The Nerd Stash recently attended an exclusive press conference hosted by Disney for its upcoming film, Crater. The cast members who participated in the event include Isaiah Russell-Bradley, Mckenna Grace, Orson Hong, Thomas Boyce, and Billy Barratt. The official synopsis for the upcoming Disney+ original film reads as, Crater is the story of Caleb Channing (Russell-Bailey), who was raised on a lunar mining colony and is about to be permanently relocated to an idyllic faraway planet following the death of his father (Mescudi). But before leaving, to fulfill his dad’s last wish, he and his three best friends, Dylan (Barratt), Borney (Hong) and Marcus (Boyce), and a new arrival from Earth, Addison (Grace), hijack a rover for one final adventure on a journey to explore a mysterious crater.
Directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez, the coming-of-age sci-fi adventure stars Isaiah Russell-Bailey, Mckenna Grace, Billy Barratt, Orson Hong, Thomas Boyce, and Scott Mescudi. A 21 Laps Production, Crater is written by John Griffin and produced by Shawn Levy, Dan Levine, and Dan Cohen. The film’s executive producers are Emily Morris, John G. Scotti, Rpin Suwannath, Gordon Gray, Paris Latsis, and Terry Douglas.
Attending Six Weeks of ‘Moon Camp’
Billy Barratt: “It’s a pretty crazy place. It’s quite far away, you know, it’s pretty high up in the sky. No, no, I’m joking. You know, it was cool. We did a lot of everything on Zoom ’cause it was all COVID and everything. And we met. Ah, this is really bad that I can’t remember this, but there was a guy. He was very clever, and he knew everything he was talking about. And he was on Zoom, and I remember we sat on a table, and we were just making notes. He would just basically tell us about everything to do with the moon.”
Isaiah Russell-Bradley: “Yeah, and not only that. We did, all together, six weeks of prep to get this spacesuit fitting and the harness stunt training as well. Like, for four of those weeks, we worked with the team at Legacy to help build our spacesuits. And so make sure they looked like real, functional spacesuits and as realistic as they possibly can look. Also, for the last two weeks, we worked with Dave McCumber and his stunt team to help us, you know, look like real astronauts and perform like real astronauts in low gravity. And most of that was actually harness work. And they made sure our spacewalk looked as realistic as possible. And I feel like we’ve accomplished that.”
On Having to Prep & Getting into Character
Isaiah Russell-Bradley: “I feel like one of the bigger challenges in playing Caleb was putting myself in the mindset of someone who has lost a parent or a very close family member. Fortunately, I haven’t had to deal with a major loss like that. So, I had to do a lot of work to prepare for that aspect of my character. You know, I got advice from family members and friends who have experienced that pain and grief because I know there are a lot of levels and layers to grieving someone so close to you.”
Mckenna Grace: “You know, I mean, it’s funny. I feel like Addison and I are pretty similar. I’m probably not as smart as she is. She knows a lot. I don’t live on the moon, that’s a big difference. But I don’t know. I find myself pretty similar to her. I really enjoyed playing her. I felt like it was the most similar character to myself I’ve ever gotten to play.”
Orson Hong: “I’m kind of in Mckenna’s boat. I feel like similar to Borney. I feel like very little acting was involved to kind of get into the mindset of the character. So being the youngest in the cast, I did feel that dynamic playing Borney. And so, yeah, I feel pretty smooth.”
Thomas Boyce: “I love playing Marcus. Marcus, I think, I’m the most different than my character than anybody else in the cast. Marcus, he doesn’t talk a lot. He’s very simple, and he’s so incredibly selfless. I wish I could be as selfless as he is. He takes it to another level. He’s just kind of really just the heart and the soul of the group. And yeah, very, very simple guy, very kind. I’d kind of describe him sort of as, like, Lennie in Mice and Men. He’s just kind of a bear, a lovable bear, and I’m not quite as go-with-the-flow as he is.”
Billy Barratt: “Well, we’ve got some similarities. We’ve got some differences. But I think the similarities are that he cares for the people he loves, and he’ll do anything to make sure that they’re okay and happy and treated well. But the differences are that I don’t think I’m as cool as he is because I think that’s probably a character that he tries to portray and be that sort of guy in the group. But yeah, that was something I had to work towards.”
Mckenna Grace on What Drew Her to Star in Crater
Mckenna Grace: “Reading the script, I mean, of course, it’s really cool to be able to do something on the moon. But I think that all of the characters had such a unique bond. And I think that this film ends in a way that surprises me. And it felt like it had a lot of heart in the script. And I think that it’s quite hard to take a film that is a bunch of kids going on a road trip on the moon and make it feel grounded. And make some of the scenes and dialogue feel quite real. But I think that our director, Mr. Kyle, did a really good job of that. And I mean, reading the script, I don’t cry during movies or scripts very easily. But this one, I don’t know. The script just felt really special.”
Isaiah Russell-Bradley on Working with Kid Cudi
Isaiah Russell-Bradley: “I mean, working with Mr. Scott, also known as Kid Cudi, was a great experience. We kinda take the same approach to filming scenes. We give ourselves that kind of freedom to explore them, in a way. We rehearsed between takes, and we liked to, you know, stay in character between breaks sometimes. Also, he’s an amazing artist. I have Day ‘N’ Nite on repeat to this day.”
He continues: “You know, we bonded over our love of music and music production. I like to make beats on my phone and computer. And I would show them to him, and he would give me his thoughts. You know, being able to work with someone who I connected with, with something other than acting, was pretty cool.”
Crater is currently set to premiere on May 12th, exclusively on Disney+.
