KJ Apa shared with The Direct how his latest film, Amazon MGM Studios’ One Fast Move, helped him move onto a new era of his career.
The film follows Apa’s Wes Neal, who, after serving prison time for a street racing stint, looks to find a new purpose in his life. He decides it best to track down his father, Eric Dane’s Dean Miller (who left when Wes was six years old) to start a career in motorcycle racing.
Along the way, Wes also meets Reficco’s Camila, a local girl who quickly clicks with the newfound racer. However, both may be hiding crucial details about themselves from the other.
KJ Apa & One Fast Move Colleagues Talks About the Movie's Importance
In a series of exclusive interviews, One Fast Move stars KJ Apa, Maia Reficco, and Eric Dane sat down with The Direct's Russ Milheim to discuss how they crafted their characters and why the movie was so important to them.
KJ Apa, whose popularity skyrocketed in the late 2010s thanks to his starring role as Archie in The CW's Riverdale series, views One Fast Move as the start of a new path for his future career, explaining how the project "infused a whole new love of being actor:"
"I haven't been a part of anything I've felt this close to. It's made me very excited about the future of the work that I want to do, the people that I want to work with, the stories that I want to be a part of, and the values that I want to contribute to the work that I do.... Working on this movie with [director] Kelly [Blatz] and playing this character infused a whole new love of being an actor and what it means to invest yourself into a story and how much it takes, which is kind of similar to what Wes is going through, and the themes that Kelly and I were talking about developing..."
The 27-year-old Apa explained that the anchor point for his portrayal of Wes was simply "motorcycles," adding how meeting Camilla was also incredibly important as she represents "positivity in his world:"
"The anchor point for Wes would be motorcycles. Then he meets Camilla, and I believe that she is this kind of positivity in his world that he's able to open up to. It's almost like he's able to live truly with her and allow her to see all the things that you wouldn't otherwise let other people see. He's quite guarded because of his upbringing and the relationship he has with his mother, who passed away, and now his father."
For Reficco, the balance of Camilla both being a mother and trying not to "[lose] herself within motherhood" was the grounding point in establishing the character:
"For me the most grounding part of her is her being a mother, and at the same time, her being a woman and not letting one thing take over the other, and how much of herself is at stake at all times. There's a lot of losing herself within motherhood, and at the same time, within this love story that she's trying to balance and keeping herself as the priority and her son as the priority was my biggest grounding point. And I think, thankfully, thanks to Kelly... it was so clear what it was that made her a human and makes her a kind person."
Dane thought it was very important for him not to consider Dean a bad guy, saying while "he's made some questionable choices in his life," the man is "not a criminal:"
"He's rough around the edges... He's made some questionable choices in his life, but he's not a criminal. And while he has done something that is universally frowned upon in leaving a woman pregnant with his son and then abandoning the kid to pursue his childish dreams of becoming a motorcycle racer... Society doesn't look too kindly upon people like that. But again, they're not criminals, and it's not for me to judge the guy. So, I couldn't ever consider Dean a bad guy. I considered him a flawed guy who made some really poor choices along the way."
As for what made this movie so important to KJ Apa, the actor shared that he "[hasn't] been a part of anything that [he's] felt this close to," and how the project "infused a whole new love of being actor:"
"I haven't been a part of anything I've felt this close to. It's made me very excited about the future of the work that I want to do, the people that I want to work with, the stories that I want to be a part of, and the values that I want to contribute to the work that I do.... Working on this movie with [director] Kelly [Blatz] and playing this character infused a whole new love of being an actor and what it means to invest yourself into a story and how much it takes, which is kind of similar to what Wes is going through, and the themes that Kelly and I were talking about developing..."
The actor continued, explaining how "the idea of greatness and the sacrifices that come with it" hit close to home for not only his character but Apa himself:
"The idea of greatness and the sacrifices that come with it. That's a conversation I've been having with myself my whole life about how to juggle all of these things and balance them. Because at the end of the day, you want to enjoy your life, but you want to--Wes wants to leave behind a legacy and wants to continue doing what he loves, And I think everyone inherently wants to do that, you know? I think that's why we're all alive: to create, to leave something behind, and to be happy."
Maia Reficco echoed a similar sentiment, exclaiming how "profoundly meaningful" it was "to work on something that made [her] so happy to be there every day:"
"The most unique part of making this movie was enjoying the process so much... I've been very fortunate to work on so many things that I've had so much fun doing. But the passion that KJ and Kelly had throughout the whole process was so contagious and was so infectious. It was just very tangible, and it came through every day... It was truly so profoundly meaningful to me to work on something that made me so happy to be there every day. And I've tried to carry that on into everything that I do."
As for Dane, the actor noted that he loved getting to ride all of the motorcycles while reiterating the cast and crew "loved every minute" of working on the film:
"Well, listen, I got to ride some motorcycles that were unbelievable on a track that we had entirely to ourselves, with some riders who were as good as it gets when it comes to people on the back of motorcycles... We had all bought into this way early on because Kelly had such a clear vision about what he wanted, and he was so all in, invested, and jazzed up about this project. We all bought in early, and it was 95 to 97 degrees daily, with almost 100% humidity. And we're in racing leathers on the asphalt. You know, we loved every minute of it."
One Fast Move is now streaming on Amazon Studios' Prime Video.
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