Quinn Shephard & Tyler James Williams Interview, Unaccompanied Minors

MoviesOnline recently caught up with Quinn Shephard and Tyler James Williams at the Los Angeles Press Day for their new film "Unaccompanied Minors" directed by Paul Feig. Tyler James Williams plays the young Chris Rock in "Everyone Hates Chris" TV series. It’s Christmas Eve and a huge blizzard has just shut down the airport, threatening to ruin holiday plans for all stranded travelers.

Snowed in en route to their father’s house, two "Unaccompanied Minors”—dubbed UMs—Spencer (Dyllan Christopher) and his little sister, Katherine (Dominique Saldana), are ushered to the airport’s Unaccompanied Minors Room, a holding cell for dozens of stranded, parent-free kids from all over the country.

Caught in the crossfire of projectile cupcakes and juice boxes and desperate to escape, Spencer makes a run for freedom along with four other UMs, who couldn’t be more different if they tried:  spoiled rich girl Grace (Gina Mantegna), trailer-park tomboy Donna (Quinn Shephard), academic overachiever Charlie (Tyler James Williams) and comic-book geek Timothy Wellington a.k.a. "Beef” (Brett Kelly).

With the airport’s peevish Passenger Relations Manager Oliver Porter (Lewis Black), his lackey assistant Zach Van Bourke (Wilmer Valderrama) and every airport security guard hot on their trails, this group of UMs from cliques that don’t mix learn to ditch their differences and help each other flee the clutches of airport authority.

Meanwhile, Katherine and the other UMs have been herded to a nearby hotel to wait out the storm. Determined to reunite with his little sister and fulfill her unspoiled vision of Santa Claus arriving on Christmas morning, Spencer enlists the help of his UM posse. Working together as an unlikely family of their own, they outwit and outrun Oliver and his crew. Plummeting through baggage chutes, rummaging around unclaimed luggage and canoeing down a snow-covered hill, they turn Christmas at the airport into holiday pandemonium and, along the way, prove that the holidays aren’t about where you are, but who you’re with.  Here's what Quinn Shephard and Tyler James Williams had to say:

 

 

Quin Shephard (QS): Um, no.

 

Tyler James Williams (TJM): Um, no

 

 

QS: No.

 

TJM: I think that made it a good movie for all of us just to pull from somewhere that we’ve never been before.

 

 

QS: Um, yeah.

 

 

QS: New Jersey, California, Canada, we were all over the place.

 

TJW: We were all separated, and we came together. We were all here for one thing, to make this a good movie and just to have fun with it; and I think we were able to accomplish that.

 

 

TJW: Tyler.

 

 

TJW: There was no real choreography in the original script. The one that I first got said a cross between Napoleon Dynamite and ants in your pants. I’m happy that wasn’t one of the first things we did. We started off and we kind of led into it, so I could kind of get more of a feel for the character as to what he would do, him coming from these older times, he would do older dance moves, and that’s basically what I had to pull from.

 

 

TJW: Yeah, I do dance. I’ve been dancing forever, since I remember that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve never done that kind of dance before. I’ve never really kind of got into it. I was more hip-hop, break, all these other kind of dances, but I think that was kind of cool that I had to take some of those new dances that are out now and kind of mold it into an older form and a goofier form.

 

QS: I’m really nothing like my character, and I think when I was playing the character I was sort of just thinking exactly about where she grew up and what she was like, and I was trying to put that in because it’s really hard for me to act that way, because I’m totally different than that in real life, and so it was really hard to get the nerve to act that way, but hopefully I got it.

 

 

QS: Oh that was very fun.

 

 

QS: The stunt coordinator gave me driving lessons around the – wherever we were, because we were never in an airport except for one scene.

 

 

QS: Yeah, in other locations they’d have me drive around special areas so I could get used to it.

 

 

QS: I’m eleven, I’m turning twelve on February 28th.

 

TJW: And I just turned fourteen.

 

 

QS: We did some of it.

 

TJW: We did most of it actually.

 

 

TJW: It was freezing.

 

QS: It was so cold, it was six degrees one night.

 

TJW: Yeah, one night we got down to six.

 

QS: And it was so wet. I remember I was freezing, and I had so many layers of clothing. I was so freezing.

 

TJW: A lot of it we did. There were only certain things that we just couldn’t do, like going off the snow drift that we just couldn’t do. There were certain takes where the canoe just flipped over, and so we just kind of played what was actually happening. It was moving fast, we were scared, it was cold, there was acting involved but there wasn’t much of it.

 

QS: Yeah, we were scared and we were screaming because it was just crazy.

 

 

QS: Yeah, I did some of it. My stunt double did some of it too.

 

TJW: I didn’t do most of it. It was just the plain suitcase with nothing in it when everything was going down. We mixed in everything else in ADR, but we shot most of the suitcase scenes away from the whole enclosure. The suitcase was like spliced in four different areas. They stuck me in it, tied me in, just turned it with a wheel, and I just read lines.

