the outfit interview

Interview: The Outfit Stars Dylan O’Brien and Zoey Deutch

Focus Features’ thriller The Outfit is out today on digital storefronts. The 105-minute film stars Mark Rylance, Zoey Deutch, Johnny Flynn, Dylan O’Brien, Nikki Amuka-Bird, and Simon Russell Beale.

“From the Academy Award-winning writer of The Imitation Game (Graham Moore) comes The Outfit, a gripping and masterful thriller in which an expert tailor (Academy Award winner Mark Rylance) must outwit a dangerous group of mobsters in order to survive a fateful night,” reads the synopsis.

ComingSoon’s Jonathan Sim spoke to The Outfit stars Dylan O’Brien and Zoey Deutch about their memories of filming and what made them get attached to their characters in the film.

Jonathan Sim: Zoey, what was it about The Outfit that made you want to join the project and play the role of Mable?

Zoey Deutch: So much. I think initially, the script that [Graham Moore] and [Jonathan McClain] wrote was so masterful and beautifully constructed. I just, I hadn’t read anything like that ever. It felt like a classic play, shocking that it hadn’t been made yet, so that was what drew me to it initially, and I felt so lucky that I got to go on the journey, and then with the cast that ended up doing it to come on board was really spectacular.

Dylan, your character Richie, he goes on this very investing journey. What would you say was the most memorable part of your experience playing Richie?

Dylan O’Brien: Um…

Zoey: All the cigarettes you smoked.

Dylan: Yeah. Oh my, the headaches from the cigarettes. I mean, no joke. I really did love smoking the cigarettes.

Zoey: Well I mean you can’t smoke real cigarettes, you had to smoke the herbals. On set you can’t smoke real cigarettes, you smoke herbal cigarettes. Herbal cigarettes actually give you way bigger headaches.

Dylan: Yeah. They give you unusual headaches. You have to drink a lot of water, so you’re peeing a lot and with suspenders, you know, I gotta…anyway. Yeah, I mean, everything was so memorable. I mean, you know, getting to work with Zoe and [Johnny Flynn] were such incredible scene partners, too, and people to be around and learn from, and then take away as friends in my life too, you know? And then all the while, just to have such a great experience. I mean, look, I would always rather make a piece of shit and have a great time doing it, right? And not the other way around. But, the really special experiences are when both things happen. This was such a wonderful experience, and then also, we were just getting to do such a cool thing that I feel like we were so presently aware too. That does not come around often.

RELATED: The Outfit Review: Dylan O’Brien Shines in Decent Thriller

Zoey: Yeah. It was also the first thing I had done in a year. I hadn’t shot anything in a year of the pandemic. I had not worked on set.

Dylan: Yeah. We showed up, we were kinda like, wait…

Zoey: How do you act?

Dylan: We don’t know how to act.

Zoey: Being a movie that takes place in Chicago in the winter and we shot it outside of London in the spring. It was very funny.

Dylan: We shot it in Mark [Rylance]’s backyard.

Zoey: It was because of all the COVID stuff. It was like, the only place that we could get a stage.

Dylan: Yeah. It was cool. We had a little theater. We stayed down the block. We felt like we were just going to do a play every day.

Zoey: But to live in America and to go all the way to London, to go shoot a movie that takes place a couple hours from where we live. It’s very weird.

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