Mitzi Ruhlmann and Toby Wallace says sleep deprivation helped the film Boys in the Trees
MITZI Ruhlmann and Toby Wallace say all-night filming for the new Aussie drama Boys in the Trees messed their heads and probably helped the film.
LONG before the current creepy clown craze took off in Australia, keen-eyed observers may well have noticed a few freaky costumes at odd hours on the streets of Adelaide about this time last year.
The new Australian psychological thriller Boys in the Trees is set over one long Halloween night, with its young cast dressed for the occasion in clown suits, wolf suits and the like to ensure a maximum freak-out factor.
For stars Toby Wallace and Mitzi Ruhlmann, that meant a whole lot of very long nights of shooting, to the point that it started to mess with their heads.
“It was pretty much all night shoots,” says Ruhlmann, best known for her roles in Channel Seven’s Home and Away and ABC dramas Hiding and The Code.
“I kind of felt perpetually jet-lagged; I think everyone was just really tired. But I think also in some ways it probably helped — I think people dropped their guards a little bit and there is an honesty there that perhaps isn’t there in the daytime.”
VENICE FESTIVAL: STANDING OVATION FOR BOYS IN THE TREES
Wallace, who plays the lead character Corey, agrees that the ungodly hours helped create a slightly otherworldly atmosphere that perfectly lent itself to the strange goings on in the film, in which two former friends reconnect and re-examine the reasons they drifted apart in the midst of Halloween weirdness.
“You’d maybe get up at six or seven o’clock in the evening after sleeping all day and then you would work all through the night and go to bed at about seven in the morning,” Wallace says. “You’d get pretty much no sunlight and then go back to a night shoot and we basically all turned into vampires. We were all tripping out because no one had had any sleep so I am sure that had an effect on what the movie turned out to be.”
Boys In the Trees screened to acclaim at the recent Toronto and Venice film festivals and Wallace says that despite the mundane, suburban Australia setting, its themes of bullying, friendship, and youth frustration and alienation struck a chord with audiences around the world. Both he and Ruhlmann agree that it will particularly resonate with teens and young adults, whose schooling and coming-of-age experiences — for better or worse — are still fresh in their minds.
“It’s a lot about holding on to your childhood — but also being able to let go the things that create pain in your life,” says Wallace. “It’s about being able to step forward in your life and follow ambitions and dreams you had when you were a kid. As a young male I think it’s definitely important for young people to see it.”
Ruhlmann attended a Sydney performing arts high school that was completely supportive of her extra-curricular acting activities — she was 11 when she was cast as Rabbit on Home and Away — and says she’s grateful she avoided the bullying that can befall so-called arty kids in other environments.
“I actually think I was so lucky and completely managed to avoid that,” she says. “Something about the performing arts just fosters love and encouragement and acceptance really. It’s inevitable that there is going to be a little bit of that kind of hormonal stuff but it was really such a loving environment to be a part of.”
English-born Wallace, who went to school in the Melbourne suburb of Wheeler’s Hill, says his methods of surviving high school and pursuing his acting dream were more … evasive.
“I’d often wag a lot of classes with friends and try to go off and do my own thing,” he says with a laugh. “I remember finding my dad’s video camera when I was really young and I’d get all my friends together and make all these short films. I found that a lot more interesting.
SEE: BOYS IN THE TREES (RATED M) RELEASED TODAY (THURSDAY)
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