'Wolfs’s' Austin Abrams on Third Wheeling With George Clooney and Brad Pitt

Scott Garfield

This is your first production of this caliber—was there anything that surprised you about it?

This is maybe kind of a lame answer, but it’s surprising that it kind of felt like other movies in a way. A big part of that is kind of how humble Brad and George are. They don’t really take themselves too seriously. I mean, there’s plenty of stories of people at their stature in this business that make it very difficult to work. Or where you’re trying to do your take and the other person’s off camera and they’re just going to go have lunch, and now you gotta do it with someone else. I’ve never had that experience, but I’ve heard stories. They were very big on always staying and always being there.

I remember this scene where Brad is filling up water for my character in the bathroom. George and I were completely off camera, and it was the end of the day, and we didn’t need to be there. And George being like, “Oh, no, we’ll stay. We’ll stay.” And so we just stayed and chilled in the room while he was filming the scene where we were completely unseen and weren’t saying anything to him. It was surprising how, in a way, it didn’t feel like there was an ego, you know what I mean? Everyone was very down to earth and focused on the work.

Did either of them give you advice that stuck with you?

They would always offer up thoughts, especially if I ever had any sort of questions or whatever. I remember Brad talking about when it came to choosing projects, of choosing the things that he loves. And that essentially just trusting that and hoping that other people are going to dig the thing that he loves and is drawn to as well. Which is really just really betting on yourself. But I think a lot of it is just kind of learning through watching them and through osmosis, and also partially you learn that they’re just kind of who they are. They’re just very smart. They’re really intelligent actors, so there’s something that you just can’t replicate. If anything, it pushes you towards the direction of, you just have to go more into yourself in a sense and connect more deeply with yourself, because what they’ve done is something you just can’t replicate. You learn that they just have kind of honed more into who they are.

I have a question about how you interpreted your character and his motivations—did you think of him as being as naive as he was acting the whole time, or someone who had a bigger sense of what was happening and playing up his earnest, clueless personality to make them not kill him?

The way I kind of thought about it is that he was this kind of genuine, naive person, and that was genuine. And also that I think lends itself more to the story that we were telling. But, yeah, that was a question in some sense—how much is this person putting it on? You don’t really ever know exactly if he’s telling the truth. He could be lying the whole time.

But I think a part of it is seeing what’s going to serve the story the most. Regardless, whatever it is, it’s like the best liars believe what they’re doing. So I suppose it matters, but it kind of doesn’t because if he’s a good liar, he is going to believe what’s going on. But yeah, if there is an interpretation of was he putting anything on or not, I think I dig that interpretation and I think that’s open to that question.

I hope so. I mean, when I’ve heard George and Brad talk about this kind of story that they wanted to do for it, it sounds like I’m a part of it. I want to, of course, just to work with the two of those guys again, work with Jon again would be amazing. I’ve just really loved every day of coming in to work on this.

I have no idea. I really don’t know. I mean, I’d love to, but it has been very up in the air. I think you may know more than I do. I think they’ve planned on maybe filming it in January or something, but I don’t know. If Sam ever wanted me to do anything on it, I certainly would. I really loved working on that and working with him. Sometimes on sets it feels like we’re really sticking to the page and the director’s essentially leading you in the direction they want to hit the thing that they have in their head. But in Sam’s case, it’s super collaborative and he’s kind of morphing to what the actor is bringing in. He’s just very open and it creates a very exciting environment.

I keep trying to figure out what it says on your hat.

This says “Weapons Hair Department.” This is actually from the thing that I just did, which I kind of feel like a douchebag wearing a hat that says the movie that I just finished. But, I dunno. I loved working on it, so fuck it.

Do you have a dream role at this point?

It’s great to do something that is far from yourself. The role that I just did in this movie, Weapons, that’s on my hat, was kind of that really. I don’t really want to talk about it too much. I don’t want to fuck up. I don’t know how they want to present it to the public at this point. But it was a character, a whole world, that was very removed from me. And something that you needed to learn, understand a lot about, and took a good amount of time to understand because you have just so many ideas about certain ways that people live. And what’s interesting is the more you understand, the closer you realize that you are to the situation that other people are in.

Weapons is the new Zach Cregger. How fucked up is it, on a scale of one to 10?

It’s fucked up. It’s fucked up. On a scale of one to 10, it’s certainly in the 10 range. Maybe in the 11 range.