The Drama’s Mamoudou Athie & Alana Haim React To First-Time Reading Harrowing Script

Warning: This article contains minor spoilers for The Drama.The Drama‘s Mamoudou Athie and Alana Haim aren’t the central focus of the film’s titular drama, but they’re crucial factors in it. The pair is an important juxtaposition to Robert Pattinson’s Charlie and Zendaya’s Emma, and the married couple is just as shocked as their close friend Charlie is by Emma’s secret.

The duo ends up bringing some of the most intriguing sources of conflict and comedy in The Drama, especially in contrast to Emma and Charlie. During an interview with ScreenRant Athie and Haim discussed their initial reactions to the script, how they discovered their on-screen dynamic together, and what it was like to film the pivotal dinner scene

Mamoudou Athie & Alana Haim Reflect On Their First Reaction To The Drama Script

The Drama is an emotionally heavy film that focuses on the fallout of a major secret from Emma’s past. While the impact is most keenly felt by her fiancé, Charlie, their best friends Mike and Rachel are given some of the film’s most important moments. Mike is naturally taken aback and left unsure how to act, while Rachel is furious in a way that really excited Haim as an actor:

Alana Haim: Reading the script was such an experience. You just really want to know what happens next… I’ve only read a handful of scripts in my life like this. Technically, this is my fourth time, [after One Battle After Another].

Reading this script, there was just so much tension. I always follow my gut when I’m getting the opportunity to do a movie, and I think there was just something to me about the part of Rachel that really felt like it was so out of my wheelhouse.

While Haim’s Rachel is immediately positioned against Emma by the revelation, Athie’s Mike is more at a loss about how to respond. This makes him a surprising straight man for some of the film’s moments of dry comedy, but the ramifications of the revelation were what really caught the actor’s attention in the first place.

Mamoudou Athie: When I got sent the script, I was frightened by it. I really thought it was extremely well-written, and I watched the earlier movies [by Kristoffer Borgli] that I hadn’t seen. They’re fantastic. All of that made it easy! We had a great conversation, and this worked out.

Athie & Haim On Finding The Dynamic For Mike And Rachel

Given that Athie and Haim’s dynamic was in conversation with Pattinson and Zendaya’s, the actors had to delicately approach their characters’ relationship.

Mamoudou Athie: Chemistry is all about listening, and that’s it. It’s not just this magic thing that happens. That’s bulls–t. It’s just about giving a s–t about what the other person is doing and being genuinely interested. We have a conversation with [Kristoffer] at the top of production, and we talked about our relationship dynamic, and then from there it was just about being with an awesome actor like Alana and having a great script. Then you don’t have to worry about it.

I can’t think of anything that really surprised me about Mike. We had decided during rehearsal on the relationship dynamic and his lack of willingness to support his friend, but also his lack of willingness to just put his foot down about certain things in his own relationship. I guess that came surprising to me, because for me, there’s no way that’s happening [Laughter].

Haim was comforted by her immediate connection to Athie on set, which propelled their work together throughout.

Alana Haim: We felt like we were on the same team. And I mean, all four of us were on the same team. We were just talking about the dinner scene. It was like all four of us felt like we had no ego. We just wanted to make the scene as amazing as it could possibly be, because it’s such a pivotal scene in the movie.

Without that scene, without all those emotions happening, the movie doesn’t make sense. It was really beautiful to have these three people in front of me who were all just really down to do it. No one had an ego. Everyone wanted it to be great, and we reached the finish line, and it really felt like we had accomplished something beautiful. I couldn’t have asked for a more incredible group of people to be a part of this movie with.

Towards the end, it genuinely felt like the cameras were not there. It felt like we were just four friends at a dinner table having this intense discussion. I think that’s the thing that’s still so surprising to me. When shooting a movie, everything melts away. When you’re so locked in, like when all four of us really locked in, it can be this magical experience that. You feel it in your body… that really goes into us into all being so open and vulnerable in that scene. If there was one person that wasn’t that way, it wouldn’t have succeeded.

The Drama hits theaters on April 3!