Villains Inc. is a hilarious new film about henchmen. In this interview, we speak to Mallory Everton, who talks about her experience, creativity, and how COVID-19 impacted filmmaking.
Superhero genre from the henchmen’s perspective
In a market over-saturated with content and the beginnings of superhero fatigue creeping its way into social consciousness, it can be hard to find something unique that still captivates audiences. Enter Villains Incorporated, (created by the lovely people over at Team Squad Media) which takes the superhero genre and gives it a makeover.
Not only does it poke fun at the stereotypical supes and villain tropes we know and love, but the film itself, despite being slapstick comedy delivers commentary on societal issues such as the evils of capitalism, the patriarchy, and sexism.
And at its core? Are our three main characters Beatrix (Mallory Everton), Harold (Colin Mochrie), and Cain (Jason Gray), henchmen who find themselves out of work when their villain dies unexpectedly. Determined to make ends meet and bring their evil plans to fruition, Beatrix goes on a journey to keep this little family together while fulfilling her own ambitions. Delightfully witty, charming, tongue-in-cheek, Villains Inc. gives us something truly special.
In conversation with Temple of Geek, Mallory Everton talks about Villains Inc., what makes Beatrix tick, working with Colin Mochrie and so much more!
Mallory Everton steps into the world of Villains Inc
Dana (Temple of Geek): When you first read through the script for Villains Inc. what were your initial thoughts and feelings?
Mallory Everton: One of the things that I appreciated and also made me a little nervous about the script was that it was full of joke options. I would have a line and there’d be three lines afterward that were possible joke ideas.
And that’s a little daunting as a comedian [laughs]. I was also like, ‘Oh, this is amazing!’ I’d already worked with my co-star Jason (Gray) who helped write it, producer Matt (Moen) who helped write it, and my friend Jeremy (Warner), who directed it and helped write it as well. It meant to me that, ‘Yes, we’re going to be joking around on this set!’ So, that was probably one of my first reactions: this is going to be a party!
Dana (Temple of Geek): On that note, how much freedom did you all have to go bananas with improv?
Mallory Everton: I mean, when you hire Colin Mochrie, you don’t want to keep that Jaguar in the garage [laughter]. I feel like Jeremy did a great job. He would often kind of let us do a ‘fun run.’
He’s also very good on his feet and very funny. Some of my favorite stuff in the movie is stuff that he was like ‘Say this!’ Like, yeah, and then I’m gonna say this random line that Jeremy just gave me while I’m trying not to die laughing.
Dana (Temple of Geek): So then, I have to ask, because you’ve seen the final cut, how much didn’t make the final cut? And will we ever see that version?
Mallory Everton: Oh, man, you’d have to ask Jeremy. That first scene we did with the Winter General when we’re talking about all the different things we’re worried might happen to him. I know that scene went on for a very long time and I know they cut it down.
I don’t know what it was but now it’s 15 seconds or something. I know we did that for at least 10 minutes. I love stuff like that when you can just riff. It’d be cool if Jeremy for the DVD release or Blu-ray release put together a good gag reel because I think there’s probably an extensive one for this film.
Everton on Portraying Beatrix
Dana (Temple of Geek): Beatrix goes through a journey of self-discovery through the course of the movie. What would you say is the biggest lesson that she learned?
Mallory Everton: The most cliche things are the truest but nothing matters more than your friends. She’s technically trying to take care of her friends. But I think it’s more about her ego. She wants to be ambitious.
She’s not the most moral person. You know, they’re villains. I think she’s discovering a little bit of morality that nothing is worth losing her friends. And even her dignity as well. She learns that from the journey she goes on with Sigma. It’s all about your friendships and what you stand for together.
Dana (Temple of Geek): Building off of that, when you look at your journey, how would you say you’ve evolved as a creator?
Mallory Everton: Oh, wow. That’s such a good question. Honestly, there’s this thing that happened to me a fair bit when I first started acting in commercials. I’ve done a fair few just smaller commercials for smaller startups and stuff like that. And I enjoy that world a lot because you get to know the product. When I was shooting my first commercial, it was written for me by a friend who wanted me to be in it.
And they kept pulling me aside in between takes and being like, ‘Can you say it more like you would?’ [laughs] I think I was going into like a voice. And I’m realizing more and more that’s the best advice not just for acting, but for creating in general. Be a little bit more honest about your experience as a person and can you bring people in a little bit more to who you truly are? Because that is what I think makes our art really pop. It’s also what connects us.
To me, art is about connecting and wanting to feel like you’re not alone, that we are in this together. And so that’s one of the things I’ve learned. It sounds kind of, again, cliche, but be honest about who you are and who you can be because you’re making the things that you really want to make.
The Creative Process
Dana (Temple of Geek): You co-wrote, co-starred, and co-directed your first feature film, Stop and Go. Can you talk to me about that experience and the creative process behind it? Because that must have been a beast.
Mallory Everton: That project taught me so much about collaboration and creativity. It’s funny because we started shooting Villains in 2020. We had to shut down and then I made that entire movie in 2020. It came out and was released before we even started filming to finish Villains.
I sandwiched in this little feature with a way smaller production. My best friend Whitney and I grew up together in Portland and we were three months into the pandemic and we had no juice, all of our work had dried up.
We didn’t know what was going to happen next. And so we were like, ‘Do you want to talk on the phone every once in a while maybe like write something? Maybe we write a feature?’ I’d never written a feature before. So we started talking about it. And then I was like, ‘Could we make something right now with an eight-person crew? You know, something tiny.’ So, I was watching bottle movies like, Locke is a movie where Tom Hardy just takes phone calls in the car for the entire time, in real-time.
