Ella Hunt Brings Us Inside The First Zombie Musical Adventure, ‘Anna And The Apocalypse’ (EXCLUSIVE)

How does one find themselves cast in a film like Anna and the Apocalypse?

It’s totally insane! It’s a wild combination of things. I got a number of scripts, and I think what immediately hit me was what an awesome character Anna is and how unstereotypical — if unstereotypical is a word — her character arc is as a young woman. So often we see these teenage heroine parts, running off into the sunset with a guy and only being allowed to be one or another, but she’s brave and vulnerable in the same sentence, and smart and unsure in the same sentence, and she grows into being a badass. She isn’t immediately one, and I really love that. I found that to be relatable and something that I wanted to get through.

Is there a lineage there with Buffy the Vampire Slayer? In some ways Anna sounds like she could be Buffy.

Okay, so I’ve had so many people compare Anna to Buffy, but I think I’m slightly too young to have really caught on to the Buffy craze. Actually, now I feel like I need to watch Buffy because I keep getting asked questions similar to that, but I couldn’t tell you. Sorry.

You talked about Anna. I know this thing is an insane setting, but what kind of journey is she on in this movie, if that makes sense? And hopefully, it’s not too “deep” a question for this movie.

No, that’s a fine question, because at the beginning of the story, she’s aspiring to get out of the conventional cog of her father and her school’s expectations of her, and she wants to travel and see the world and learn about herself, I think. Then she wakes up to this zombie apocalypse, and all of a sudden all of her expectations are dashed, and she has to learn to survive. And through that, I think it’s a story about a loss of innocence, but within that about survival and hope and friendship. So yeah, I think it’s kind of a story of her discovering her inner strength, but also accepting her vulnerability, too, if that doesn’t sound too cheesy.

This movie looks so wild and over the top, I don’t think cheesy is a word you can possibly apply to it.

I also liked from the minute I met the producers and John, they were like, “The only way this film is gonna work is if we root it in reality. If it really does feel like an honest coming-of-age story where we deal with it in a way where we go, ‘These kids are actually experiencing what a zombie apocalypse would feel like.'” Playing on that and discovering all the similarities to coming of age as a young person, just trying to find the realities in the experience. So that kept it from being cheesy.

The real question, of course, is how does the story erupt into music? I mean, how does the zombie apocalypse lead to people singing about a zombie apocalypse?

The interesting thing about horror and music is they both elicit a kind of visceral experience. So for a coming of age story, the songs are very much about these characters’ inner dialogue. They’re not big show tunes where we’re running about, doing jazz hands. All the choreography and all the lyrics were about expressing our internal thoughts and angst and experience as though actually… I don’t know, it’s a really weird one to describe to people without people going, “This isn’t going to work,” but it just kind of does. I think it’s partially because Roddy Hart and Tommy Reilly’s score is so captivating. And the way that [director] John McPhail balanced all of the things and kept it rooted in reality helped to make it feel like the horror and the music weren’t these ridiculous things. They were actually things that could gel together. John was an amazing director in that respect.

Were you comfortable with the dancing and singing?

I was comfortable with the singing, kind of comfortable with the dancing. I am so clumsy, though, so me and fight choreography were not friends at the start. It was just so much working between takes, and, also, we had a lot of awesome women around me on set, like our fight choreographer, our main choreographer, our head of photography, our producer. They were all women, so they were just going, “Get in touch with that badass,” and empowering me to be better than I was. I really struggled with the tapping into my inner badass, but I think we got there, and actually, it was a great learning process for me as an 18-year-old who didn’t have good body confidence or know herself particularly well at the beginning of the shoot. I really grew within the experience with Anna, I think.

So when you go to the supermarket and somebody gets in your way, do you kick ass now?

No, I promise not to do that [laughs]. Although, like I said, I am clumsy, so there’s always a chance that somebody gets whacked by a stray limb of mine, or something that I’m picking up just happens to hit someone, but no, it will only ever be accidental angst. So no worries; you’re going to be okay.

In terms of your career, how important is this film?

