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Run across Manhattan for an entire night dressed only in his underwear and socks… but get chased around relentlessly by Brad Pitt and George Clooney.
It was the easiest career decision Austin Abrams ever had to make.
“It was crazy,” gushes Abrams, on a Zoom call from his home in Los Angeles, with a 2001: A Space Odyssey poster on the wall behind him. “It is still crazy to me. I was thinking about this whole experience last night and I’m amazed I did something like this. Brad and George are kind of everything you would want them to be; they are amazing guys and try to make you feel at home as much as possible. It’s a massive privilege that I was able to work with them.. acting with even one of them would have been crazy, but both of them?”
Director Jon Watts, Brad Pitt, Austin Abrams, Amy Ryan and George Clooney attend the ‘Wolfs’ photocall during the 81st Venice International Film Festival at Palazzo del Casino
| Photo Credit:
MATT WINKELMEYER
The 28-year-old, previously known for starring in successful coming-of-age and romantic dramas such as Paper Towns, Chemical Hearts, Dash & Lily and Brad’s Status, and of course, for playing Ethan in Euphoria, landed his first major big-budget film role as, well, ‘The Kid’ — as he’s known throughout the duration of Wolfs — in the Apple project from MCU’s Spider-Man trilogy director Jon Watts.
Not only has the action-comedy emerged as the most-viewed movie in Apple TV+ history within days of its streaming premiere, but Abrams is an absolute delight in the film, stealing several scenes from under the noses of his legendary co-stars; a particularly funny breathless rant wherein The Kid explains how he landed up flat-faced (and presumed dead) in a hotel room after a one-night stand with a district attorney — along with a bag full of drugs — is one for the ages.
Describing his character, Abrams says, “He’s called ‘The Kid’ in the movie, and that’s part of the inspiration towards playing him this way… he still felt like an actual kid to me. In one of the scenes, you also get a quick glimpse at his dad and his house which I feel gives you some sorts of clues about him too.”
Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Austin Abrams in a still from ‘Wolfs’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
He adds, “I wanted to tap into that part of yourself that you may be shut down as you get older, that is a bit more innocent, that you build up to protect yourself from the world or from getting hurt.”
It goes without saying that Abrams had the time of his life working with two bonafide superstars in Pitt and Clooney, and the actor describes the duo — who reunited for Wolfs 16 years after their last on-screen outing in Burn After Reading — as “just incredibly charismatic, warm, thoughtful and smart.”
“I mean, their wit is pretty unparalleled, and I’ve never met a better storyteller than George Clooney. There’s nobody that can tell a story better than him,” Abrams says.
He goes on to recall something Pitt told him on set that has since stayed with him: “It was Brad talking about how he chooses projects. He was saying that he has this philosophy, where he only chooses things that he feels connected to, and then basically hopes and trusts that other people will connect with it too. In the end, probably the best thing you can do is to do what inspires you. Then hopefully that inspiration will shape the performance and the project, and will shine through when people watch it. So yeah, that was definitely something that stuck with me.”
George Clooney, Austin Abrams, Amy Ryan and Brad Pitt attend the ‘Wolfs’ red carpet during the 81st Venice International Film Festival on September 01, 2024 in Venice, Italy
| Photo Credit:
VITTORIO ZUNINO CELOTTO
Pitt and Clooney’s decade-long friendship is the stuff of Hollywood folklore. Having been in the industry since 2011, Abrams has accumulated his fair share of buddies in Hollywood over the years. If he could star in his own version of Wolfs someday with an actor friend, who would that be?
“That’s such a great question! Luckily, I have a good amount of friends I can choose from for this! Thinking off the top of my head, guys like Lewis Pullman, Alex Wolff or Nat Wolff are people I have loved working with on multiple projects. They are absolutely fantastic co-stars; I’m sure there are more who I’ll think about later, and I’ll feel bad that I didn’t mention them. But that’s really kind of the dream in a sense, to keep working with collaborators that you love. You see actors work with the same directors or actors throughout their career, and it works because they enjoy working with each other,” he muses.
Abrams famously starred in Sam Levinson’s Euphoria as Ethan, the boyfriend of Kat — played by Barbie Ferreira, who exited the show after Season 2 after she felt her character’s storyline didn’t have a future; on top of this, Ethan and Kat also had a pretty intense breakup that has left viewers wondering if Abrams would come back in Season 3 to reprise his character.
Austin Abrams in a still from ‘Euphoria’
While he’s stated earlier that he doesn’t know if he’ll feature in Euphoria again, Abrams has no qualms in admitting that he loved working on Euphoria a lot: “That show and Sam (Levinson) were just so creative; it’s such an inspired project and you can feel why it connected with so many people. I think a lot about what that set felt like, and how it was always kind of moving and changing; this is how I imagine sets in the ‘70s to be like.”
Next, Abrams will feature in Barbarian director Zach Cregger’s Weapons, starring alongside Julia Garner and Josh Brolin, but there’s also plenty of talk he will be in the sequel to Wolfs.
“Yeah, I think so,” he grins, adding, “Look, you never know what’ll happen. I don’t want to do the whole counting your chickens before they hatch thing, but the story to the sequel that George and Brad have talked about… it does include me. And I would work with them again in a heartbeat; I’d do anything!”
Wolfs is currently streaming on Apple TV+
Published – October 05, 2024 05:44 pm IST
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