'Humane' Cast and Crew Exclusive Interview

(L to R) Jay Baruchel and Emily Hampshire in Caitlin Cronenberg’s ‘Humane.’ Courtesy of Steve Wilkie. An IFC Films & Shudder Release.

Opening in theaters on April 26th is the new thriller ‘Humane,’ which was directed by Caitlin Cronenberg, the daughter of filmmaking legend David Cronenberg (‘The Fly,’ ‘Eastern Promises’).

The movie stars Jay Baruchel (‘Tropic Thunder‘), Emily Hampshire (‘Mother!‘), Peter Gallagher (‘Palm Springs‘), and Enrico Colantoni (‘Veronica Mars‘).

Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with director Caitlin Cronenberg, and actors Emily Hampshire and Jay Baruchel about their work on ‘Humane,’ developing the project, the characters, their family dynamics, the movie’s tone, and working with the rest of the cast.

‘Humane’ director Caitlin Cronenberg. Courtesy of Steve Wilkie. An IFC Films & Shudder Release.

Moviefone: To begin with, Caitlin, can you talk about your first reaction to the screenplay and the themes you were excited to explore as a first-time feature film director?

Caitlin Cronenberg: Well, my first reaction was, “This is a really original concept.” That was something that really excited me. I’ve read a lot of scripts and things that take place over one day in one location, and none of them really spoke to me the way that this did, especially within those parameters. I think that was the first thing that drew me in. Then I was excited to explore a family dynamic within this very particular situation of this incredibly trying moment. It was written and the first time I read it was before Covid, so we didn’t know that that was going to be something that we were all going to experience months later. But that was certainly something that really stood out to me as like, “Okay, how do families respond? What would a family do?” I think that a lot of the response that companies had, and people had to how they wanted to make products that people would use, and how people were profiting from the reactions to fear was something that we worked on a lot in terms of the world building, because that was something that you couldn’t have really imagined. You think you know the world and then you see a bus ad for masks for children, and suddenly everything that you thought you knew about the world had changed.

Jay Baruchel in Caitlin Cronenberg’s ‘Humane’. Courtesy of Steve Wilkie. An IFC Films & Shudder Release.

MF: Jay, can you talk about your approach to playing Jared and if it was difficult empathizing with the character?

Jay Baruchel: Yeah. I mean, he’s a real A-Hole. He is kind of a jerk. But I think that there’s a finite number of experiences that we all go through. I just had to find my equivalent of what he was feeling, which is he thinks that he’s too smart to wait in line. He’s one of those guys basically. That everybody else would be cutting the line, and the only reason they haven’t is they haven’t figured it out yet, so they deserve to be waiting behind him. So, in his mind, he’s probably more honest and everybody else is kind of a liar. That was at least a jumping off point. He doesn’t think of himself as a politician, but he’s a political animal and he’s part of that ecosystem. I think depending on what day it is and who’s asking him, how much he believes what he’s selling will change. I think there’s times where he honestly believes it, but I also think there’s times where this is an expedient path to success for him. So, I think what you’re watching is a man who’s been able to get away with his house of cards kind of all falling in on him. Now his wife hates him, his kid hates him, his family hates him, and the world’s falling apart and everything that he built has gone. You’re watching an animal of the political ecosystem grapple with that reality.

Emily Hampshire in Caitlin Cronenberg’s ‘Humane.’ Courtesy of Steve Wilkie. An IFC Films & Shudder Release.

MF: Emily, Rachel described herself in the film as “cold and selfish.” How did that line of dialogue help you to understand the character?

Emily Hampshire: I think she does realize that her anger towards her father is that she is just like him, and I also really liked the fact that she is just obsessed with her work, obsessed with her job. That was something I really felt like I could identify with. But also in the beginning, I remember Caitlin had these black nails. That was something I was like, “I need those nails.” That was it, those nails. She had also mentioned that there was this pretty famous lawyer in Toronto that Rachel was a little based on. I don’t know if she was fully based on, but I read that person’s memoir and I was like, “Oh, this is Rachel.”

(L to R) Jay Baruchel, Emily Hampshire, and Alanna Bale in Caitlin Cronenberg’s ‘Humane.’ Courtesy of Steve Wilkie. An IFC Films & Shudder Release.

MF: Emily, how would you describe the family dynamics and the tension between Rachel, her siblings, and their father?

EH: I think it’s that classic family drama thing when there’s just resentment that has been built over years and years, and it all comes to a head in this dinner. I love that when all the siblings start fighting, everyone kind of regresses to when they were kids. I find that at least if I go home, I start suddenly talking like a teenager and just regressing. I think that’s how their dynamic really plays out. Everybody goes back to being a kid again.

(L to R) Jay Baruchel, Peter Gallagher, Alanna Bale, and Enrico Colantoni in Caitlin Cronenberg’s ‘Humane’. Courtesy of Steve Wilkie. An IFC Films & Shudder Release.

MF: Jay, do you agree with that? What was your take on the family’s dynamics?

JB: I think one of the truths of my adult life is that I learn lessons. I grow up. I learn how to deal with people, and then I’m around my sister and I’m nine years old again, and nobody can hurt me quicker, annoy me quicker, or drive me up the wall. The way that I complain to my mother, all of it. Like Emily said, you’re back in that environment, you kind of assume all those roles and versions of those roles regardless. I see it with my wife and all her siblings. They’re all in their thirties and forties, and they might as well still be in the basement in 1996 bickering with one another. So, what you get in this movie is that on crack.

(L to R) Alanna Bale, Sirena Gulamgaus, Peter Gallagher, Uni Park, Emily Hampshire, and Jay Baruchel in Caitlin Cronenberg’s ‘Humane’. Courtesy of Steve Wilkie. An IFC Films & Shudder Release.

MF: Caitlin, was it difficult building the tension between the siblings and can you talk about the betrayal that eventually happens?

CC: I think that naturally there’s a divide between the two older siblings and the two younger siblings who you expect banded together in their childhood because their two older siblings were such a unit together. So, I think that there are moments that are surprising, and there are moments that are less surprising, which I think are, when Rachel and Jared turn on the younger siblings. The moment that was truly surprising was when Ashley (Alanna Bale) turned on Noah (Sebastian Chacon), because you expect that she’s going to be his ally and that that’s never going to happen. So, when that happened, I think that we really wanted to create that quiet heartbreak of what happens when the person who you truly love and trust in your life does betray you, which hopefully is not an experience that many of us have had. But I think that the sibling relationship with Jared and Rachel, nothing is surprising because those are the characters they are. So, the tension really comes from that extra layer of betrayal. Then of course, who was having the first strike? That is a Rachel situation.

Emily Hampshire in Caitlin Cronenberg’s ‘Humane.’ Courtesy of Robin Cymbaly. An IFC Films & Shudder Release.

MF: Emily, how would you describe Rachel and Jared’s relationship, and their relationship to their other siblings?

EH: Well, Jay and I have known each other for a long time, and we’ve also worked together many times. But one thing we hadn’t done was play siblings, which is the one thing we were made for, I think, especially siblings who fight and think they’re at the same level intellectually. So, it felt easy and exciting for me to be able to play in that world with Jay. So, there wasn’t a lot of work to be done there, which I liked. I think when I spoke to Caitlin about doing this project at first, I texted Jay and was like, “You need to be my brother.”

(L to R) Sirena Gulamgaus, Emily Hampshire, and Enrico Colantoni in Caitlin Cronenberg’s ‘Humane.’ Courtesy of Robin Cymbaly. An IFC Films & Shudder Release.

MF: Jay, what was it like for you working with Emily on this project?

JB: If I could do every job with Emily, I would be a very happy man. We’ve worked together many times. We have a wonderful shorthand, and we’re lucky to also get on super good too. So, it was just fun and comfortable. You got to find your sea legs on any set, and it is bumpy the first week. When you have somebody that you’ve known for 20 years plus and you’re comfortable with them, it helps you get there and find your comfort zone way quicker, I think. Then it’s just a question of making sure that we can carry on that authenticity with everybody else. You want it to have a sort of lived in feeling. You don’t want to feel like everybody just got taken out of their boxes. You want to feel like these people are who they are and have grown up around each other and have known each other forever. You’ve got to do that on a Canadian independent film schedule, which means we had one hour of stunt rehearsals. That was it. Then we were making a movie together, and so we had to just sort it out. I think that’s one of the gifts of casting who Caitlin did was that we had talented actors that we could jam with and who were up for it. Alana is the sister that Emily and I have always had and just didn’t realize it.

