‘Novocaine’ Star Amber Midthunder Breaks Down That Early Twist and Why It’s the Thing She Loved Most | Video

NOTE: Spoilers ahead for “Novocaine”

“Novocaine” may be about one man’s journey to find love, but it’s pretty brutal when that love also unexpectedly turns out to be a criminal.

Now in theaters, “Novocaine” centers on Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid), an assistant manager at a bank with a genetic condition that makes it impossible for him to feel pain (and yes, that is a real condition people have). As a result, he has basically lived life in a bubble, actively avoiding any kind of harm he could experience, because it could be horrendous and life-threatening — and he simply would not know.

But when Nathan falls for his co-worker Sherry, played by Amber Midthunder, his world opens up. So, when she is taken hostage during a bank robbery, Nathan sets off to save her, no matter what life-threatening injuries he may face on the way — and he sure does face a lot. The thing is, viewers find out shortly after the robbery that Sherry was actually in on it.

One of the bank robbers was her brother, who encouraged her to start a relationship with Nathan just to get the code to the bank’s vault. Nathan, of course, has no way of knowing this, so he spends the movie putting himself in mortal danger to save a woman who has already betrayed him. And Midthunder herself loved that the twist came so early on like that.

“That is really, actually the thing that drew me in about Sherry,” the actress told TheWrap. “It is really cool to be able to play somebody, I think, that in the beginning just seems like, ‘Oh, she’s the girl that you are in love with at the bank.’ And then she has so much more going on.”

“You get to see her A) live in that world of rom-com, but then you also really get to see her exist in this, like, family drama? You know, like action movie/family drama, that also is so layered and so complicated.”

And though Midthunder feels bad about hurting Jack Quaid onscreen emotionally, she fully backs the criminal twist. We went deep on it all with her below.

Note: This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. You can watch TheWrap’s full discussion with Amber Midthunder here.

I really would like you to lead a rom-com very, very soon, please, because the chemistry with Jack Quaid was absolutely insane. You guys were so cute together, I can not stand it.

Aw! It was really fun. I do feel so fortunate. I mean, I genuinely do not think that we could have been luckier with that. We had, technically, we had met once over Zoom, and I think we had this real, just like ships passing in the night sort of thing. We had a lot of different, weird connections.

And, I don’t know about him, I was trying to work with him for a while. I was, like, hunting him down because I was just such a fan of his in so many different ways. But we had never actually met before, until we got to Cape Town and started rehearsing. So I think we just also got really, really lucky being so aligned in the way that we work and stuff.

I have not stopped thinking about the opening of this film, and one thing I want to ask — I have to be honest and say I have been an Amber Midthunder fan since the “Roswell, New Mexico” days. And at the very beginning of this film, you have this art show, and it’s at a place called Surfa Rosa. I’m choosing to believe that that is an intentional nod, even though it almost certainly was not.

I love — yes. Yep. Mhm, I like this. You lead that charge, I follow (laughs).

She was also an artist. In a weird way, I think this could have been what Rosa did after [Roswell]. When you were listing off your foster home places, I was waiting for a little Roswell nod to come in.

It is interesting. I actually did not think about that. But it is cool to think about, I think that there is something that aligns these characters that I choose to play. I think I love these characters that have this kind of, I think edgy, sort of quirky, and kind of, you know, this strength, but also something that they are fighting against.

I think that that’s where characters — like any of them, really — but, you know, where Rosa and Sherry align. Or Sherry is just Rosa in an alternate universe! Or Sherry is just Rosa, and she changed her name because she came back from the dead and had to hide her identity, duh.

Now we’re cooking with gas, Amber.

You know what this is? This is ‘Novocaine’ 2-5. We are getting ahead of ourselves. This is the future of ‘Novocaine.’ You figured it out too early (laughs).

Well, as you talk about how you pick these characters that you are attracted to, you said something once that I really latched onto, which was “I’m going wherever I feel like there’s a challenge, or wherever I feel like there are people to work with who I admire.” Obviously, we know Jack Quaid was the one you wanted to work with on this one. What was the challenge for you in this one?

Well, it was also Dan and Bobby. The directors of this movie, are so — I love their films that they did before. And also, just as people and as collaborators, they are so wonderful. They are so kind, they are so calm. It feels so easy to, I think, trust in them. And so, this was just a collision of amazing people to be working with.

I think the challenge in this was to play a girl who is, in a lot of ways, just a girl. I have never gotten to, you know, it’s always like, I’m the alien sister who came back from the dead, or it’s within the “Predator” universe and it’s a period piece, and there’s all this! I’m so fortunate to have these characters that I have played who live inside of these incredible worlds, who have these big circumstances, and they are very genre, and they are very unusual. And there is all of this to kind of play with.

