take, Mali was completely open to trying different stuff too. She had the perfect mix of being a leader but also being willing to collaborate. She was awesome.”
So what was it like working with Katie Parker? The two have fantastic chemistry in those roles.
“I'd been looking forward to working with Katie,” he says, revealing that they knew each other before shooting started. “Parker was Rose McIver’s room-mate while I was making iZombie with Rose, so I knew Parker from that world, we'd met a few times and hung out, so we had a friendship. Obviously she worked on [The Haunting Of] Hill House and then she was in [The Haunting Of] Bly [Manor] with me, but we were in different episodes, but when she came to town we caught up. So we already had a foundation, so that wasn't particularly difficult.
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| Rahul Kohli and Katie Parker in Next Exit Photo: courtesy of Magnet Releasing |
“We both have very different approaches to work, particularly on that job, but I think that both of our methods complemented one another. It was like, there was a Teddy and Rose story happening off camera as well. I was coming from a very different place, kind of easygoing, and I just wanted to talk shit and whatever. You know, this was Parker’s first movie in the lead and she was very prepared and disciplined. She probably picked me up and got me motivated and I probably got her to cheer up a little bit.”
There was no opportunity to rehearse, he says, but working mostly in TV as he does, that’s something he’s used to – he can only recall being on one project which even had a table read.
“I guess most people say that you have more time on film. You shoot less pages. But with Midnight Mass, that’s seven episodes, that's really three films we shot there, you know, back to back in six months. So the volume of what you get through is a lot different. However, because this was an indie film with a small budget, we still had to move like TV. We couldn't afford to linger and arse around with one page a day. We were on a very strict schedule: we had to move and be at the next destination along the road and drive the next day or late at night. So it moved like the world I was used to.”
That didn’t mean that there was no time for improvisation.
“There was there was a ton of that. A lot of the scenes, Katie and I were just driving. To be honest, one of the reasons I wanted to do the job was that there was room in there to bring some banter in, to change some things. I mean, most of it is obviously scripted, and it's not an improv movie, it's not even 10% improv, but there's always something in the scene that was an added level, a little change here or there, and I think Teddy's last line is improv. There's also portions of the movie when the mic was hot, just left on while I was talking to Parker, and we decided to use that in the movie.”
The world in which the film is set is very rich, with the culture shock stemming from the discovery of life after death revealed in all sorts of small incidents around the main story, but Rahul says that, again, he simply trusted his director rather than doing a lot of his own preparation for that.
“I had very little prep. I was only away for a couple of weeks from Midnight Mass, so this was a very no nonsense type of role for me where I stripped it down to its bare essentials.” He laughs, apologising for taking the romance out of it. “You know, I was the comedic relief on a road trip and maybe that's as much as my brain could allow me to process after a couple of weeks off Midnight Mass and trying to squeeze in a bit of TLC time with my girlfriend, you know what I mean? I didn't really research too much into the paranormal side of things. I think it served me well sometimes to read these beautiful scripts, and obviously have an appreciation or an understanding of what the director and the writer are trying to tell, but then for me, I like to strip it down to the bare essentials and start with things pretty clean, and allow the world, and allow the score, and allow the cinematography and the overall narrative to help sell the rest of the script.”
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| Next Exit poster |
Approaching it in that way gave him an opportunity to learn, he says.
“The thing about Next Exit which stood out for me was my different approach to my preparation and my technique. The method I like to employ when creating character. This was the loosest I've ever been, this is the most kind of free. And with that comes fear. I find that as actors, we tend to gain our confidence from being prepared, you know? Being rehearsed, knowing our lines, making decisions. I’m very much someone who likes to over prepare for a role. With Next Exit, I made the decision to sometimes kind of be free with it. Sometimes I wasn't locking in lines the way I would normally lock in lines the night before. It's an uncomfortable place to be in, but I wanted to do it, and I thought Teddy would benefit from that. And that's something I will take away from it, is that can be done under the right circumstances with the right projects, that can be an interesting approach, and it can really produce some grounded, real stuff.”
He never expected the film to receive such a strong response from audiences and critics, he says.
“I'm totally not shocked, because I wouldn't have said yes if I didn't think it was a great story, and I was a fan of everyone who was involved with it. But I never really gave it much thought. It was sandwiched between some rather large shows, and it was this road trip movie with a first time director, with just two people in a car, that took place over four weeks. No disrespect to anyone kind of just sort of forgot about it, and then I think the festival stuff was the first real kind of like, ‘Oh, okay, this is going to see light of day. Oh, it's being received really well!’
“The weird thing with this one – I never thought this would happen – was that I was out a few days ago and someone came up to me and wanted to talk about Next Exit. So it's all been a wonderful surprise. Now I had no expectations other than wanting to do a good job by Mali and make her first movie as awesome for her as possible. Everything else has been the icing.”
Next Exit is in US cinemas from Friday 4 November.
