The Direct spoke with Ash stars Aaron Paul and Eiza González, alongside director Flying Lotus, who helped break down the movie's insane ending and twist.
The film follows González's Riya, a space explorer who wakes up to find her space station completely empty, littered only with the dead bodies of her former crew members. Eventually, she runs into Paul's Brion, who seems to be the only living member of her team.
Aaron Paul, Eiza González, and Director Flying Lotus Explain Ash's Big Surprise Twist
"It Obviously Blindsided Me..."
Warning - The rest of this article contains spoilers for Ash.
The tension between Aaron Paul's Brion and Eiza González's Riya continues to build over the course of the movie until the truth is revealed: the whole time Riya has been seeing Brion since waking up, he hasn't been real.
The real Brion died alongside everyone else thanks to the crew's run-in with an intelligent organism on the planet (aptly named Ash). The alien didn't want humanity to take over the planet, so it instead decided to kill them all.
It then infected Riya, making her see a false Brion, who tried its best to get Riya to simply leave the planet.
- The Direct: "[Aaron] It's revealed your character [Brion] is not alive, you know, and has been an alien this whole time. What did you think when you first read that? And how did it affect your performance knowing that ahead of time?"
Aaron Paul: When I first read that, it obviously blindsided me, but it also made me so damn excited... I love a big sort of holy shit moment at the end of the movie, right? People try to do it. Sometimes it fails, sometimes it doesn't, but I think in this instant, it's just like, Oh my god. It really works, you know.
And it didn't really change my sort of process, I just try to forget that that happened, right? Because it's all about trying to make the audience believe what's in front of them. And, you know, want them to sort of have this character's back and just be on the journey with them.
Eiza González: You did such an amazing job. Like, I remember when I was reading the first the script for the first time, I was eager. I was like, I don't know. I have this bad tendency of wanting to know the response to things. I just wanted to know because I'm incredibly curious, and I like to have knowledge...
I was reading so fast through it, because I was really frustrated that I couldn't pinpoint, and when I thought I had pinpointed it, it wasn't, and when I did, and, then in the end, I was like, I love this movie because it is really like, you think it's going to be something, and it what it is, and it's not, and then it keeps turning...
That's why it's been so hard to speak about this movie, because it's impossible to pitch this movie without spoiling it from minute five, you can't really talk about anything that details the film, because it's all spoilery. But in a non-spoiler way, to say this is this movie has so many incredible twists, and it is really for the curious mind and the curious audience.
This is the movie that'll keep your mind going. And I've seen it with people that I've watched it with, what they want to decipher what the answer is, and then they get turned on its head and turn on its head and turn on its head. And that's the dream of filmmaking, really.
- The Direct: "I wanted to talk to you about building the twist of Aaron Paul's Brion that he hasn't been real since we've been seeing him. What was it like building that twist and getting that across to audiences?"
Flying Lotus: There was a way we wanted to play with the character, and obviously, how people were going to interpret the character, you know, how people were going to, especially because it's Aaron Paul too. Like, there's, like, a weird he's [a] universally loved human being...
He's one of those people. Like, I told him, I was like, Man, I bet you haven't bought a drink in forever, because he's just, he's probably walking anywhere, and people like, I love you, man... [he's] one of those people. So, knowing that, I think we had to try to play with that a little bit and also play with the trust dynamic.
I remember showing it to a friend, and as soon as Aaron Paul shows up, my friend looks at me [and says] I don't trust him. I was like, Cool, right? And then, like, 15 minutes later, and he was like, I don't trust her. I was like, All right, well, that's what it needs to be, but it was a lot of fun for Aaron, I think, to try to play with what the dynamic of that, and to try to find different vibes and to approach it in different ways as well.
Eventually, Riya subjects herself to some casual brain surgery to remove the alien parasite. While she's successful, she manages to find a new host in the dead body of Brion.
From there, it turns into a terrifying flesh monster that tries to kill Riya. Thankfully, Riya seems successful in killing it—or at least slowing it down enough to get away.
The final shot of the film, which sees the orbiting space station covered in the alien tentacles of the creature, does suggest that the parasite is far from dead.
- The Direct: "I gotta also ask about designing the Alien and the crazy flesh human creature at the end [that Brion became]. What were the stages that those went through? Like, tell me your influences there.
Flying Lotus: Dude. Oh, man, they went through so many stages. The first stage was just like, straight up, impossible. It was just impossible. I wanted to do something where there were so many crazy tentacles coming out of the creature that the corpse lifted off of its legs.
