by Andrew Dex
Based on the character of Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck), Hypnotic tells the story of a Detective struggling to find his daughter. However, not everything is as it seems in this sci-fi trip, and its constant twists and turns are going to pull you in! STARBURST talks with actor Bonnie Discepolo to find out what her action-packed and hypnotised style sequence within Hypnotic was like to work on alongside William Fichtner and writer/director Robert Rodriguez…
STARBURST: What attracted you to working on Hypnotic, like, what stood out the most to you in the script?
Bonnie Discepolo: So, I actually have known Robert since 2017, when I was one of his directing mentees on Rebel Without A Crew, the series. He had a TV show where he let five directors, first-time filmmakers, make a feature film in two weeks, for seven thousand dollars. The same way he made El Mariachi. So at that time, Robert was my mentor, and I kept in touch with him over the years, and during the pandemic, he was making Hypnotic, and I knew that it was a big action thriller with a movie star that had guns and special effects, cars exploding, and helicopters, and I wanted to see the indie, low budget film-maker Robert make something like that. So I actually went to Austin, originally just to watch him make it, and I was there, observing him as a director, and one day, the actress that had the role which I now have tested positive for COVID, and Robert mistook me for her, and he said “Oh, wait, what are you doing here? I thought you had COVID?” and I lowered my mask because we were wearing masks at the time, and I said “Robert, it’s me Bonnie!” and he was like “Oh, my gosh! We have a major emergency, the actress got COVID, but you’re an actress, do you want to audition?” and I was already there, watching, and I’m in my hoody, in director mode. He was like, “Yeah! Audition! Let’s do it right now, today!” and so I immediately went from watching the action to Robert auditioning me, and there was no question the second he said, “OK, so here’s the thing, I just want to tell you about what you’re going to do, and what this role is. You’re acting, but there’s action, there are stunts, you are going to be wandering into traffic, and there’s a lot of stuff! Do you want to do that?” and I said, without any hesitation, “Absolutely!” The opportunity to work with Robert, William Fichtner and Ben Affleck that’s what attracted me!
And, what do you think the idea of being hypnotised brings to a movie, since anything could happen, because William’s character, Dellrayne, was so powerful? You just really didn’t know what was going to happen next! Which is brilliant.
Yeah, I think it does exactly what you’re saying, that anything can happen. I was talking to my dad about it yesterday, and he loves the movie, and he said the thing that he loves about it is that he watched it three times, and he feels like each time he watches it, he has a completely different perspective on what’s happening, and I think that’s the coolest thing about the script because, on the first watch, you think “Oh, this is a fun action movie! Where there’s a hypnotist, and Ben Affleck is up against him.” And then, with each watch afterwards, I think you get a completely different view of what’s happening. I have now watched it, I think, five times, and I never watch movies I’m in that much, but with this one, I’m like, oh, what’s Alice Braga’s character Diana doing? What’s Ben Affleck’s real journey? It’s got so many layers that it feels like each time it’s really fun.
You share a scene with William Fitchner, so can you tell us about what he was like to work with and what he brought to your sequence in particular?
William Fichtner is a national treasure. He is a worldwide treasure! He is my absolute favourite person that I have ever worked with. I can’t say enough good things about him, but I got to the trailer the first day, and he was in hair and makeup. I walked in, and he knew that my character had been replaced, and he walked right up to me and he said, “Hi! I’m Bill. I hear we have this scene together? That we are shooting tomorrow. Would you like to rehearse?” and I was like “Yeah! I would love to rehearse.” The day before we shot that scene, we were doing stuff that was mostly with Ben Affleck, so Ben was on set, and Bill had to be in the background, but he wasn’t doing a big acting scene, so every time he was off camera, he was pulling me aside, saying “OK! Let’s do our scene again!” and the scene that we actually had in the film, was much longer, it was this two-page scene, and we really talked about a lot of stuff, and so we rehearsed it a bunch of times. It was such a fun story because Robert had told us that the scene we were doing was the story that Quentin Tarantino had told him, and so Robert said, “Quentin, I’m stealing this story. I’m going to put it in my movie!” So Bill and I kept rehearsing, and it was just the most fun, the most present, the most exciting. He was so engaged we had a ball shooting the scene. I wish you could see the whole thing. I watch it now, and I know that for the pace of action, it doesn’t make sense to have a big two-page long scene where people are just talking when you’re in the middle of that action, but I think it was a great scene.
Going on from that, can you tell us about what your whole sequence was actually like to put together after your encounter with William because it looked quite crazy? There were cars crashing in the background whilst you were hypnotised? It looked like it took some time to put together.
Yeah, the whole sequence was a really huge process. We shot just that bank heist section for six, maybe seven days. It was a really big piece of the movie, and so the inside of the bank took two days, and then the outside of the bank, where William is hypnotising people, where the bus is crashing, where the other cars are crashing into each other, just that section took five days. And so, it was a full day of set up, a whole day of the scene on the bench with the hypnoses, and then three more days of action and stunts. So one day with the bus, one day was the car crash and then the fire hydrant, and then we had a whole final day just for the explosion. It was a team of 100 people. There were special effects people. We could only do the car flipping once, so everything had to be orchestrated perfectly. There were four cameras and a huge stunt team. Everybody else that was in the movie there, they are stunt actors. I was the only one in the middle, and they’d be like, “You’re a real actor, are you OK with this?” I was like, “I’m fine, just don’t hit me”.
