 |
| The Plague Photo: courtesy of Steven Breckon. An Independent Film Company release. |
Opening in cinemas across the UK tomorrow, Charlie Polinger’s The Plague is a haunting story about bullying and self-discovery at a water polo camp. Though not among the big hitters, it has been getting some major awards attention, especially for its young cast. This is well deserved, so I was delighted to get the chance to speak with Everett Blunck, who plays the protagonist, Ben, and Kayo Martin, who plays the bullies’ charismatic leader, Jake. Both are in their mid-teens but have a thoughtfulness and self assurance which immediately makes an impression, and they began by telling me how they won their star-making roles.
“Charlie hit my email up and found me on social media,” says Kayo. “He asked me to audition for it and then I got a call back. I did it in my living room. And then one final call back, and they live in New York, so I went downtown and I met Charlie and I met his wife and yeah, I got the role.” He beams.
“For me, it was a normal audition, just a self tape,” says Everett, adding that he had a mutual connection with one of the producers, which boosted his confidence abut the role. “I had a callback with Charlie online and I got the part from there.”
Rehearsal time was important to helping them connect with each other in character, Kayo says.
“We did a little bit the week before, but not before we went to Romania. We would do it some days where there wasn't too much shooting. They were just doing shots without us even in it, just like shots of the school and stuff. But we would still be on set and Charlie would get us to do some practice together.”
 |
| Kayo Martin as Jake in The Plague Photo: courtesy of Steven Breckon. An Independent Film Company release. |
Did they train in water polo?
“We learned a lot. We did one week of it before, one week straight. You said it was three hours a day, right?” he asks Everett.
“Yeah, I think it was three hours a day for the first week. It was five days a week.”
“So, yeah, we did. Me and Everett were doing it with two others, and then there was another group of four that would go. And we had to practice that fight scene at the end of the movie a lot. That was the hardest part of filming for the water polo stuff.”
They had a German scuba team there to keep them safe during that scene, he says.
“They had professionals on the watch and they had people underwater and they had medics standing by, so we were very supported in that,” Everett adds. “I loved filming that. It was a hard scene. It was a grueling scene, but it was super fun and it was choreographed. It was my first stunt fight scene, so it was a new experience and I had a lot of fun. But, yeah, there was so much support behind us, it was really great.”
He has an interesting character, I suggest, because we don't really know which way he's going to jump for a lot of the film. He’s got the potential to be a saviour or to be a bully himself.
“I hadn't really ever been badly bullied the way Ben has, so I couldn't draw from my prior experiences,” he says. “Mostly for me it was talking and communicating with Charlie because he is the writer and he's also the director. He knew very much what he wanted. If I was ever confused about Ben's intentions or what was going on in the scene, just talking with him and sitting down and exchanging thoughts and exchanging ideas and listening to his vision helped. And also he recommended the cast some movies of inspiration. So one of them was Full Metal Jacket. And then I think Eighth Grade, and there was another one. I can't remember that, though. But yeah, I was just talking with him and watching some of the movies that he drew inspiration from.”
Then there’s the plague.
 |
| Everett Blunck as Ben in The Plague Photo: courtesy of Steven Breckon. An Independent Film Company release. |
“I think earlier on, he doesn't really believe that. It's just like the cooties. So he can be funny, but once he starts getting rashes, I think his whole mindset changes, and so he gets very anxious and he's just filled with doubt. He doesn't really know if it's real or if it's fake, and he is very nervous. I tried to make that show a little bit more in the way he talked, especially around Eli and Jake, and his physicality throughout it. When he realises he has a rash, and he's panicking, scrubbing it off. That's definitely the turning point for Ben. It’s when his arc starts, when he starts doubting whether it's fake or whether it's real.”
As for Kayo, he recognises his good foryune at getting a role like Jake so early in his career.
“It was hard because it's in the middle of me covering up insecurities with being confident,” he says. “But it was honestly so much easier bouncing off of Everett and bouncing off of Joel [Edgerton]. When you get to bounce off of good actors it makes it a lot easier. And especially because Everett is so good at playing Ben and playing that insecure role.
“There was some stuff that Charlie was telling me, because no one knows the script as good as Charlie does, and Charlie really had that happening to him at camp. I could see that sometimes happening to other kids, and I could relate to it in the movie, not from it happening to me, but happening to other kids before I even went. I've definitely seen that happening to other kids, so it helped me knowing that for sure.”
We talk about Jake’s backstory and his hidden insecurities.
“That made it hard,” he says. “You know, it's like Jake at home isn't the top guy. He's the smaller one because his brother goes to Princeton or his brother is a big water polo guy. He says his mom is dead. I still don't even know if that's real to this day or not, but there's definitely some stuff going on at home. And now that I'm a summer camp, that's my kingdom where I can really get people, and that's my time where I can be the top guy, you know? I think that played a big part in Jake's character.”
Everett says that he didn’t have a lot of backstory for Ben.
 |
| Everett Blunck, Kayo Martin, Caden Burris and Lennox Espy in The Plague Photo: courtesy of Steven Breckon. An Independent Film Company release. |
“I knew that he had moved out there, and he was new to the camp, obviously, and he was new to the town that he was living in. He wasn't from there originally, which is a big part of the reason he felt like an outcast. But I feel like it was, in a way, helpful to not have a really deep backstory, because it gives you a little more freedom later. If you have a solid backstory that is very developed and very thorough then later you have to draw to that backstory. You play off of it a little bit more. And to have something that's a little bit more free gives you more room to move and to improvise and to maybe make something up for your character that makes sense for you and makes sense for what you put in the film. It was helpful for me to have something there that made it easier to have more freedom and to explore.”
They clearly both put in a lot of work. Did they have any downtime?
“Definitely,” says Kayo. “Yeah, we had a lot of downtime, especially at night. Everybody would go to Lucas [Adler's] room. He plays Logan in the film. We had fun on set, for sure.”
They’re also pretty excited about the awards attention they’ve received. Everett is lost for words when thinking about it. Kayo gives the impression that despite the scale of their success, being lost for words is not something that ever has or ever will happen to him.
“I woke up one morning and I saw that I was nominated for it up against, like, SZA and stuff,” he says of his Independent Spirit Awards notice. "And I saw Everett was nominated for Best Actor. It's insane.”
