After violently going after a ruthless entity in “Evi Dead Rise” last year, Lily Sullivan again takes on another threat in Monolith. The sci-fi horror movie by Matt Vesely is about a disgraced journalist (Sullivan) who starts a podcast about unsolved mysteries to make a name for herself again. While listening to the people’s mysterious stories, she’s sucked into one in particular much more, the one about a strange black brick turning up at people’s front door. The more she discovers about this, the more she becomes obsessed with it, resulting in her mental health declining. We chatted with Sullivan before Monolith‘s digital release and talked about this anxiety-inducing horror, what it’s like to film a movie while being the sole actor and her future projects.
Geek Vibes Nation: Hi Lily, congratulations on the film; what was it about the script that made you want to do Monolith?
Lily Sullivan: I would say that the script terrified me. The idea of being the sole actor on screen and being in the sci-fi world and adrenaline-based and fear-based from an acting point of view is also quite terrifying. Also, we shot the film in 15 days; there’s no time to think. You just have to go straight with your gut instincts, which is fantastic. Also, Lucy Campbell, the writer, wrote such a beautiful, tight script that just lived in the edit. We were going to shoot it in 15 days; it was such a fast race. It was pretty liberating, and the fear diffused because of it. Once I read it, I was terrified by the idea of doing it, not only because of the time limit but also the space.
GVN: Did shooting in one location make this film even more challenging?
LS: Yes, indeed. It was like fitting what feels like a more significant film into such a small budget. It’s like indie filmmaking; you just strip back all the fat. After doing Evil Dead Rise, which was the total opposite, it was such a brilliant way to create and expand as an actor. Also, for the team to work with such restraints and try to create suspense and intensity through such a small budget and a small timeline to get it done, was amazing to be part of. So, making that disadvantage a narrative asset, the one actor, one location, it was a wild ride.
GVN: Your character does on-screen interviews for her podcast. How did you do those interviews?
LS: It wasn’t a live interview with the people as the filmmaker didn’t cast any of the other actors because of the budget. What they did was they had this brilliant actor, Nsuya, on set and put through the audio via my headphones. The audio was live-fed to me. She was reacting in time, so it wasn’t a recorded recording. Every character to me was her repeatedly; she played all of them. We would play different ways, and then the other actors would come in once we finished shooting, and then they would have to act to whatever had been selected for the edit from Matt. It was weird to also be hearing the actual audio through your headset. It became pretty, quite psychedelic, intense and isolating, having just everyone in your ears and audio and only my voice. It was bizarre but fantastic.
Also, they’re not turning the camera around on another actor. I’ve never appreciated other actors more in my life. When you take away another person’s body language, which just becomes like a second language, there’s less interaction. When you just make it audio, your imagination becomes quite electric, but also, it’s just a lot harder to listen without having someone physically in front of you. It’s always quite challenging.
GVN: And how was it then to put the headphones back off at the end of the shooting day?
LS: By the end of the day, I was just like, I need to leave. I’d return to my little cottage and just say, “Oh God”. Just hide away. It was like winter as well. And light a fire and just tap out. The day after, it would be 12 more minutes of dialogue. I had to treat it like theatre because it was a short shooting schedule, and I had to learn it from front to back cause there was no way to get through the 15 days and complete a whole feature length.
GVN: Does an experience like this make you want to do theatre in the future?
LS: Yes, definitely. Sometimes with filmmaking, you can cover like one minute of the film in a whole day, and you’re just like, “Well, like, okay, we’ve covered that small amount of the film”. There’s a lot of time to think and a lot of technical stuff. Whereas it was excellent with Monolith, Matt would just stay in one place and say, “We’re just going to cover it this way”, and you’d have to do it like that because of the limited shooting days. More than ever before, I feel like I was just super present and couldn’t get in my head. Cause if so, I’d probably have a panic attack, you know? So, it was the same level of immersion that I think theatre would offer. But yeah, one day, I’ll get there.
GVN: And what kind of podcasts do you listen to yourself?
LS: I listened to, especially for this movie, a podcast from a journalist named Georgina Savage. She does this podcast called The Invisible Hand, which is an exciting podcast. Matt interviewed her for this feature just to get our heads around what her procedure would be, how she would interview, how much information and all of that. But otherwise, I’m always like, true crime.
GVN: I don’t want to say too much about these scenes to avoid spoilers, but there’s a moment in the movie where you play opposite yourself. How was it to film those moments?
LS: It was an experience! It was also amazing. It was all done as an inner one-hand-up. So it was all within one shot, and that first reverse and reveal happens when sitting down. It was such a dance, and finding the duality’s physicality was fun. It was a rare experience to act opposite yourself within your head, being alone, but then also to make that physical, which was quite wild. It was such a wild thing to shoot it.
It was like going up a hallway, following me up, then there’s the plate where you can see myself looking at the formation of myself. And then, as we turned around, I would jump back into the other seat, relax my face, and find that soft muscle tissue like this entity that hasn’t fully formed and gained its full physical sort of muscular tissue and strength. That was all in one go. We were laughing so hard at points, just saying, “That’s so good”. It was bizarre.
GVN: There were only a few scenes where you step outside the house. These would give your character and the audience the time to breathe a little bit. Was that the same for you while shooting it?
LS: Yeah, definitely. At one point, I was like, “I’m chained to this desk”, and everything felt really contained and quite isolating. I also love that she has a cigarette in her hand as soon as she steps outside. It’s just like nicotine inhaling and also smoke inhaling, trying to get the fresh air. Because we shot the film chronologically, by that point when the audience felt that, we were all feeling that as well; I feel like we were a crew. It’s a great gift to shoot a film in order and not start at the end. Weirdly, scheduling a movie like that happens a lot. It was a gift and a necessity to complete this film.
GVN: Does shooting in order also add a lot of suspense to it? You knew what would happen because you read the script, but your character finds out more and more towards the end. So, does that heighten the suspense?
LS: Definitely, and also just makes everyone kind of stay on the same page. You get to go more on impulse. I felt like it just brought everyone very close together. I feel like the creative hub and the flow that we had just made it better. You didn’t have to look at your book so much and reflect because you knew what you shot the day before. It was very much being in the moment, which was great.
We were also counting down to the moments the film got weird as hell. We said, “Oh God, we’re up to that tomorrow.” Everyone knew where we were up to just by what we’d covered the day before, which was great. By the end, we were rolling around because we had to roll around the paddock of cow faeces and all of that outdoors bit. It was just so ridiculous. So the end of the shoot, I was just covered in shit. And I was like, “We’ve done that; I’m going to shower now in the beautiful giant house that none of us own, and we have to give back tomorrow.” I would enjoy the shower, and then get the cow shit off me and out under my nails. I said, “That was a fun experience, everyone; thanks so much!”
GVN: And did you see this film at a theatre with an audience?
LS: Yeah, I did; it’s really hard, though. I got to enjoy half, and then I had to just literally go out there. I’m pretty sure I went out when the character went as well. It’s quite an experience to just watch yourself. When you watch a movie, you’re in and have other actors and that’s usually how I gauge what the films are and how I will receive them if I like them or not.
I get to watch other people, and you can listen and judge in a natural way instead of in the self-hate way that naturally comes up when you hear, and you’ll see your face as the only one on a large screen. It was intense to watch yourself for that long. It was a big experience for me. It was hard to finish watching it. That’s why I have good friends and family who all went and did that for me.
GVN: Last year, you also created Evil Dead Rise, a fantastic film. It’s much more bloody than this one. It’s like both horror, but like very opposite. How was it to film and release both films so close to each other, especially with two very different approaches?
LS: I feel like Evil Dead Rise was just entirely physical and packed with fear-based adrenaline intensity and a lot messier. Monolith is super heady and introspective but still carbonates the same fear and paranoia as Evil Dead Rise. I love the beauty of doing horror and sci-fi from an acting point of view; it’s just like how much you have to be in full expression, push boundaries, and entertain realities that terrify people. Play upon the eerie feeling and dark spaces of the mind. It’s just enjoyable to depict that.
There’s the scene in which the black brick comes out of my mouth. It was horrible and disgusting, but we’re all just laughing because it’s all about pulling off gags and just trying to entertain. I’m like, “Give me a black brick, let’s go! What are we doing?” There’s beauty and joy in that, especially in sci-fi and horror. I feel like people who are fans of these genres also have that openness. There’s an appreciation that someone is writing a script or telling you a story that kind of gets under your skin or keeps you wanting to listen and watch. That fascination is so up my alley.
GVN: One last question: Do you have other projects you’re working on?
LS: Yeah, I do, but none that I can talk about, which is always unfortunate. It’s early stages. It’s annoying that I can’t talk about it, but the way it goes until you’re on that set and sign a contract. However, I’m writing at the moment, which is fun. First time taking a crack at that. I’ve read enough scripts now, and now I’m like, “All right, let’s give this a go!” It’s not sci-fi, not horror.
GVN: How is the writing going?
LS: Good. It’s more like comedy and quite like a tragedy. It’s more in the comedy world, but we’ll see.
Monolith is available on digital platforms from the 26th of February courtesy of Blue Finch Film Releasing. Check out our review of Monolith here.