Peter Gallagher in Caitlin Cronenberg’s ‘Humane’. Courtesy of Steve Wilkie. An IFC Films & Shudder Release.

MF: Jay, can you talk about Jared’s relationship with his father and what was it like working with Peter Gallagher on those scenes?

JB: It was getting to work with a bona fide Rock and Roll Hall of Famer. He has been around forever, and I’ve grown up watching him. He’s given so many powerful performances that. Also, when I was a kid, my mother would always make a point of telling me the actors she liked when they would come up in a movie. He was one of the ones that she’d always point out to me as like, “Oh, I like him. He’s always good.” So that was a real treat. He’s just a lovely guy and a fun collaborator. In terms of the father son dynamic, I think that Jared thinks he’s smarter than his father. I think Jared thinks he’s more honest than his father. But at the end of the day, like a significant amount of people, he still needs his father to say, “Your finger paintings are good.” All our push and pull, our conflict and our tension, I think starts from that place of, “This is a kid who thinks he’s better than this man and yet this man’s opinion means everything to him still.” I was going to say that the siblings are having a pissing contest. So, if they don’t need each other’s approval, they need to impress, respect or fear, and that’s what they want from each other.

(Left) Sirena Gulamgaus and Martin Roach in Caitlin Cronenberg’s ‘Humane’. Courtesy of Steve Wilkie. An IFC Films & Shudder Release.

MF: Caitlin, can you talk about the challenges of striking the right tone for the movie and balancing humor with horror?

CC: I don’t think it was necessarily challenging. I think it felt natural just given who we had to work with and the material that we had to work with because the script is clearly very dark in certain situations. There are obviously funny moments of reprieve, and then you give a script like that to actors who have the range to do very straightforward and serious versus very funny, and everything in between. The tone kind of naturally happens. I put a lot of trust into what they felt about their own characters because of course, why wouldn’t I do that? Look at who’s taking on these characters. So, there were surprises that I was just blown away by even within their own performances of their own characters, because they embodied them so completely. It’s just words on a page until the actors take over the characters. Then the tone presents itself because of the way that the characters are interacting with each other.

Enrico Colantoni in Caitlin Cronenberg’s ‘Humane’. Courtesy of Steve Wilkie. An IFC Films & Shudder Release.

MF: Finally, Caitlin, can you talk about the casting process and finding the right actors for this project?

CC: Ultimately, it’s a bit more complicated because you have people who are behind the scenes who have opinions, and they want to have lists and everything. But Emily was my first call and I think it was a text. I said, “I’m making a movie, can you be in my movie?” She was like, “Yes.” It was so clear that Emily needed to play Rachel. It was of course blessed by all the powers that be because everybody knew that Emily would play Rachel. Then having Emily on board first, we always wanted Jay, and it was just a natural choice. But having Emily play the sister role made me even more excited about the possibility of those two being siblings. But Jay and Emily were the first two cast, and that kind of set the tone for the rest of the family members. I was like, “Who’s going to be their annoying little sister?” So, we brought Alana in. We did a video audition. It was still during Covid, and she was just the dream of all dreams. She had brushed up her eyebrows and taken a picture and put it beside Peter Gallagher and said, “See, I’m your long-lost daughter.” So, bringing her on, she blew me away because that girl can scream. Her screaming ability, you don’t necessarily think of how key that’s going to be until you get someone to scream and see how well they do it. Then with Enrico Colantoni, Bob was written for him, and it was just really a matter of making sure that that was able to happen. But he’s again, just a mind-boggling actor who is capable of everything. Then all the supporting actors, everybody was so great. It couldn’t have been more wonderful. Peter came in halfway through and the siblings had already done all the fighting. It was kind of fun to bring him in after everyone had bonded to really create and bring home that disconnect with the father who has no idea what his kids are up to. Not that he couldn’t have done it anyway, but it made it kind of funny.

“Dying makes all the difference in the world.”

R1 hr 33 minApr 26th, 2024

Showtimes & Tickets

In the wake of an environmental collapse that has forced humanity to shed 20% of its population, a family dinner erupts into chaos when a father’s plan to enlist… Read the Plot

What is the plot of ‘Humane’?

Taking place over one day and mere months after a global ecological collapse has forced world leaders to take extreme measures to reduce the earth’s population, a recently retired newsman enlists in the nation’s new euthanasia program.