From Alien to Event Horizon to Life, there’s a long legacy of compelling horror movies that focus on characters in space struggling to figure out the situation they find themselves in. That legacy continues with Ash from filmmaker Flying Lotus, which stars Eiza González and Aaron Paul. As if being on a remote space station surrounded by dead crew members isn’t a horrifying enough situation, González plays Riya, a woman who suffered a mysterious injury that impacted her memory and the journey that brought her to this devastating scenario. Embodying an all-new character brings enough challenges to a performer like González, but playing a character who isn’t in touch with their personal history takes things to a new level. Ash lands in theaters on March 21st.
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“I can really relate to that. I think that that’s something that I always think, from the style of career that I’ve had, and I think that I’ve dealt with a lot of,” González shared with ComicBook of playing a character with a complicated sense of self. “I think that once you transition from a young actress or young musician to a more serious career, there is a fractured identity that happens in there and there’s a perception of people and then who you are and then there’s always this gray area. I think that, in the sense of that transition from a child to a woman, it was really pivotal and I think it was like a beating heart that was in me that I really wanted to dive into this incredibly vulnerable state, where you are lost in your identity, you don’t know who you are, and I feel like we secretly all feel sometimes, at one point of our lives, that way without having our mind or our memory erased. I think that it’s something that we can all relate to.”
She continued, “It’s like a gift, as an actor, to get those types of roles, because you can really dive into these scary areas of yourself that you usually or rarely dive into. It makes you really vulnerable, and I think that I have portrayed a lot of strong women throughout my career and I think that people think of me as that type of character. I find myself to be quite the opposite. I’m quite sensitive, I’m quite vulnerable, and I really wear my heart on my sleeve. Riya felt like a perfect combination of a real sensitive soul, but with a lot of desires and goodwill, but also completely discombobulated and had no clue who she was, and incredibly good at what she did, as well, simultaneously. It was a gift of a role and I really enjoyed it and had a great time playing her.”
Ash is described, “On the mysterious planet of Ash, Riya (González) awakens to find her crew slaughtered. When a man named Brion (Paul) arrives to rescue her, an ordeal of psychological and physical terror ensues while Riya and Brion must decide if they can trust one another to survive.”
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Ash might be the pair’s first on-screen collaboration, but the friendship between Paul and González goes back years, with Paul expressing what the experience was like finally getting to collaborate with his longtime friend.
“I love this question so much. I’ve got to tell you, I love Eiza inside and out. I’ve known her for a long time. This is my first experience watching her process from the beginning, and I’ve got to tell you, it landed on our desk at the same time so we had each other’s backs from the beginning,” Paul expressed. “But listening to her process and her passion and her dedication, for every beat of the movie, from the beginning and all the notes that she wanted to talk to FlyLo, our director, about her ideas … She cares about everything, and I was like, ‘Oh, sh-t, I’ve got to get my sh-t together.’”
He added, “I really thought about that. I was like, ‘Oh, man.’ I pride myself on coming to work ready, but I was just so blown away by her leadership and her passion … and you can see it. You can see it in the film. It’s really amazing.”
While putting trust in each other as performers might have come naturally for longtime friends, they also had to trust their director, especially given how Flying Lotus put such an ambitious visual spin on a familiar genre.
“When I first met with him, he showed me some visuals on his computer of ideas. Even before we started shooting anything, my first meeting with him, he’s like, ‘So this is the inspiration I was thinking about,’ and I was just so blown away by — also just costume designs and just the world that he wanted to paint,” Paul detailed. “It’s just so amazing. The script was just such a fun ride. I’ve been a fan of his music for some time, and then on set, he would be a DJ. He pretty much just played music in between setups, just to set the vibe, It was amazing.”
Ash lands in theaters on March 21st.
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