Next Exit Star Rahul Kohli Talks Confronting the Afterlife in Genre-Bending New Film

Actor Rahul Kohli’s breakout role came in The CW series iZombie, an adaptation of the comic book series of the same name. Understandably, the title alone confirms how the narrative embraced a horrifying premise, but anyone who watched the series knows that horror was only part of it, as the premise paved the way for a variety of different narratives to be explored. His latest film, Next Exit, once again sees Kohli taking part in a project that could surely lean heavily into more horrifying elements, only for the actual film to blend together drama, comedy, and fantasy in the wake of its unsettling premise. Next Exit makes its premiere this weekend at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Next Exit is described, “When a research scientist makes national news proving she can track people into the afterlife, Rose sees a way out and Teddy sees his chance to finally make it. These two strangers, both harboring dark secrets, race to join the doctor’s contentious study and leave this life behind. While Rose is haunted by a ghostly presence that she can’t outrun, Teddy is forced to confront his past. As these two misfits humorously quarrel their way across the country, they meet people along the way who force them to reckon with what is really driving them.”

ComicBook.com caught up with Kohli to talk about what excited him about the project, preparing for the role, and his upcoming reunion with Mike Flanagan on The Fall of the House of Usher.  

ComicBook.com: I’m personally a huge horror fan and I know you are not even a medium-sized horror fan, you have said you don’t really like horror at all. The premise of this movie, the first five minutes is horror, but that’s really just a premise and you get much more story that’s much more complex and layered with fantasy, drama, and comedy. Knowing that first pitch, that there’s ghosts involved, that it’s a little bit about an afterlife, were you at all hesitant about joining another horror-adjacent project?

Rahul Kohli: No, I don’t have a genre of preference when it comes to what I work on. What I work on and what I watch are two very different things. And, also, my attitude towards horror has changed over time. Mike, in particular, has been a bit of a mentor to me and I’m recently — what was the last recommendation I’m supposed to be doing now? Oh, I’m doing the Evil Dead trilogy at Mike’s request. Because I’d seen the first Evil Dead, but I never saw the other two and yeah, I’m actually enjoying … I’m not afraid of horror, it was just, as a genre, I wasn’t particularly that well versed in it and especially over the last year or so I’d say I’m on an education, and who’s a better teacher than f-cking Mike Flanagan, right?

You’ve worked with Mike and he’s built this reputation for himself, whereas your director on this film, Mali Elfman, doesn’t come with that built-in legacy. What was it about working with her that really won you over and really sold you and really excited you to be involved in this directorial feature debut?

Well, it was Mali’s script. The script was presented to me while we were shooting Midnight Mass and I found it very difficult to carve out time while I was on that project to sit down and read it but, when I eventually did, I just thought she wrote — particularly I knew that Mali wanted me for Teddy and I felt like she had written such a charming, lovable guy and I really liked the material and we took a Zoom call based on that, and I never questioned Mali’s credentials, so to speak. I think I felt like the script spoke for itself, and I felt confident at that point in my own abilities, but knowing how we were going to shoot this and what we were going to do, that this would be achievable. I never really had any reservations, everyone’s a first-time something. It’s how you feel about it afterward and Mali is just as f-cking great as everyone else I’ve ever worked with and I would work with Mali again and again and again.

Since this is such an intimate movie, an intimate story, you and Katie [Parker] carry this whole movie and we get to see your entire journey, this evolution of this initial animosity, but then it gets warmer and then it gets colder. When it came to preparing for this, obviously you didn’t go totally method on it and keep your distance from one another, but what was that preparation process like to establish a trust with one another as costars, but also honor the fact that you’re at odds in the beginning, and it’s not until further into the picture that you develop this relationship together?

Maybe it’s experience, but my relationship to material and characters now is evolving and I would say that something like Midnight Mass, which is what I was shooting three weeks before I started Next Exit, I would liken to having more preparation. I was using a different dialect, I was very measured in my movement, it was a performance about control and it required a ton of prep. I couldn’t ad-lib because if I wanted to ad-lib, I’d have to adjust the accent, so there was a certain type of … what’s the word I’m looking for? Not rigid, but I was very, very much controlled and careful about what I was doing. 

When it came to Next Exit, I used Next Exit as an exercise about fluidity, being natural, about being present in the moment, there was the opportunity to ad-lib and I wanted a challenge that was completely opposite of what I had just done. And so personally, it’s probably not great to admit this, but I didn’t actually do a prep and that was an experiment for me. It was just about being present in the moment and understanding the assignment and I had one assignment, or at least I whittled down Teddy to one assignment, which was charm and charisma. That was the most important thing for Teddy, was the charm and the charisma and, even though they are at odds, his charm would eventually break her to a certain degree. 

So that was my main aim and, in order to do that, I just made sure that I was there, ready to, I don’t know, say something or get a look out of Kate because there was a little … It was almost improvisational in the sense that Katie was playing this very closed-off character and I, Rahul, took pleasure in trying to f-ck with Katie and farting, I was trying to break that and hope that in some way it would do something and it did. Because we shot in sequence, pretty much, so the early parts of that shoot really were me mucking around and trying to get something out of Katie and annoying her and that was pretty much it. We didn’t meet before, try to massage those beats, we just played those roles there and then. 

Since you’ve talked about Mike Flanagan, Midnight Mass, and Bly Manor, and you’re working on The Fall of the House of Usher with him now, for fans who know your work and know Mike’s work with his previous Netflix series, what do you think makes Fall of the House of Usher different and what do you think will surprise fans about this series compared to the previous ones?

This one, for me, is Mike Flanagan’s graphic novel, that’s what it feels like. It feels like the most colorful, loud, and in your face. I think Mike likened Usher to, if Midnight Mass was a symphony, this is a rock concert with Mike shredding on a f-cking electric guitar. That really does feel like it. Of all the things I’ve even spoken to him about, [I’ve said,] “Hey, we should reach out to a publisher and have a graphic novel adaptation come out at the same time,” because the material suits it so well. It’s so graphic and violent. It’s very different from what people have become accustomed to.

Honestly, I know you said it’s like Mike shredding on a guitar, but now I’m looking forward to your character’s introduction where, it’s set quite a few years ago, but all of a sudden they cut to you in a room and you’re shredding on a guitar so loudly that that’s why the House of Usher starts to crumble.

That’s a good pitch, we’ll have to wait and see.

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Next Exit premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival this weekend.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter.