PopHorror Let's Get Scared
According to Wikipedia, “The Phoenix Lights (sometimes called the “Lights Over Phoenix”) were a series of widely sighted unidentified flying objects observed in the skies over the southwestern U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada on March 13, 1997.” I moved to Phoenix in 2002, so I missed the excitement and in the 23 years I’ve lived here, I’ve seen anything even remotely close to them. Do I think they’re UFOs? I don’t know. Like I know things exist even though I have never seen them in person but does my belief reach that far? The jury is still out on that one.
Star People, the first feature film written and directed by Phoenix native Adam Finberg and starring Kat Cunning (read our interview with them HERE), McCabe Slye (read our interview with him HERE), and Connor Paolo (Gossip Girl – read our other interview with him HERE), is about a photographer chasing these very phenomena.
A photographer receives a tip that could shed light on her childhood UFO sighting, but a heatwave and some unexpected guests threaten to derail her investigation.
To celebrate the release of the film, I chatted with star Connor about crafting his character, horror movies, and more!
PopHorror: I’m a big fan and I really enjoyed Star People so I’m super excited to talk to you today.
Connor Paolo: Thank you so much!
PopHorror: With Star People, I know that you filmed in Phoenix. I’m sorry about that. I’m in Phoenix and it sucks here.
Connor Paolo: I’ll forgive you one day.
PopHorror: What intrigued you about the script and made you want to be a part of the project?
Connor Paolo: I think just the humanity of it. It’s a compelling story I think, in and of itself I guess if you just described it to somebody. Once I got an understanding of the characters and what to me the movie is really about, once that became clear, it was just a story that I was really excited to be involved in telling because it was clearly written and made by people who give a shit about people and who believe that there’s an inherent worth in being human and being alive. I found the script to be sad but also incredibly hopeful and hope in the face of some pretty horrendous things, especially when you get into Ricardo’s [Eddie Martinez] story and the things he’s dealt with. He has that long monologue where he talks about what led him to being in that house. The story that he describes is some of the worst things that can happen to somebody and yet he’s still out there doing what he can to protect his daughter and still believes in the goodness of people. I found all that really moving.
PopHorror: I did too. You mentioned that it’s kind of sad, and it is a little bit because Taylor and Claire are going through a lot of stuff – Taylor’s addiction and Claire’s obsession with the lights – and Justin is kind of just thrown in there like, I just met you a month ago, what is going on? It is a very emotional film as well. I don’t want to give too much away, but at the end when Claire is so validated and she felt seen for like the first time in her life. That was super emotional. That’s not something you see a lot in sci-fi, thrillers, horror movies. I like when a movie like this has heart. I think that adds a lot of depth to it.
Connor Paolo: Same.
PopHorror: Was there anything that you were adamant about bringing to your character?
Connor Paolo: Yeah, the same thing I’m always adamant about which is trying to paint the person with as genuine a brush as I can. To play them in the way that we all walk through life. In Justin’s mind, this is not Claire’s story, this is Justin’s story and Claire is just a part of his movie. I was just adamant that I had the opportunity to treat him like a human being and not like a caricature even if the person he is is not someone that I personally as Connor would like or would want to spend my time with. If I’m going to step into his shoes and try to portray him with empathy and with honesty, then that just requires him being a full person, his own desires and his own fears and joys and happiness, and that he be at least, to himself, capable of heroism and redemption and goodness even if you never get to see that in the film.
PopHorror: I think he responded, although not in the best way possible, in a way that anyone in that situation when they’re thrust into this type of situation and space, how most of us would.
Connor Paolo: Yeah, him being a little bitch about being hot and not having internet, I can forgive all of that. It’s really just the way he interacts with the two immigrant characters and ultimately the depth of ignorance and fear and open cruelty that he revealed to possess. My thought, playing him, that was never a core principle of his or an ideology or something that he had thought deeply about, which again is not an excuse or certainly not an endorsement, but those were the things about Justin that upset me and were more hard to get past as far as how I would treat that character were he a real person.
PopHorror: Star People is really more of a sci-fi thriller but it’s a bit horror adjacent. You’re no stranger to the horror genre. You and I spoke for A Creature is Stirring back when that came out, which I really enjoyed. Why do you feel that some people embrace the genre more than others?
Connor Paolo: Who was it that spoke about this? I’m going to misquote them. It was one of the great horror luminaries whether it was Cronenberg or John Carpenter, it was just somebody talking about the purpose of horror for humans in a way to experience mortal terror in a safe environment and how important that is to the human experience. These were just things that we sort of have this genetic understanding of, that we have this deep, deep history of understanding and this need to feel afraid for our lives. But then obviously, we need to be able to do this in an environment where we’re not actually in danger. I think horror at its best… Everybody goes into a horror film or something horror adjacent, already allowing the rules of reality to bend a bit because we’re going to deal with something if not supernatural, at least beyond our normal experience. Movies and theater is always about the day something happens, but horror is about the day that something fucking really bad happens. I think because people walk into it already with their expectations a little bit broader, filmmakers can get in sociopolitical messages, cultural messages. There’s so many brilliant horror films about gender relationships, racism, about just these sort of really deep and often challenging and tragic parts of human experience, but they can navigate those messages in a way the audience is sometimes unaware of or doesn’t feel like they’re being lectured. I think you can just draw people that might not be interested in watching a film with that type of theme or message into the theater and then by the time they leave, they’ve now become a better person and they don’t know it. I think horror’s pretty unique in its way of being able to do that.
PopHorror: I agree 100%. I have just one last question for you today. What is your favorite scary movie?
Connor Paolo: Someone asked me this recently and it’s hard because the more I return to a scary film, the less it frightens me, which is tragic. One of my all-time favorites is Don’t Look Now, the Nicolas Roeg film. The first time I saw that it destroyed me. It’s such a beautiful cinematic experience that even knowing the ending and the horror elements of it, it still gets me. But a film that I saw for the first time recently that I don’t know if it’s technically a horror film, but it felt like that and it really fucking got under my skin is a Japanese film from the 90s called Cure. It’s just very disturbing, not necessarily because of what you see or because of the themes, but with the way that it plays with what reality is and the way it’s shot and the performances. It really got under my skin.
Thank you so much to Connor for speaking with us. Star People is currently on VOD!
