Zoë Chao’s acting career has gathered steady momentum over the past three years thanks in part to her close collaboration with filmmaker Mia Lidofsky on the Facebook Watch series Strangers. After landing a role in Richard Linklater’s underrated dramedy Where’d You Go Bernadette, Chao has her biggest film role to date in Downhill, a remake of the acclaimed drama Force Majeure.
The great news is that Downhill may hold the same plotline (a family is affected after the events of an avalanche), but it is not a blow by blow homage to the homage. Filmmakers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, Oscar winners for their work on The Descendants (Best Adapted Screenplay), infuse the narrative with their distinct aesthetic, bringing a refreshing level of subtlety (and occasional heartbreak) into the proceedings.
Chao stars as Rosie, the free-spirited girlfriend of Zach (Zach Woods), a co-worker of Pete’s (Will Ferrell). During the aforementioned avalanche, Pete left his two kids and wife Billie (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) to seek shelter while they were left at an outdoor restaurant to fend for themselves.
Although the Austrian Alps is a true sight to behold in Downhill, the film’s show stopping sequences centers on a showdown between Pete and Billie, with Zach and Rosie serving as witness to the fight. Faxon and Rash spent three days prepping and shooting the sequence.
“Usually you shoot a scene like that and it’s broken up and it’s out of order and you’re trying to orient yourself as an actor,” said Chao. “But what was so cool about the way Nat and Jim set us up is we had three luxurious days and we got to rehearse the first day and shoot the following two days . . . We were able to forget the camera was there and it became like this play. Zach and I, people (have told us) ‘Wow, your facial expressions were so good, what was it like practicing it?’ We didn’t practice anything. We were just there just receiving this slo-mo car crash (performance from these) two powerhouses (Julia and Will) coming together. It was pretty thrilling and exhausting and sweat inducing. I had very sweaty palms all three days, but it was such a charged scene to experience.”
Click on the media bar to hear Chao explain why watching Downhill made her, in a universal sense, feel less alone:
Downhill opens in theaters February 14.
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Posted by: Greg Srisavasdi