It was definitely a fantastic opportunity to play a really well-rounded character and get to learn a lot. Yeah, Anna and the Apocalypse has been an amazing journey for me and a fantastic launchpad. I’m working on some really exciting things now. I’m working on the new TV show for Apple’s new streaming service, and at the same time as shooting Anna, I had also just shot my first lead in a feature, which is called The More You Ignore Me, about a young woman struggling to connect with her mentally-ill mother. So around that time, I was getting to do a couple of leads in British indie films, but it’s so rare that an indie film does anything, really, just because of the restrictions of so little money and very little time. The experience of making Anna with a group of young creatives who were so determined to get it right was amazing. And it’s been fantastic that it’s got picked up and it’s found its audience, because it gives all of us young actors and filmmakers an opportunity to branch out and work in the way that we all want to work. So I’d say in that respect it’s the most important thing I’ve done to date, because I get to show what I can do, and it’s the same with everyone in the movie. That’s what I love about it, so much is it’s an ensemble piece. It’s about all of us, and so we all get our moment to shine and get our moment to be more than the cliché of whatever our character is within the story.

Personally, was it difficult making a career in acting happen for yourself?

I’ve been acting since I was 11, and my mom was an actress, and then I got spotted by my agent. It happened very randomly. I was just doing a school play, and I got spotted, and when that happened, my mom and my family were like, “You need to do this in a way where you get to a point where you can play roles so stimulating that you feel fulfilled.” Because so often you go, “Oh, I’m gonna be an actor,” and then you don’t really get the opportunities to actually do the fun stuff. So throughout my teens I was meeting with UK casting directors and going up for leads in films that there was no way I was ever going to get them, but those casting directors were gonna see me as somebody who was only interested in playing the good stuff and to do the fun stuff. I guess I got lucky, and worked quite hard, too, and was picky about the things I went in for. Then Anna and the Apocalypse and The More You Ignore Me, the other film I was telling you about, came about at the same time, and there were casting directors that cast me in those that have known me since I was very little and had seen me growing up, and they both, I think, were, like, “Okay, we’ll cast Ella.” Thank God they did, but I think it’s always a combination of I’m very lucky to have a great support network and to know the sort of thing I want to do, and I’ve worked hard and had enough time, although it seems like a whirlwind. I’ve been doing it for nine years now, so if this wasn’t happening, I might be going, “Oh, maybe I should think about a different career path.”

Time to be a waitress.

I think there are other options, too. Maybe not waitressing.

Sorry, I went for the cliché.

That’s okay, but me and waitressing would never go together just because of how clumsy I am. The poor customers… I’d be fired.

Even though it’s early on, relatively speaking, what are the goals you’re setting out for yourself at this point?

I would love to continue playing roles that represent young people, and young women specifically, in a way that I feel is honest, and I want to work with fantastic directors and artists and collaborate and learn. I love getting to play parts that require me to learn stuff. That’s kind of how I’ve always viewed it: The less I’m in school, the more I’ve tried to research and be intellectually stimulated by the material I’m working on. And also, in the last year, I’ve had the privilege of working with quite a few female filmmakers and actually seeing them work makes me think, “Well, maybe I’d like to produce. Maybe I’d like to direct. Maybe I’d like to get behind the camera,” so that’s something I’m actively thinking about. I want to feel like more than feeling like an actress, I want to feel like a storyteller, and I’m really, really inspired by women like Margot Robbie and Reese Witherspoon, who’ve started production companies of their own. They are taking control of their destiny and the stories we share about women.

The timing feels right for this kind of character, given everything that’s happening with the success of Wonder Woman and now Captain Marvel is coming out and all that.

It’s definitely great time to be a woman in film, and our perspective mattersIt’s great to be working with filmmakers, men and women, that are interested in telling our stories in new ways. So I feel very lucky to be a woman in film at the moment, and very empowered by the women that I’m working around.

Your homework is to watch the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 6 episode “Once More With Feeling,” which is a musical episode from start to finish.

Everybody keeps telling me to watch that episode.

So watch it [both laugh].

I’m gonna have to do it. I’m gonna go watch it this evening. I won’t go to my Halloween party. I will sit, and I will watch that “Once More, With Feeling” episode instead.

I think you’re lying to me.

It’s not lying. It’s sarcasm.
Anna and the Apocalypse will get a limited release on Nov. 30, with a wide release on Dec. 7.