Due to COVID, your filming locations changed a little bit, can you tell us about where your sequence was eventually shot and why that location worked so well for Hypnotic?
Yeah, so we shot the whole movie in Austin, Texas. Prior to my involvement, I think there were two other locations that the film was supposed to shoot in, and then due to COVID it got shut down twice, and then finally when it actually went into production, Robert said he lives in Austin, he shoots in Austin, he’s got this studio there, he can make it at a smaller budget, he can make it work. So that’s when they took it to Austin, which made it so amazing because it was just such a classic Robert Rodriguez experience.
And didn’t he have this idea in mind for a very long time?
So while I was there, it was amazing because I had originally gone to observe him, and I was like, “Robert, I want to see you do this big thing” so every time we weren’t actually shooting, he’d pull me aside and be like “Let me show you what I’m editing here. Let me show you how I’m shooting this!” So I got to have a much more behind-the-scenes experience, and what he said was that twenty years ago, while he was in the midst of doing the Spy Kids films, he had this idea that he wanted to do a Hitchcock thriller, and he was like “What would a Hitchcock thriller be? Start with one word?” and he had the idea of Hypnotic. Then he was like, “OK, but what would it be?” so that’s what he told me, that it all came from that idea of doing a homage to Hitchcock.
How exciting is it to be in a movie with Ben Affleck?
I still can’t believe it. Right now, I’m with my dad and their dogs in the country, and I’ll just be walking the dogs, and then at some point, it hits me, and I think, “Wait a second, I was just in Cannes, in a movie with Ben Affleck! What is happening!” It is mind-boggling, and it feels like it’s someone else’s life. I’ve been at it for a while, I’ve been acting, I’ve done some TV shows, and some indies, but I was sort of like, “Yeah, that giant movie star thing, well, it’s probably not going to happen” I have so many friends who haven’t done that and are very successful actors, so it wasn’t even in the realm of my dreams, and then I didn’t know Ben Affleck was in it. Everything was very top secret, so when I got to set, and it was a scene with just me and Ben, I was like, “What’s happening!” it was amazing, and Jennifer Lopez is so beautiful.
And as a director yourself, what does that bring to your acting career? Like, do you maybe you see scenes and prepare for them differently because of your directing history?
You know, that’s a great question. I didn’t realise until I started directing that I had been looking at acting completely the wrong way, and I sort of think that the reason I’m working so much all of a sudden is because I started directing. When I went to acting school, and I went to a conservatory, I’d be like, “OK, this is my scene, this is my character, what do they want me to do?” I would approach it from that perspective, and now that I look at it as a writer and director. I look at a scene, and I say, “Huh, OK, why did the director choose to make that character? Why does the writer put that scene in that moment of the film?” and I look at it from a whole story perspective, and I think “Well, this is page 30, this is about my protagonist, this character exists to do something to the protagonist”, so it’s taking myself out of it, and now I look at it from a whole storytelling perspective, and I’m like, how can I serve the story, what can I bring that impacts the character in the most profound way, and it has nothing to do with my acting skills, it’s really much more about serving the story.
So, how crazy has it been to work on Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and Hypnotic in the same year, and what do you think you’ve learnt the most from this part of your career?
It’s no big deal; it’s very chill! A really normal year! It’s been a dream come true. With each step of the way, I keep pinching myself, saying, “When am I going to wake up from this dream!?” where I’m getting to do everything that I’ve ever wanted to do in one year. It’s been amazing, I just feel incredibly grateful. I keep running around every set I go to now, being like, “It’s a miracle!” and people say, it’s not a miracle, I auditioned, and I got the job, and I’m like “No, it’s a miracle!”
What’s next for you as an actor?
That’s a great question. So you may have heard that Hollywood is on strike, so there’s not a ton on the horizon for most people. Luckily, I shot a great film in the spring with Kathleen Turner and this new actor Sekai Abenì. It’s a very cool modern noir, so that will be coming out, and I’m very grateful for that. In the meantime, I’m visiting family, and I’m writing a script, and I’m hoping that they make a good deal for the writers, so we can all get back to work.
How would you describe Hypnotic?
It’s the craziest thing they’re going to see all year! If you, like me, are bored of movies where you know what happens from watching the trailer, you know exactly how it’s going to go. You sit down for Hypnotic, you lean back, and you say, “I have no idea what I’m in for” With every ten pages, it shifts, and you think “Wow, I didn’t know we were going there!” it just keeps happening. So if you just want a wild ride full of surprises, then I think you will love Hypnotic.
There are so many twists and turns within this movie!
That was the other thing about it. There are no moments of leaning back and saying, “OK, we are going to watch for a couple of minutes before it changes again” It’s just like “Change, change, change!” There’s nothing like it!
You can rent Hypnotic via digital platforms right now.
