ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke One Fast Move stars K.J. Apa and Maia Reficco about the upcoming motorcycle racing movie. Apa discussed the film’s authenticity, while Reficco opened up about playing a single mother. The film begins streaming on Prime Video on August 8, 2024.
“One Fast Move is an action-adventure thrill ride about a young man down on his luck who seeks out his estranged father to help him pursue his dream of becoming a professional motorcycle racer,” says the synopsis. “With the help of his small town love interest and a motorcycle shop owner who moonlights as his mentor, he begins to break down the walls that his father’s absence had built up.”
Tyler Treese: K.J., I was really impressed by the genuine love the movie has for racing, Tail of the Dragon gets referenced, which was really cool, and there’s a real respect for it. I saw photos of you riding a few years ago, so it seems like you had a preexisting interest in motorcycles. So how was it getting to combine those loves of acting and bikes?
K.J. Apa: Thank you, man. I appreciate it. I actually didn’t know how to ride before reading the script. I began learning how to ride when I knew that I was gonna be playing this character. I also knew how much integrity would go into the actual racing part because the motorcycle racing community’s pretty big. So we wanted to make sure that the sound of the bikes was correct.
Terminology and stuff like that was something that Kelly really honed in on before we got going. Because the worst thing in the world is when you watch a movie and you have a street bike zooming down the road, and it sounds like a Harley Davidson. For a motorcycle racing movie to be, to feel real, and to have integrity, I feel like we had a lot of experts on board who made sure that these things were in line.
Maia, your character is Camila. She’s a single mom, and we get some really emotional moments coming from that dynamic. How was it really tapping into that for this role?
Maia Reficco: It was a responsibility. I think for me, I’m not a mother and telling that story entailed honesty, empathy, and respect above all. So I think as an actor, it was definitely a challenge that I wanted to approach in the best way possible.I think it especially is a testament to Kelly and the way that he wrote this character and the way that he allowed for her to come to life and gave her room to be a human and exist and have her own journey. But it was definitely a responsibility for me. It was not something that I just wanted to kind of wing simply because I know… It kind of goes back to what K.J. just said, but if we’re doing it in a way that doesn’t feel authentic, it kind of loses its purpose. So I think for me personally, it was that, above all, the responsibility.
One thing that’s really great about this film is all the characters are fully fleshed out. They feel very real. K.J., I feel like a lot of that comes from Kelly being a very collaborative director, which makes sense given his acting background. I was reading about how you two went back and forth on fine-tuning the script, and you really got to have your say in this, which isn’t always the case, especially in television. So how was it working with Kelly and really finding this great collaborative middle ground with your visions?
Apa: It was a dream. Getting to collaborate in that way is a dream. I think that’s why Kelly’s such a great director. In the phases leading up to shooting and while we’re shooting, he’s very uncontrolling. By doing that, he kind of lets each moment present itself. So he’s really just capturing things exactly as they should be.
We had a lot of things go happen on set that weren’t convenient. We were dealing with lightning and thunder and stuff like that, and watching how Kelly deals with natural occurrences like that is a testament to who he is as a person and his directing style, which is to kind of accept everything as it is. With performances, with anything that could happen while we’re shooting, which is why I think the script felt real and organic.
Then that same energy ends up moving into the casting process, and that same energy moves into being in a scene with somebody. Then ultimately, every phase of making a movie, if Kelly’s heart is the way that it is should sustain itself in every process. The cutting, the way the movie’s advertised, even this, you know what I mean? I feel like it all starts with him, and it ends with him.
One Fast Move premieres August 8 on Prime Video.