 

Q: Your characters torment Lewis Black. Did that happen during the filming as well?

 

QS: No, we were too scared of him (she laughs). Well, I was.

 

 

TJW: Yeah we had to because in order to get a chemistry with the character, and to become more of your character, we had to interact with him, make sure that we were pushing it in the right way, that it wasn’t too evil. We didn’t want to be evil children. We just wanted to have some fun.

 

 

QS: Well when I first met him I had no idea who he was or what character he was playing, because he was there on set but I didn’t know who he was, and I remember just thinking that he seemed a little bit scary, just the whole way he talked and everything is like a little bit intimidating.

 

 

QS: Yes (giggles)

 

TJW: Wow, I didn’t know that.

 

 

QS: Yeah. I don’t really remember.

 

TJW: I think it was one of those scenes, it was at the end of our shoot, we were almost done, we had like two more weeks to go, and we had progressed as the characters, we were at this time, most of the time, no longer really Tyler or Quinn.

 

QS: Yeah.

 

TJW: Most of the time, even when we were outside, we were Donna and Charlie doing this thing and I think that made it easier. It wasn’t one of those things where we had to really concentrate, okay, now when we do this make sure there’s nothing really going on there, it was just we were having fun with it, and that was our job to do there and we did it.

 

QS: Yeah, we were totally into our characters at that point, so we weren’t really concentrating on what we were doing so much as being our characters the most.

 

 

TJW: Wow, I’d gotten about three others besides this movie here. I read them all. The other ones were great, they were really great, another one I did the character’s name was Charlie, but there was just something about this, it seemed really fun to shoot, from everything that I read, some of the stuff wasn’t even in the actual movie, but it just seemed like a great read and a great shoot, and it was going to be a success no matter who played it, no matter who did any role, it was going to be great.

 

 

QS: Two and a half months.

 

TJW: Yeah, two and a half months.

 

 

QS: We went to arcades and stuff and the mall.

 

TJW: We went to some arcades. It is still Utah (everyone laughs).

 

QS: Utah’s flat, except for the mountains.

 

TJW: I think we had a lot of fun on the set just creating what we could do there, like playing – I think one of the greatest things a kid can do is play tag on a set. There are so many lights and things that you can just bump into, that you have to dodge around them, and it’s really fun.

 

QS: And they gave us scooters.

 

TJW: Yeah, we didn’t have to do anything outside of work to make it fun. It was like a big playground, and by the time we got home we were exhausted. Not only were we shooting but we were playing most of the time.

 

 

QS: Totally.

 

TJW: Yeah, we hung out a lot, whenever it was a Saturday or whenever we were just off work, we’d all head to the –

 

QS: Oh, the Skybox.

 

TJW: The Skybox, it was a place in the mall –

 

QS: There’s a giant TV screen, we used to watch when we were on TV.

 

TJW: Yeah, it was a sports bar with an arcade in it, a great arcade, really big. We could go eat and then just hang out. We had a good time.

 

 

TJW & QS: Yeah.

 

 

QS: I think it turned out great.

 

TJW: I think the editing was good. We did a really good job. It was good to see everything just come together. We worked hard, we were there for hours at night sometimes, and everything coming together I’m really happy with it.

 

QS: It was very rewarding to see all of our work put together after only seeing bits of it in the trailer and when we were doing ADR, so I think when we saw it all together we were all just like, wow, it turned out really good. I had been a little bit worried that it would look just too crazy, but I think it really did turn out great.

 

 

TJW: I’m going to head home for about three weeks, go back to New York, go back to the cold, the snow, get a little bit more of that, hang out with my family, and then come back to L.A. just to have a good time and probably work. I’ll do some other things, but right now I’m not focused on a career. I’m doing this because I love it. This isn’t just for – you know, okay, I’m doing this, I’m doing that, okay, we have to make sure I’m working here, it’s just because I love it, I’m just going with the flow of it.

 

QS: I live in New Jersey, so I’m going to stay in New Jersey, because I’m taking my vacation in California now, and pretty much go to visit my whole family and eat dinner.

 

 

QS: A lot of stuff. I’d like mostly stuff for design, because I like to design clothing.

 

TJW: You know, I’m at a point now where I can truthfully say I don’t really want anything. There’s nothing that I really want. Everything that I’ve ever really wanted has happened. And I’m content, I’m full, I just want to go back home and hang out with my family, watch them get stuff and be happy.

 

 

TJW: Oh yeah, socks, underwear, bring it on!

 

Q: What gift will you be excited to be giving this year?

 

TJW: I haven’t really started buying gifts yet, but I know there are certain things that everybody has wanted, like an IPOD or a videogame, and I just love the fact of seeing them open it, and seeing it there, the one thing that they’ve been wanting all year, it’s right there. I think that’s one of the best feelings you can have.

