Actor/singer Aly Michalka had a film at South by Southwest. In Sequoia, she plays Reilly, a young woman dying of cancer who decides to end it at Sequoia National Park. While her family gets wind of her plan and races to stop her, Reilly spends the day with Ogden Clark (Dustin Milligan), a devout man who gave her a ride to the park. I got to meet Michalka and Milligan in Austin to discuss my unusual draw towards films dealing with mortality, and the change of pace for the star of CW’s cheerleader drama “Hellcats.”
CraveOnline: I really do enjoy stories about dying and death and grief. Do you understand the appeal of those themes, what I’m talking about?
Aly Michalka: Mm-hmm.
Dustin Milligan: Yeah, I think as you get older too, it’s just a fact of life but I think what’s nice about this story is that to see Aly’s character take control at a young age, when she’s in a weird way asking for help from her family, kind of like a desperate attempt to get their attention. I just love that someone so young and who’s dealing with this, I just love that she’s taking control of it. I think that’s a more beautiful part of it.
And I think that’s the part I relate to about these stories. They don’t usually make them about the people who resign themselves to wasting away.
Aly Michalka: True. I think that she also realizes that whether she was to die on this trip or to say, “I’m going to live and I’m never going to do any sort of treatment,” I think she knows that there’s obviously a ticking clock for her and she’s okay with that. I think you find her a little bit angry at the beginning of the movie and a little defensive, and trying to explain why she thinks that this is morally right for herself. I think that by the end of it I think Ogden understands a little bit more why she feels that way.
Dustin Milligan: Well, you’re attempting to take the power for yourself but then as we go through the story, you’re almost forced to relinquish that. You realize in a way, “I thought I was in control but here I am facing death and I’m of course as out of control as I’ve ever been.” But again, taking that choice to at least try I think is what’s engaging about the character.
A lot of people I told about Sequoia were surprised that you were playing a role like this, Aly. Did you see it as playing against type?
Aly Michalka: Not incredibly. It’s funny, it didn’t seem like a role that I was just like, “Oh my gosh, this is something so incredibly opposite from who I am” because I think Reilly’s sense of humor is very similar to mine. But yeah, it’s definitely a darker tone of a film than what I’ve done in the past. For me, it was a good challenge. It wasn’t a scary challenge. I almost felt like I had more to prove to other people than to myself. I knew I could do it but I just want other people to accept it and say, “Okay, yeah, she did this.”
It was very rewarding at the end of the day when we ended up finishing the movie and I was having a bit of a post traumatic stress syndrome on letting the role go a little bit. It kind of made me understand why some actors almost go into a little bit of a depression when they end movies, because I’ve heard that from certain actors that are like, “It’s really hard. I feel like you give birth to this character and then you almost mourn it’s death.” I was like that’s so actory and method. Then I kind of went through that a little bit after this movie. I don’t know if it was the combination of the character and the story and just where we were in Sequoia, but all of those elements really affected me.
I tell those people who were surprised, “Actors act.”
Aly Michalka: I know. It’s so true. Actors act.
Dustin Milligan: I’ve seen you in this and this, so therefore what are you doing in this? I’m acting.
Aly Michalka: Exactly, I’m acting. Totally.
Then I tell them, “Watch ‘Hellcats.’”
Aly Michalka: Oh God.
Dustin Milligan: I’ve never seen “Hellcats.”
Aly Michalka: You haven’t?
It was good!
Aly Michalka: I think that a show like “Hellcats” could have come off incredibly kitschy but they were able to maintain a sort of reality to it. There are definitely some episodes I’m not quite as on board with but I like my character on that show so that’s, I guess, the only thing you can walk away with.
Dustin, was it a delicate balance to play a character who is Christian and religion is important to him? Was it a big responsibility?
Dustin Milligan: No, and that was actually something that I was grateful to have Aly around for. I definitely had my own opinions about religion or organized religion specifically, but it was something where I never wanted to come in and play a caricature or be presenting this character as weak in any way. I actually thought what’s great about Ogden is morally he’s absolutely doing the right thing the entire time. Maybe it’s a little gray when they sleep together.
Aly Michalka: But he’s also a real person. You can still have beliefs and be a regular human in society. You don’t have to be an extremist.
I think that’s what beliefs are for.
