Imogen Poots and Alia Shawkat Get to the Bottom of the Big Black Hole

Since her breakout role in the 2007 zombie sequel 28 Weeks Later, Imogen Poots has established herself as an omnivorous talent, appearing in festival gems like The Art of Self-Defense, quiet highbrow productions like The Father, a fleet of rom-coms, a pair of music biopics, and some more horror flicks. But of all the roles in her multifaceted body of work, it’s the sinister, eerie roles she prefers, a craving which the 32-year-old actor satisfies in the upcoming Amazon Prime miniseries Outer Range. The show, billed as a “supernatural neo-Western mystery thriller,” features heavyweights like Josh Brolin and Lili Taylor, and follows a Wyoming rancher (Brolin) who discovers an enormous black hole on his land after Autumn, a mysterious drifter played by Poots, darkens his door. The show, which premiered last week, has already generated buzz for its made-for-Reddit premise and chilling interrogation of the American frontier myth. One viewer who can’t get enough is the actor Alia Shawkat. The pair, who met on the set of the cult horror hit Green Room, often watch one another’s work as a way of keeping in touch, but this time, things are different. Shawkat is completely hooked on Outer Range. What’s at the bottom of the enormous black hole? She called up Poots for some answers. —MARA VEITCH

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IMOGEN POOTS: Is there a weird delay, or is it fine?

ALIA SHAWKAT: You sound slightly like you’re in a cave.

POOTS: What about now?

SHAWKAT: A little better. I’ll take what I can get!

POOTS: I’m bent over the phone like a goblin. 

SHAWKAT: [Laughs] No, I want you to be comfortable. For god’s sake, we’re being recorded my friend.

POOTS: How are you? Where are you?

SHAWKAT: No, no, no. That is not how this works. I don’t have to answer any questions, do you understand? Funnily enough, my first questions for you are: How are you? Where are you?

POOTS: [Laughs] I’m doing well. I haven’t been outside yet, so I’ve got that kind of cavewoman complexion. 

SHAWKAT: Why haven’t you been outside?

POOTS: It’s been one thing after another. I’m looking forward to my pilgrimage to get groceries. I’m in London.

SHAWKAT: Nice. So that’s why you’re not going outside. 

POOTS: We’ve got to make sure that we find each other’s jokes hilarious during this interview.

SHAWKAT: Yes, because you know what they do at Interview—they write “Laughs” if we laugh. 

POOTS: [Laughs] Perfect. 

SHAWKAT: Imogen, I know we’re friends and all, but I’ve been hired to do a job here today, and I’m going to come in hot. I hope you’re ready for that. I’ve seen a few episodes of your show, Outer Range, and I’m genuinely a fan now. Have you seen it?

POOTS: I’ve seen the first couple episodes. I started out watching with my boyfriend, and then I soldiered on alone with it. It’s so different to watch something like that solo. 

SHAWKAT: Do you have any weird little rituals to help you prepare to watch yourself in a show? 

POOTS: When they first sent it over I was alone, and I was so curious. I think it’s quite a rare feeling when you really care about a job emotionally, which I did with this one. I spent seven months in this town with these people, so there’s a sense of coming home when you watch that back. That rush of familiarity.

SHAWKAT: The core memories, yeah. 

POOTS: You remember all the little details. You remember what that day was like. Shit, it was only seven months, but there’s something in that experience which is really beautiful, and it’s just raw nerves. It’s so impossible to get a bird’s eye view of it. 

SHAWKAT: The first time I watch something back, I always hate it, no matter what. Then I watch it again with some people, and I’m like,”It’s not that bad!” Then I never watch it again.

POOTS: Exactly. So many people are involved in the process, too. It’s been distilled, changed to suit one person in the process, and then morphed by another. You’re seeing lots of different people’s visions collapsed into one beast. It’s hard to know, like anything in life—do you actually like it? 

SHAWKAT: I have a lot of questions, because I’m deep in this show—I’ve seen more episodes than you. It’s the only show I’m watching right now, and I have no one to talk to about it but you, because it isn’t out yet. How did you approach this project, tonally? Are you just focusing on your own storyline? Because also your storyline is separate, and yet it threatens everyone else’s in a way. Would you agree?

POOTS: I totally see what you mean. I think the tone was one of the major unknowns of the show as we were making it. Autumn’s character is probably the closest to embodying the overall tone of the show, and that made me nervous. The tone was a challenge, but also something that you can’t overthink. 

SHAWKAT: You play such a freak. It’s really fun to watch. You’re genuinely scary in this show.

