Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult are the two leads in Equals, a sci-fi drama set in a Utopian world without emotions. Early buzz has suggested that both stars give incredibly raw and vulnerable performances.
As Stewart told ET Canada’s Sangita Patel at the film’s TIFF premiere, that was the goal.
Gallery: 2015 TIFF Red Carpets
“The only way to do this right, considering how simple the story is, is awakening for the first time,” she said. “You encounter that throughout life several times, but this is just every first balled up into one. And the ebb and flow of a relationship that isn’t always perfect.”
The actress said both stars invested their souls into the film, which made its official debut at the Venice International Film Festival earlier this month.
Gallery: ET Canada 2015 Festival Central Lounge
Director Drake Doremus, who helmed the 2011 drama Like Crazy had some unconventional techniques to help his actors open up on set, including repeating “hello” to each other for an hour straight.
“It’s surprising how much you can tell not by what someone says but by the little pieces of body language,” Hoult told Sangita. “It’s strange, if you’ve ever stared into someone’s eyes for that long, it’s amazing how much you can pick up on and how connected you feel and then – and creates a wonderful environment for you to be vulnerable and feel safe to kind of just feel things.”
Gallery: TIFF 2015 After Dark
One thing Stewart learned about Hoult during the exercise is that “he’s incapable of lying.”
“It was really interesting,” she said. “It was so telling. It was like an hour of ‘hello,’ an hour of utter honesty, and then an hour of ‘you can’t speak unless it’s a complete lie.’ And he couldn’t play the game. He kept messing it up. I was like, I can tell you’re being honest now.”
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