And this movie and the world of this has all of that, but Sherry in particular, I think she lives in a more, you know, kind of like stripped down place. And I’ve never gotten to do that. I have never really just been the lady! The lady of a movie, the love interest, all these things. And that, I think was — to have on the surface seemingly less to do can be, I think, scary after having so much to work with. So that, I think, it was exciting, and also kind of, at times, a little scary, because you are like, “I don’t have as much to rest on. I don’t have as much to kind of hide behind,” you know? It’s really just you and your character.

Speaking of hiding behind, I do have to ask, have you been able to watch this movie? And I do literally mean watch it. Because I did a lot of hiding behind my fingers. I’m not good with the violence, with the blood, and I knew that was the whole premise going in. But oh, my lord. So, have you been able to sit through this?

(laughs). Kudos to you for making it through. I have seen it one time. I am going to see it again, but I watched it once in a screening room theater by myself. And it was a lot of, like, I was genuinely curled up in my chair sideways, watching through the netting of my fingers, and squealing in a room alone.

I was fully by myself, acting as though I had all of my friends with me (laughs). Just because that’s what — you can’t not. And I knew it was coming! It’s not like not like I didn’t know. It’s not like I have not seen I think everything in the movie, all the gory moments. I knew they were coming. I knew what they were. I had, to some degree, already seen them, and they still caught me just like I had no idea what this movie was in the first place.

It was rough. And I am excited for you to see it with a crowd, because I will say, I saw it in a full theater. There was a grown man next to me who did a proper “hehehe” giggle at one point. The amount of times I uttered the words “Jesus Christ” after one of the violent moments, it was just — it was a lot.

I do think this will be a fun group movie. I’m so excited to see it with more people. And I think it’s so fun for people to be able — you know, I have so many friends being like, “Oh, I gotta be about tickets” and “I want to bring our whole families” and stuff like that.

And I’m so excited to hear anybody that I know has gone to an early screening. I think the audience participation is so much of the fun of this movie, of being able to share in the action or the gore, whatever it is. So I’m very excited to see with more people.

I’m really glad this movie got a theatrical release, because that is not always a given at this point. I know with you, for “Prey,” a lot of people wanted that to be a theatrical release, and it was not. I’m curious where you stand on this. Are you an “every movie to theaters” kind of situation? What does the theatrical experience mean to you?

I love seeing movies in the theater. I love going to the theater. I will see, I mean, anything, pretty much. I’m somebody who loves the moviegoing experience. And I wholeheartedly believe that there are — I mean, I also love to be at home. I love to be cozy, I love to see things that way. But I think there is just something so special about going to a movie. Whether it’s something big and intense, the way that “Prey” was, or it’s something like this, where it’s also such big action sequences, but it’s so fun.

I think that there is something so great about it, because it’s more than just seeing the movie also. It’s an event. You go with your friends, you go with your family, you go on a date. It’s like a whole thing. It’s something that you get to savor, you know? And so I’m very much a movies — I personally, as a viewer, love to see movies in the theater.

We have talked about the gory sequences of the movie. I do want to ask about one of the cuter ones, because I do need to know what it’s like just awkwardly fork-feeding pie to Jack Quaid.

(laughs). He’s the best pie eater I have ever seen (laughs). It’s funny, we did all of our stuff — I also love this. I also love the rom-com element of this movie. It is my favorite thing about this movie. I think without that, this movie does not live. And that’s the world that we got to live in for the first, like, third of the movie, was it truly just mostly felt like we were only shooting a rom-com.

And it was so, again, something I’ve never done, and it was so wonderful. But we did so much of that so early. We have a scene that’s quite close and quite intimate, and that was our first day of shooting. And I think the pie also was, like, within the first week of filming.

Well, I can not let you go without talking about the twist of this film, because, as cute as you guys are, you are kind of the bad girl in this one. And with the caveat that I know the difference between actor and character, how very dare you hurt sweet Nathan Caine like that!

OK, OK, well, this is what I’m saying! Listen, Sherry has reasons, OK?! Be nice to Sherry! This is what I mean, though … I think so many people are like, “Oh, this girl, she’s just a damsel in distress,” blah, blah, blah. Even if that were true, I think Sherry has so much to her, that she’s not just this helpless girl. And then obviously you come to learn so much more about her and her choices.

Sherry is, I think, was never in a world where she was expecting to feel this way about someone, and that’s also what’s so special about her and Nathan Caine, is that she’s just kind of, I think, doing what she thinks she has to do. She’s not really ever known anything else. She is a survivor. She is strong, she is a fighter, and she’s in this, you know, essentially abusive relationship with Ray Nicholson’s character.

You kind of see her see a whole different world of possibilities for herself through this relationship with this person. And so, as much the movie is about Nathan Caine fighting for love, I think it’s also about Sherry figuring out that fighting for love is even an option. And then her fight for that also, you know?

Because without Sherry, Nathan would not have made it, OK? There’s redemption! Where there is pain, there is redemption. And I back Sherry 100%!

“Novocaine” is now in theaters everywhere.

The post ‘Novocaine’ Star Amber Midthunder Breaks Down That Early Twist and Why It’s the Thing She Loved Most | Video appeared first on TheWrap.