Hey, friends! Barbarella here. SUPERHOST comes out today on VOD, Digital HD, DVD and Blu-ray. Directed and written by Brandon Christensen (Z, Still/Born), it stars Sara Canning (“9-1-1”, “Nancy Drew”), Osric Chau (“The Flash”, “Supernatural”), Gracie Gillam (“Z Nation,” “Scream Queens”), and Barbara Crampton (Jakob’s Wife, You're Next).
In SUPERHOST, Teddy and Claire are vloggers who travel and share their experiences about their vacation stays. With subscribers to their channel dwindling, they think the eccentric host at their latest stay, Rebecca, may boost their numbers.
In addition to the movie, the DVD and Blu-ray include some fun bonus features, like director commentary, behind-the-scenes, shooting in a pandemic, bloopers, visual FX, photo gallery, and “Scaredycats” Episodes 1 and 2.
I had the opportunity to speak with Osric Chau, who was a fan favorite as Kevin Tran on “Supernatural,” or at least he was a favorite of mine. I assume others feel the same. I mean, how could they not? At any rate, I have this vision of the actor in a remake of the film that first drew me into Hong Kong cinema and led me down a rabbit hole of finding and watching similar content. It was the first thing I told Osric, because maybe saying it could make it happen. Check it out.
I know that we're promoting SUPERHOST here, but I have a question that's not related to the film. In addition to being an actor, you're also a martial artist. It’s probably going to sound a little crazy, but I would absolutely love to see you in a remake of The God of Cookery as the Stephen Chow character. I just think it would be brilliant. In my head, it's just amazing.
“Oh, I would love that.”
Wouldn't that be great? My question for you is if you could be in a remake of any martial arts movie, which one would you want it to be and why?
“Just out of nostalgia’s sake, and this was my favorite movie growing up, Legend of the Drunken Master 2 with Jackie Chan. I would not do it justice. I think Jackie was brilliant, and that movie certainly shaped a big percent of my life, probably more than it should have. Absolutely that, just to live that out.”
Yeah. In SUPERHOST you play a vlogger. What kind of vlogs did you watch during your preparation for the role?
“Our director, Brandon, is actually an amazing vlogger. I don't know where he got it from. I know he's done some vlogging before, and honestly, he gave us all the prep we needed. He had a couple of suggestions, like, "This is what I was thinking." So we had the homework that we needed to check out, and it was very easy because Brandon had a very strong idea of what he wanted. If you watch our BTS, or any of the stuff that they put out, it was just Brandon filming that.”
What are your thoughts on Airbnb and other home-share type apps? Have you ever used them?
“I use them all the time. I love it. It's super convenient. You do hear the creepy stories of like, "Oh, did you hear that person was filming that Airbnber, and that was really weird and creepy." You do hear that, but I guess there's a privilege that I have as a male, that I'm not normally afraid of anybody being too weird. I will take that as my privilege and try to appreciate it because I've traveled a lot. And often I try to Airbnb over a hotel because you get to slip into someone else's life a little bit. If you're in another country, and you just look for an Airbnb that suits the lifestyle that you kind of want to try out, it's refreshing to just live as someone else might live. There are the Airbnbs that are essentially hotels, but I try to go for the ones that have a little personality.”
Right, yeah. What's your worst traveling experience?
“My first time traveling alone was in Hong Kong, and I was away from home for, I think, six months at that point. I'd never been away for that long, and I just got homesick, and I met some dude who was pretending to be my uncle's friend. I essentially got scammed out of all my money at the time.”
Oh no.
“Yeah, it was a very traumatic experience, but I called my parents, and [I was] just so sad, and my dad just said, "Are you okay?" and I'm like, "Yeah," and he's like, "Well, as long as you have your health, that's all that matters." That made me cry even more because I thought they would be upset for me losing all my money. But it was a nice moment of me appreciating my parents for what they stood for and what they value.”
Nice. In the movie, it's this beautiful house in a beautiful location. Would you talk a little bit about your favorite and least favorite aspects of filming there?
“We had a lot of bugs, that will be my least favorite thing, by far. There are these beetles everywhere. And they just, I don't know, congregated around the sun. It was worse than if it was raining heavily on screen, because you would just see all these little specs floating around. So that was incredibly not great. And when you're eating, they're just all over your food. You kind of have to find shaded areas. That was an interesting endeavor.
And then, favorite thing…[this was] my first pandemic shoot, [so] it was a really tiny, tiny group because they couldn't have too many people. It was just fun living on the side of the mountain in Vegas with this small group of people. And it really felt like summer camp. Most movies feel [somewhat] like summer camp. This one actually felt like summer camp.”
Who was your favorite person on set and why? And it can be anyone from the person who was stocking the craft services table to a co-star.
“Man. Everyone was so cool. I will say the most interesting person was our COVID safety officer. He was just so fascinating. I believe he's in Alaska right now doing some crazy thing. And Kurt, he’s one of the producers. He's the person that we dealt with the most, and he was just so cool and chill. And for a young guy, he’s produced so many movies already. I believe, he might be done by now, but he was in Thailand filming the next one that he was directing. Super cool, chill dude that kind of ran around solving all of our problems.”
I need somebody like that in my life.
“I think we all do.”
What are your thoughts on how much importance is placed on social media these days?
“It used to be a big part of my life, and I just got sick of it. I don't really use it that much. Now that I have all of these other endeavors going on in my life with the restaurants and the writing and the producing and stuff, I just don't put that much time in it. I still have it on my phone, but I rarely open it. It’s kind of refreshing because I used to feel like I needed to see every notification, and I hated that. I don't want to need social media. I recognize the importance of it, and I know it can start and stop any career at this point. But there's a big part of me that, I guess, is a very traditional person. I guess, I'm an old fart in this way, but I just don't want that to be my life, so now I just kind of live my life as I need to.
“I want to do the things that I want to do. I just want the work to speak for itself, so I want to focus on that rather than being the person that's good at advertising it. It's absolutely a skill that I do not possess, so I'll leave that to the actual social-media influencers who are great at their job.”
If you had to describe yourself as an animal, what animal would it be and why?
“Maybe by default, just because I was born in the Year of the Tiger, it would be a tiger. It’s very versatile, and I think that's the one trait that I absolutely loved of the tiger, that they can swim. They can climb. They can't fly. If they could fly, that would absolutely be the animal. But you know what, that's still pretty good.”
What's the most daring thing you've ever done for a role?
“That's a good question. I don't know. I wish I had a crazy story. I mean, I probably do that I'm not thinking of, but I don't know if I've ever wanted a role so badly in my life that I did anything illegal. I'll bother my agents a little bit or I'll dig in. I'll find the producers. I've done that stuff, but nothing that I would deem too crazy in the name of getting a thing. I think the older I get, the less I care and the more it's just like, well you have to find the right fit, and if it's not the right fit, then so be it. At this point, I would rather create projects for myself.
“Maybe the craziest thing that I've actually gone out and tried was for a short film. It was this director that I'd seen one of his shorts, and I loved it. I contacted all my management team, my agents. They had no idea what I was talking about or who this person was. And I dug into friends of friends, and I just got myself an audition. And then by the end of it, he was like, "Oh man. Yeah, I'd love to work with you." So it was actually really easy. But I probably did the most work to get that short film than anything else, and it's just because I was a fan of the director, and I loved the last one that he did.”
If you want to see Osric Chau in SUPERHOST, it’s available now on VOD, Digital HD, DVD and Blu-ray. Check out the trailer.