And it was kind of floating off the ground. All tentacles are carrying it everywhere and stuff. But, you know, next time. Yeah, but it was cool, man. I think the thing that I love about making movies is when you're working with your crew, and you're doing stuff that they've not seen before, and there are things that they're really excited to try.
Like, our special effects teams, they were just like, I was like, dude, we're only gonna build a thing that you guys are gonna get hyped on, because that will get me hype...
Aaron Paul & Eiza González on Crafting Their Characters
"It's About Constant Disocvery..."
- The Direct: "Can you guys talk about how you built your paranoid performances, how you embody them within the film, and fleshing out the dynamic between your two characters [with them] always wary of each other at every given point?"
Aaron Paul: We shot pretty much in order of the script, which was really helpful, I think, as actors, and she wakes up, completely beat up, she has no idea what is happening, where she's at, or even who she is, and her entire crew has been massacred on this space station on another planet.
And then I show up, and she attacks the shit out of me, and she's trying to figure out, okay, who am I? You know, what happened to my crew? And so we're just trying to see if we can trust one another through the process.
And so we just kind of stuck to the page, you know, and scene-by-scene, and went on, but I adore her. I've known her for many, many years. She's a dear friend of mine, and so we had to push that aside and tackle this together. But it was a beautiful journey.
Eiza González: Yeah, it was incredible. I mean, these roles are a gift as actors. When you get roles that you can really exercise things that it's not necessarily linear. It's about constant discovery. It's about constant sort of vulnerability on the day and finding feelings...
I'm pretty psychotic when it comes to this. I mean, Aaron said, in a very beautiful way, he's talked about... I'm, like, intense... Like, you mean OCD, but I do, like, I kept a chart of where I thought— It's funny, I don't want to get too actor-y. But when you're getting into this mindset of complete wipeout, right? You gotta stay in that state of mind.
You want to make sure that you're not being repetitive or looking for similar things across the board, especially me, that I'm like in every shot of every minute of the movie. And so I wanted to really tackle different emotions, and so I kept a chart. And then, as he said, we're building it from the base up. It's like a house, right? So you kind of build the kitchen, and you're like, Okay, we have the kitchen. Now we have to get the living room. And so the performance kind of builds that way. And it's a collaboration.
You need an actor you really depend on what the other person's giving you. And so you're like, Okay, check. So, it becomes really fun because you're finding different things and playing around in scenes. And then some stuff works, sometimes it doesn't, but it allows for an array of emotions. And I really, I don't know.
When I get into roles, I get really taken by the morality of my character, and sometimes it's completely corrupt, like I care a lot, it's completely a bad person. Or then sometimes I just feel like I really got to honor the spirit, and I really hone on to that, and that is the guiding light throughout the film, usually.
A key mystery throughout the movie is Riya trying to figure out the fate of all her crew members and, more specifically, if she is the one who killed them.
Riya did kill Adhi (Iko Uwais) and Kevin (Beluah Koale), but only because it was clear that something else was in control, and she'd die herself if she didn't act.
Poor Clarke (Kate Elliott), however, was a victim of Riya's paranoia and manipulation. She almost survived by leaving the space station, but upon returning, Riya drowns her by flooding her helmet with water.
As for the original Brion, he was killed by Kevin, who was being controlled by the Alien at the time. This happened two days before Riya discovered Brion's body.
The full video interview with Aaron Paul and Eiza González can be viewed below:
Flying Lotus Explains How Ash's Color Enhances the Film
"The Colors Were a Huge Things For Me."
- The Direct: "Ash is a very vibrant and colorful film. Can you talk about your choices there and how it enhances the story?"
Flying Lotus: Yeah, the colors were a huge thing for me. We had a really amazing Gaffer, and we were kind of up against it in terms of the things that we could build. Everything was practical, and we didn't have a bajillion dollars, so my thought was, you know, we want to try to play with lights and really, really try to get the most out of the environment.
And also, because the movies, you know, from Riya's perspective, we really wanted to let the colors reflect her headspace and when, where she's at and her journey.
- The Direct: "How do you feel that this movie kind of makes a unique mark on the alien sci-fi genre because there's a lot of choices out there? "
Flying Lotus: I just felt like, you know, I did my part. I brought what I could bring to the script. I'm a humble student, and I'm always learning and trying to get better and grow in this.
And I just felt like this is one of those movies where I could contribute the things that I know and the things that I've learned and as well, like, yeah, just experiment and try things. That is a big part of my process, too.
And I can't connect with a lot of material that is so straightforward. And also, you know, there's no lore. I need to be able to world-build. You know, I love that.
The full conversation with director Flying Lotus can be viewed here:
Ash releases is now playing in theaters.