Dustin Milligan: That’s again why I said organized religion is setting up this framework for how you should believe something and I think that’s kind of bullshit, but I loved playing Ogden for that reason. This guy knows what he believes and he questions it as well but at the end of it came back to no, this is who I am. Ultimately what I loved about him is all he wants to do is help and do good. When we meet him, it’s kind of discussed but he’s going on a missionary type thing to potentially, it’s like a white guilt thing. I like that his intentions are naive but as the relationship with Reilly goes, his beliefs never change but his naivety starts to mellow out and he kind of sees reality. It’s nice. It’s a moment where I think he wakes up a little bit.
Aly Michalka: But it’s a believable character. I think there’s something to be said about Dustin’s great performance is the fact that it’s not a caricature, which is very easy to play with “I’m a Christian so therefore I’m this holy perfect being.” I felt like there’s still a very personable, very realistic [character].
Dustin Milligan: He was never written that way. Her opinion, Reilly’s opinion of him is that cliche, that stereotype. I just thought that was beautiful that he never really gives into that, but’s he’s just like all right, whatever, make fun of me all you want. The only thing he ever really gets insecure about is romantic stuff.
Aly Michalka: He’s awkward.
Dustin Milligan: For me it was exciting to get to play a character like that because again, we’ve seen versions of these [characters]. I was thinking of the movie Saved where you see how young Christians are depicted and it’s often as a joke.
Aly Michalka: But this is a very realistic, I think, depiction of someone that just felt very strongly about their beliefs which was nice for once. I think the writer did a great job in portraying that and him in acting it.
Dustin Milligan: I will say I had a hell of a time though having to do the verses at the end. That’s where we ADRed all of that I couldn’t remember them.
You just totally blasphemed. You said you had a hell of a time doing bible versus.
Dustin Milligan: I told you though right at the top of this what we’re getting into.
So Aly, how did you decompress from Reilly?
Aly Michalka: I think the best decompression was dating the DP and falling in love with him, but seriously, we’re still together and it’s wonderful. I think a lot of it was having the memories and the photos, knowing that the movie would eventually be cut together and then saying, “I know I can always come back to Sequoia and I can always come back to this place and stay at Three Rivers in the little lodge.”
Dustin Milligan: You guys did, right? You guys went back.
Aly Michalka: I want to go back every year.
Dustin Milligan: It was like camp though. That was what’s so great about the whole thing.
Aly Michalka: It was like sleepaway camp.
Dustin Milligan: It was so much fun and everyone was having big group meals at the end and stuff. I definitely understand there’s a bubble that’s created, regardless of character but there’s a bubble that’s created just by working together. Because we’re such a tight knit group, I kind of wanted to go back.
Aly Michalka: We should do a double, you and Amanda and me and Stephen do a double adventure for a long weekend. I think the best part of it was the fact that, like he said, we were a really close-knit group of people and everybody was working for the passion of it. I think at the end of the day, you don’t always get that in every movie. There’s a very few amount of projects that I look back on and I have a tender heart for and I think that this is one of those.
How inspiring was Sequoia itself?
Aly Michalka: I mean, incredible.
Dustin Milligan: Once we got over the road sickness driving up to the park.
Aly Michalka: Every single day we had to drive up like 45 minutes to get to the top of the park and we were carsick. We couldn’t take dramamine because it would make us too tired in the morning so we would be falling asleep, so we were chewing ginger in the car which is supposed to help with nausea and it ended up being better. We would just grab our pillows and close our eyes because it was so windy to the point where I’m surprised we didn’t lose it on the way up.
Dustin Milligan: What was really beautiful about it was the first couple days we were there it was so foggy and misty on the drive up. Then remember when we went up with your mom, there’s so much wildlife around and deer. When you get to these trees, it is traditionally a sacred area.
Aly Michalka: It’s majestic.
Dustin Milligan: I think part of that spiritualism is there. We all went in I think with the right energy and the right attitude, but when you get to the park there’s a level of spiritualism that you can’t deny.
Aly Michalka: It kind of humbles you when you come up to these gigantic trees that have been there for thousands of years. It gives you chills. When we went to go visit the General Sherman Tree on one of our days off, that was really insane and it’s all fenced off. We’re not really supposed to, obviously if hundreds of people were hopping the fence, it can ruin the root system of the tree, but it was just that one time. It’s fine. The tree’s like, “It’s all good, you’re shooting here.” We were able to touch it and it’s just really cool. It was really amazing.
Dustin Milligan: I dare anybody to try to go to Sequoia and touch one of those trees and not say some kind of prayer or something to the tree.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