Filming amidst a pandemic
Dana (Temple of Geek): That movie is incredible.
Mallory Everton: Right? And the writing is so good. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time even though I was literally just watching a man take calls. You bring down your idea of what a feature needs to be; it doesn’t need to be this big sweeping epic. We just got talking about this old idea of Whitney’s that was sort of a Thelma and Louise like we’ve got a body in the trunk type of thing.
This idea of telling a story about two sisters who are going to save their grandma from a nursing home and COVID came up and then the outline popped out in a day. And that was the end of June 2020. And we were like, ‘Oh, this feels like we could write this and get this done quickly?’
We looked at festival deadlines because it was like, ‘Well, you don’t want to submit a movie about the pandemic and 2021 It’s gonna be forgotten about it.’ So, looking back that was one of the scariest things and you know, you can watch the movie and I’m sure we can make lots of dialogue about like, ‘This joke didn’t age so well or this didn’t work as well.’ But we were totally in the dark about what was going to get overplayed and everything. We ended up shooting for the 2020 festival deadlines which were all in the fall. We shot the movie and we wrote the movie in two weeks.
We produced it in two weeks. We shot it in two weeks and the co-director and I got to cut it in two weeks so it was a two-month process. And yeah, it was wild. Especially when you compare it to Villains.
Working hard and losing sleep
Dana (Temple of Geek): Did you sleep?
Mallory Everton: No, actually, especially when I was editing [laughs]. I brought a ukulele to the office I was working out of. One of the producers had told me I could use it and I would work there all night. And I would sleep for 45 minutes and then I would get up and I’d play my ukulele and try to get my soul back.
Then, I would edit until I couldn’t see and then I would try and do something else or eat ice cream – it was not healthy. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. But for us at that time there was just something about having that much purpose. Everything felt very hopeless and it was nice to take this little movie and pour your entire life and all your blood and everything into this because what else are you gonna do?
Dana (Temple of Geek): So then, taking it to South by Southwest (SXSW), what was that like for you?
Mallory Everton: It was very validating as a filmmaker to feel like ‘Oh, I guess maybe we know what we’re doing.’ We told a story good enough it got into a festival that we love and respect. The sad thing about it was that it was digital.
It was a long time before we saw it with a crowd and had the experience of like, ‘Oh, that part went really well.’ I kind of got my start as a filmmaker editing for a comedy group. And I would put up the videos in front of these big crowds that were watching these shows. I do kind of lament that a little bit as an editor I didn’t have the chance to test it in front of crowds and tweak my edit.
Future Projects
Dana (Temple of Geek): You know what that means, right? You have to make a new film!
Mallory Everton: I’m working on it. I’m working on it [laughter]. Because I loved the process. I’m just figuring out the next right one. It’s always like, ‘Which one’s going to move? Which one is going to actually snowball?’
That’s what was so impressive with Villains. That train fully stopped in 2020 and Matt and Jake and Jeremy just turned the train back on. I’m super grateful that they decided to come back in and finish it, you know, and it’s such a nice full-circle moment as a creator to be able to see the thing you put together with a bunch of people you’ve loved working with it’s just like, ‘Look at this beautiful photo album of our friendship.’
Dana (Temple of Geek): When you look at Villains and you look at Stop and Go and just media in general, how would you say that the pandemic has changed the way we consume media?
Mallory Everton: I mean, don’t you think we’re probably binging more than we were before? We’ve all developed a binge personality we didn’t have before or a little bit more of a relationship with our streaming platforms. I’d like to think from a creative standpoint, we don’t want to see any more Euphoria.
We don’t want any more of these dramas. Can somebody please make 100 more seasons Ted Lasso? I think Steve Martin at one point talks about coming out of Vietnam in the 70s and saying that people just needed silly comics. I am hoping that as creators and as consumers, we’re looking for more light and ways to connect versus ways to brood in our rooms, because we did that already.
Villians Inc. is grimy and grounded but still fun and silly
Dana (Temple of Geek): Circling back to Villains. It’s so unique in the sense that it showcases everything from the henchmen’s perspective, how would you describe the movie in your own words?
Mallory Everton: I’ve been trying to find the right words for this because I feel like it’s accessible, a bit grimy, and more grounded but still fun and a silly version of the villains in a superhero universe.
Dana (Temple of Geek): What was your favorite scene to film and why?
Mallory Everton: I loved getting to beat the crap out of Colin in those big yellow suits. I love that scene. I love Colin so much. Meeting him was one of the treats of my life and getting to actually hang out with him just made me a better person genuinely. He’s so funny. He’s an international treasure.
So it’s hard to pick one scene. I also just really loved shooting the end of the movie, I think because it was so satisfying. We’re like four years into this process. We all came back together, we miraculously don’t look too different to be able to maybe still finish this. Somehow those two years didn’t change us too much.
And to get to shoot like the big face off with the villain. I’ve never, I mean, I don’t want to spoil too much, but I’ve never kicked a man in the crotch that many times and it was very satisfying [laughter].
Advice for her past-self
Dana (Temple of Geek): And my last question, what advice would you give to young Mallory knowing everything you do now?
Mallory Everton: I think that I would tell her to trust the process. I would tell that to anyone now. When it comes to telling stories and when it comes to making art so much of it is coming from the life that you’re living while it’s going too slow. Like, ‘I wish this was like last year. I wish I was there.
You know, I wish I was I had already achieved this thing or I wish I had gotten to the top of this mountain.’ But it’s actually like the stories get better when you have to like through it. So process, because you’re becoming so much more interesting, just letting it take the amount of time it takes.
Villains Incorporated is now out in theatres nationwide!
