It might seem a bit jarring to hear that an actor “took a sweetness” from a character called Little Death, but Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’s Jack Haven found an innocence to the slasher in Jane Schoenbrun’s latest feature.
“It’s someone who isn’t killing because of a wicked and cruel instinct, but sort of just because of inevitability and curiosity,” the 31-year-old tells The Hollywood Reporter. In Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Misasma, a young filmmaker, played by Hannah Einbinder, is preparing to reboot a slasher franchise, Camp Miasma, which found Haven’s Little Death terrorizing and killing teen campers. Add the ultimate final girl, played by Gillian Anderson, and it’s an unbeatable formula.
“I like a character that just doesn’t quite know how human things work, but is interested in playing with them,” Haven explains. “[There’s] an innocence and a total inability to control the people around them in a manipulative way. This character has a deep power that’s a deep centered power, but has no interest in the social dynamics.”
The actor gained recognition for their role in Netflix’s Atypical, along with roles in films like Bill and Ted Face the Music. They’ve also waded into the filmmaking waters in recent years. In Camp Miasma, Haven reunites with Schoenbrun after the pair worked together on the director’s acclaimed feature I Saw the TV Glow.
“Jane is one of those rare and sacred collaborations that I just feel it’s intergalactic when I get to work with them,” Haven says.
“I feel a great freedom when I’m with Jane,” they continue. “When I’m talking to Jane about creating something because they have a really unlimited imagination and they can travel through dimensions.”
The actor says they’ll always work with Schoenbrun when the opportunity’s presented. Adds Haven, “I pack myself and I’m ready at the door.”
Below, Haven digs into the film premiering at Cannes, working as a filmmaker and the Camp Miasma sequence that the actor found to be their most physically challenging scene ever.
What drew you into the movie?
I would’ve said yes to anything that Jane asked me to do, but they described the character as the slasher killer in a helmet with a slobbering tongue, and I was totally in.
What was the Cannes experience like?
I wish I was mentally stable enough to enjoy something like Cannes, but unfortunately I’m not. The best part was that I knew it was a good thing in my mind. Probably in my body, I knew it was a good thing. My mind turned invasive species mode and was running through the rainforest, trying not to get caught. It’s like, you know that scene in The Beach when Leonardo DiCaprio goes into video game mode and he’s being chased? It’s like that level of paranoia for some reason is elicited by environments in which capitalism and film are making out. I just, something about it, I run. But seeing everyone’s hard work, this beautiful group of people with the purest souls on earth being celebrated in this way was just magnificent. Also, my mom came, and it was really special to be there with her because she’s a longtime artist. It was just amazing to see it through her eyes.
How do you work through getting over that in your own head?
I’ve just been working on transcending it. It’s totally an ego thing because it’s like, first of all, no one really gives a shit about anyone else. At the core of every interaction is pure love, and we know that celebrity culture is done. I think it’s hilarious that we’re still dealing with these dynamics because we know they’re not real.
Seeing a movie like Camp Miasma at Cannes, people just enter this state of bliss because they are in the imaginary dimension, even if just for a moment. For some reason, that’s what we like to pay for. We like to pay for things that glitter like the imaginary, like magic. This is the way our world is built right now, it won’t always be built like this and it hasn’t always been built like this, but that’s the mental gymnastics I have to do, which honestly should be quite easy because as I said, it’s all love.
You recently did your first feature as a director, right? Can you tell me a bit about what that process of transitioning to filmmaking has been like?
Yes, I have two features actually, but only one is available to see. The first one I made on my iPhone, and it was really because one of my close friends, Peter, he’s 73 and he had liver cancer, so he was dying. He’s the star of the film, so I wanted to make it as quickly as possible. He got the liver transplant halfway through and he survived, and so we finished the film with him. The second film, my good friend Clyde gave me money to buy a better camera. I wrote a script for that one. The first one was improvised, and that one was more produced. Then editing it is obviously hell. My best friend Mina Walker scored the movie. We’ve just finished that one. Now, I’m writing the third one. We’re going to shoot in August and September, [and it’s] is a comedy.
I believe Jane said in the director’s notes that the one shot killing spree scene was the most proud they’ve been about anything they’d made. I’d really love to hear about that scene in particular.
Jane had a shot by shot with them as Little Death. It [was] made at the camp before we started shooting. It was just an iPhone edit, which I hope gets released someday. But I can’t take really any credit for it. I know what my body is doing, and it’s like 3 a.m., and I do what I must do. The hardest part was probably the camera that was strapped to me.
What was that like? I read it was very heavy.
I don’t even know how heavy it was, but it felt like it was as heavy at least as me. It felt like the shadow self, honestly. It was balancing that. But the camera assistant, Emma, was holding the camera, and then there were sandbags on the back so it was counterbalanced, but it’s still… The fight choreographer, stunt choreographer, Maja Aro, had this really particular movement that we practiced so much, so I knew what I was doing.
The pieces were all there, but it’s still probably the hardest thing I’ve had to do as an actor, just in terms of physical intensity. The stunt people in the background, they were doing such hard work because they were throwing themselves against the wall and then falling to the rhythm of the stabs. We did it maybe eight times, and still on the last take, I screamed afterwards because I forgot something. But I guess we got it.
What did you feel like seeing the scene?
Totally blown away. As with the whole film, as with all of Jane’s work. Even when Jane describes something or describes an idea for a film, that’s unlike anything. It really feels like a feeling of your grandmother telling you a story as a child, it’s that wonder.