POOTS: [Laughs] Oh, gosh.

SHAWKAT: Your inner creep comes out. It’s such a cool character. Here’s my next question, Imogen Poots: You got to work with these amazing actors, Josh Brolin and Lili Taylor. Was there a rehearsal process? When you start working with actors on a job, especially of that caliber and of a different generation, you’re like, “How do they work? What do they like?” They’re not young and scrappy like us. 

POOTS: There were rehearsals arranged, it was a “Josh is ready for you now” kind of thing. You arrive, and he’s having a sandwich and has no idea what’s going on. We did some trust exercises, which were interesting. Alonzo [Ruizpalacios], our director, had us do some scenes together, and then these exercises where we’d hold a stick between us, between our fingertips and we had to maintain eye contact while moving around without dropping the stick. That stuff was fun, but what meant the most to me as an actor—and really just as Imogen—was the community. In the past I’ve been a real hermit: I do the work and I want to go home. But on this job, I was like, “I’m going to say yes to everything.”

SHAWKAT: I remember that. For the readers at home, Imogen is the most avid book reader I know. You’re voracious. But you were like, “I want to interact with people more, I want to say yes to the hangs.” It’s hard, because you’re trying to create intimacy, but not force it, and you have to trust that the real relationship will emerge. What was Santa Fe like? Did you enjoy being there?

POOTS: I absolutely loved being there. I was in Albuquerque originally, but the cockroaches just kept popping out of my suitcases at every single freaking location. 

SHAWKAT: That’s like a weird omen. 

POOTS: I know, it was really bizarre. It was all cockroaches and creaking walls in Albuquerque. So I ended up relocating to Santa Fe, also to be near the other guys. But I loved it. The speed of that life, just walking to go get my groceries while the sun’s going down, it was incredible. It was a really great home life to have on a job. But I also had that melancholy that comes with knowing that everything has to wrap up. 

SHAWKAT: That was such a good visual you just gave us, of you walking at sunset with your groceries. I can fully picture that day. You have a scene with a bear. Was that a real bear?

POOTS: Oh, my gosh. I’m so thrilled that you’ve asked about the bear. That was a man in a skin-tight gray unitard, and a bear head. It was covered in CGI stuff. You know the CGI stuff?

SHAWKAT: Yeah, the green dots. I’ve seen Avatar. 

POOTS: I guess maybe that’s a spoiler, but the bear was a man. 

SHAWKAT: Wait. That was literally a man with a bear head on top of you?

POOTS: Yes, and it was terrible because I kept getting the giggles, obviously. Then I felt like, oh, was that hard for him, because he’s pursuing his art? 

SHAWKAT: Sure, and you’re disrespecting his work. He’s like, “This is what I do. I put on a skin tight suit with green dots.” 

POOTS: [Both laugh] That’s one of those loony things that we do. You go to the snack tent to get a La Croix, and you come back and get tackled by a man playing a bear. Moments like that, you’re like, “What am I doing here?”

SHAWKAT: They’re like, “Imogen, we’re ready for you. We’re just going to slide you in right under Jeff here.” You’re like, “Okay, sure. Let me have one more sip.” 

POOTS: [Laughs] Totally. It’s like when actors have to wear prosthetics and they can’t laugh properly, because it will ruin the fake nose or whatever. 

SHAWKAT: David Cross always had to wear a mustache on Arrested Development. He would hold his mustache with his finger while he laughed, it’s carved into my memory forever. He’d just be like, “Ha,” holding his mustache up with his hand. 

POOTS: That’s great. I wonder if he developed a tick afterwards from doing that so much. 

SHAWKAT: Yeah, he still does it. Let’s not get too personal, but how do you feel about doing press? Are you doing the push now, as they say?

POOTS: I sometimes wish, when it comes to press, that I could be a musician. I feel like musicians get to talk about an album, but they don’t have to explain it. 

SHAWKAT: Totally. They get to be poetic. 

POOTS: There’s a certain mystery that isn’t allowed these days. You’ve got to be real famous to be allowed any mystery. There’s a sense of the divide between performance and performer. You’re allowed to be a moody female, I think, if you’re a singer. 

SHAWKAT: We should start doing that more as actors. Actors have to seem relatable, or like a clean slate that people can project on. Whereas musicians can embody their characters. David Bowie maintained a persona. Okay, back to Outer Range. It’s all about time, maybe. We don’t know yet. Obviously, the show art is an image of a giant hole, right? I’m terrified of giving spoilers, but what’s in the hole?!