 

QS: Because then they’re so happy and they’re like, ‘Oh, thank you,’ and you feel so good because it’s like you gave them what they wanted and they’re so happy.

 

 

TJW: Wow, what new projects – well, there’s nothing really etched in stone, we’re looking at some things, but just here for the fun of it, just going with the flow.

 

QS: Same here.

 

 

TJW: There was no problem coordinating it. We finished in January, on the 25th I believe, and this started in February. There was no problem coordinating it. I was reading this the same time we were shooting Chris, and I was looking forward to it so much that it was like, ‘Okay, when is the season going to be done? I love you guys, I really do, but this is going to be fun, I know it.’ It’s like going to sleep the night before something really big happens, when you can’t sleep. I was really looking forward to meeting everybody, because I had no idea. I’d gone in with Quinn for the screen test,

 

QS: In California.

 

TJW: But there were five other girls, I didn’t know who they were going to pick. So it went well.

 

 

QS: Yeah.

 

 

QS: The tutor gave us our work, and if we had trouble she’d help us on it, but we were really only working on the stuff that our school gave us – well, I was, because I go to a public school.

 

TJW: There was no problem with it, I think whenever you have kids together in a room doing school, you’re going to create your own little school without walls. It’s going to be classes, math, but I think the one thing about it is, everybody’s doing something different and you have one-on-one with that teacher of what you’re really doing, it’s not [that] she has to move on quickly to the next thing. Or just to have a schedule, there’s no real schedule when you’re working on a movie with school. If you need some extra time on one thing, you’ve got it.

 

 

QS: I’m in sixth.

 

TJW: I’m in ninth.

 

 

TJW: You know it never was really hard. It was never hard to do that. And I think this character from whatever was hard made it easier. Everything that I do is pulling from me. There’s a goofy side of me, and then there’s a dork that I have, that’s just somewhere in there, and it’s easy just to pull from that. This made it easier. These two characters are similar, very similar. They’re both awkward, (they) don’t know what they’re really supposed to be doing here, and it did make it a lot easier to come back this season.

 

 

QS: I think everyone, I’m sorry, but everyone was always joking.

 

TJW: We weren’t serious, we weren’t very professional actors – you can’t expect that from five kids together shooting this crazy movie, doing all these things. We were just having fun, messing up lines sometimes.

 

QS: So many times.

 

TJW: Yeah, a lot of times, just having fun. It was free-flowing because it wasn’t a certain amount of time. Llike a series we have a week to get it done and it needs to be done now. We had two and a half months to shoot what, some 125 scenes, it wasn’t that hard.

 

QS: It’s not that many.

 

TJW: I know. It’s not that bad for two and a half months.

 

 

QS: I read for my role originally.

 

TJW: You know at first when I read the script there was a mix up of the names, so they told me I was reading for Spencer. But I was like, wait a minute, I kind of like the Charlie character, but they were like, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, you’re supposed to be Charlie. I think there was something about him that just – he’s just glowing, he’s a warm person, he’s very optimistic, he can look at a disaster and say, ‘Well, at least I’m not dead.’

 

 

QS: Well, it’s a question, would I get in trouble?

 

 

QS: I’d go on a vacation with all my friends and spend a bunch of money, my parent’s money.

 

 

QS: L.A. actually, I love L.A. 

 

TJW: If I was unaccompanied, you’d all better watch out (everyone laughs). I would probably do the same thing, just hang out, just do stuff that I’ve always wanted to do, be sick half the time, hurt myself a couple of times doing some stupid stuff, but I’d hang out. A lot of the stuff that we did in the movie I would probably do, I’d eat everything possible, everything I couldn’t really eat, take a golf cart and just drive recklessly, try out everything in the store.

 

 

QS: Well, my mom had done some TV and commercials before I was born, and so when I was born she knew I had a really big interest in acting because I was always acting on in plays with my dolls, and they were sort of boring, because I’ve seen them on tape. They always involved a lot of singing and dragging them around by their hair. But she saw that and I guess she really wanted to get me started in acting, because she knew that I had the interest that she had, only she wanted to get me started young. So she took me to some agents and I got accepted when I was really young, I was only three, and that’s where I started.

 

TJW: The question ties in to the movie actually, I just came out to L.A. for the fact that I wanted to get started and really push my career somewhere where I’d never gone. I didn’t come out for the auditioning process in L.A. I auditioned for the show in New York, they brought me out to L.A., we shot and that’s where I figured out that this was something that could really be a career, I could really do something from this. And it was out there that I realized that this movie was here and it was there and it was on the table and if I didn’t take it somebody else would, because it’s one of the greatest scripts I think I’ve seen in awhile. And that brought me out to L.A. and then that brought me to Utah, and brought me here, this movie really carried us.

 

"Unaccompanied Minors" opens in theaters on December 8th.