POOTS: What’s in the hole? This is one of the reasons why I was just really taken with the show. When I first read the script, I was like, “What does the hole represent? What does it do?”

SHAWKAT: Reading that script must have been rad. 

POOTS: It was so cool. But I love what the hole symbolizes. This sedated, pacified family life that is presented onscreen, which I think is definitely the myth of the American West. To confront that myth forces everyone to question what they believe in, who they are, what the hell they’re doing, what they have done before. I think it would probably be quite useful for all of us to occasionally come across a big black hole. 

SHAWKAT: Seriously. There’s something really haunting about it. The show scares me, you know? I watch it, I fall asleep, I have scary dreams. 

POOTS: I hope it inspires some artwork from you, at least. 

SHAWKAT: What do you think the show is trying to say?

POOTS: For me, it’s about probing something about America that was spoonfed to me as a young English girl growing up. I fell very in love with America through books, movies, and music. I was fed a notion of what America was, and as I got older I realized that it was just a myth. It’s important in that Andy Warhol sense, to have your fantasy America and your normal America. This show is about breaking down the myth, breaking down the Western genre.

SHAWKAT: Well, it’s making me ask those questions, that’s for sure. So, you were the only Brit on the shoot?

POOTS: I know, it was pretty wild. It’s funny, in the way that I was in love with America as a child, Josh [Brolin] was in love with England and France. It was cool being the only Brit, but it quickly became irrelevant. You know when you get to know people, and everything external falls away? You’re just a bunch of creatures together. Lili had her New Yorker energy, and Lewis [Pullman] had his molasses Topanga Canyon energy. I want to ask you a question now!

SHAWKAT: Okay. Just one.

POOTS: You grew up in Palm Springs. 

SHAWKAT: True. 

POOTS: Did you watch Westerns growing up? When I met your family and learned that you grew up in Palm Springs—it was so cool to see a challenge to that classic thing I’d been fed. 

SHAWKAT: I didn’t watch Westerns, but my mom loved old movies, so I definitely saw my fair share of John Ford films. There’s an Americana vibe to the show, but the sci-fi element modernizes and destabilizes it. But we were all raised with this Americana narrative. Josh Brolin’s character has got to be the hero. But wait a second, Lili’s character actually has that covered. You’re this beautiful blonde girl, so you’ve got to be the love interest. Actually no, you might be the devil, the biggest threat. What’s going on in this story? It definitely turns our expectations on their heads. There’s something primal about your character. She’s about to snap, you never know when it’s going to happen. How did it feel to live in that skin for that long? Did she get in your head at all? 

POOTS: It was cool. To be honest, it was the closest I’ve come to going “method.” Being out there on that land does something to you, plus the long hours. I felt like I was pushing more boundaries than I normally would on that job. I really wanted to get free, and it was fun. One important thing was having new directors come in. They each revitalized different parts of the character. Amy [Seimetz], a director I always wanted to work with, came in and said, “I think Autumn’s the visitor in Teorema,” that Pasolini movie. She basically comes in and fucks everyone. 

SHAWKAT: [Laughs] Everyone had a different idea of who she was. 

POOTS: It was fun to play with that then also to see that and portray it.

SHAWKAT: On TV shows, the actors know the lay of the land better than the directors. You’re like, “Welcome to the set. I’ll show you around.” It’s a little more power. 

POOTS: That kind of authority. Not that I would ever claim to know best, but at least you know where she comes from and where she’s going. Especially when you’re working with group of gentlemen—there were a lot of boys on this project—but it was an exquisite group. There was a real sense of respect that felt quite new, actually. I had been used to something else, so this felt really cool. 

SHAWKAT: Beautiful. Do you still speak to these people, or are you just never going to talk to them ever again?

POOTS: The cast? We talk all the time, we’re freakishly close. Tommy [Pelphrey] and I became really good buddies, and Noah [Reid] and Josh and Lili, I just love them. 

SHAWKAT: It’s good to have those people in your Rolodex. Are you guys going to get to celebrate this release?

POOTS: We’re getting together next week for the premier, everyone will be showing their teeth and standing up straight. 

SHAWKAT: You guys worked hard on this for a long time. So, why not get all shiny and have a cocktail or two?

POOTS: Someone lost weight, someone got really muscly. It’ll be fun to see. 

SHAWKAT: Well, Imogen, I love you to death. Let’s talk soon, when we’re not being recorded. I mean, I’ll record it, but just for my own secret reasons.

POOTS: Great.