LEILA FADEL, HOST:
In a new movie, Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega play a father and daughter driving deep into the wilderness when they hit a unicorn. It's rare, but it happens.
PAUL RUDD: However, when I did hit the unicorn, I wasn't sure if it was totally dead and then I bludgeoned it with a tire iron, just to put it out of its misery.
FADEL: Yeah. As one does.
RUDD: Yeah. You know, it's thoughtful, but gruesome.
FADEL: (Laughter) That's Paul Rudd basically summarizing the whole movie. Thoughtful, but gruesome. As it turns out, hitting a unicorn isn't quite like hitting a squirrel. Unicorns are a lot more vengeful and organized. What starts out as a dark comedy turns into a unicorn gore fest.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DEATH OF A UNICORN")
JENNA ORTEGA: (As Ridley) They're going to kill us.
FADEL: "Death Of A Unicorn" is written and directed by Alex Scharfman. He and Paul Rudd joined me recently through a smartphone app - and you'll understand why I told you that in a moment.
ALEX SCHARFMAN: I really had no interest in unicorns at the outset, but it sort of led me down a rabbit hole of exploration of unicorn mythology and unicorn lore. And, you know, at some point, it clicked into place that it was a way to tell a kind of contemporary version of a creature feature and kind of do my own version of it was the exciting thing that really jump started the writing process.
FADEL: And also, I had no idea that the lore around unicorns was that they are these vengeful creatures, 'cause my experience with unicorns is, like, My Little Pony unicorns.
SCHARFMAN: Yeah. Well, most of our experience with unicorns today is My Little Pony stuff. But the truth is, you know, that only goes back, like, 50, 75 years.
FADEL: Did we lose Alex? Alex?
RUDD: I think he might have just been impaled by a unicorn.
FADEL: Oh, yeah (laughter).
RUDD: But this is good. Honestly, can I tell you about Alex?
FADEL: Yeah. Like, tell me the truth.
RUDD: Oh, this guy. Oh, God. It's all unicorns with this guy, honestly. He's going to tell you this.
SCHARFMAN: Hold - better now?
RUDD: Oh, hey, he's back. He's back. Yes. Hey, we can hear you.
FADEL: (Laughter).
RUDD: Yeah. All right, great.
SCHARFMAN: OK. Good.
FADEL: Yes. And Paul was not saying anything rude while you were gone.
SCHARFMAN: (Laughter)
RUDD: No. I was singing your praises.
FADEL: (Laughter) OK. So you were saying that only goes back 50 or 75 years, and then I lost you.
SCHARFMAN: Oh, yeah. We've had them in our Western culture for almost 2,500 years. The first written account of a unicorn was around 400 BC. But it used to be, for most of human's history, it used to be very different, and it used to have this much more primal, much more kind of ancient god kind of quality to it.
FADEL: So they discover this unicorn. You've thrown it in the trunk after bludgeoning it. You play a fairly timid lawyer who's dragging his daughter to a wilderness preserve and it's owned by a wealthy, big pharma family he's trying to do business with, and you take it to the home of this really wealthy family.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DEATH OF A UNICORN")
RUDD: (As Elliot) I know a lot of species in this area are rare, but is this exact - you know, familiar to you?
TEA LEONI: (As Belinda Leopold) Familiar to us? No. This is new.
WILL POULTER: (As Shepard Leopold) What exactly are we saying this is, though?
ORTEGA: (As Ridley) I think we know exactly what it is.
POULTER: (As Shepard Leopold) What I can say with total confidence is Elliot here has hit a horse-like mammalia vertebraeli (ph)? Would that be the correct classification?
LEONI: (As Belinda Leopold) Yes, yes. No, but it is horse-shaped with some sort of protrusion or a growth.
RUDD: (As Elliot) Right. That's my working theory, too. Feral horse, mad, tumor-ridden, jumps in the middle of the road. Not the fault of any one driver, per se.
ORTEGA: (As Ridley) It's a [expletive] unicorn.
FADEL: That family discovers that the unicorn's body has healing properties and it puts your character in a bind. If you could talk about that and what happens between you and your daughter, played by Jenna Ortega, Ridley.
RUDD: Yes, well, I'm playing this guy, Elliot, who is a father first and also a recently widowed father. And in an effort, I think, to be a good parent and make sure that we're taken care of, securing some kind of deal here with this family is important. Obviously, listening to your child and making the correct moral decisions is also important.
And I think my character spends a great deal of this film kind of with one foot in each camp and trying his best to balance it out and do what he believes is really right in the long run, because he knows best - or so he thinks.
FADEL: One of the themes in the movie seems to be greed disguised as altruism.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DEATH OF A UNICORN")
RICHARD E GRANT: (As Odell Leopold) It's an opportunity for immortality.
POULTER: (As Shepard Leopold) We have a moral imperative to harvest every last one.
FADEL: Where did you draw from there, Alex, writing that into the movie?
SCHARFMAN: You know, I think that notion is just something that I think is kind of hopefully tied also to, like, you know, Paul's character's arc, too, is this question of moral relativism and a little bit of, like, do the ends justify the means? And can we convince ourselves of - that what we want to do is maybe more morally appropriate or acceptable than it actually is? And trying to, you know, how we all kind of go about our daily lives of maybe convincing ourselves that what we're after is more honorable than perhaps it could be.
FADEL: The unicorns are scary, but the humans might be just as scary - the really wealthy ones (laughter).
SCHARFMAN: Yes. That was part of the thinking was, like, a monster movie where the real monsters are the people.
FADEL: Yeah. And, Paul, you've done - I mean, you've had this really successful, long career in film. How much horror have you done, I was wondering?
RUDD: Some of the things I've done could be described that way, but unintentionally, I would say.
(LAUGHTER)
RUDD: When it comes to actual, technical horror, not that much. This was maybe, you know, maybe the second. I don't really know. You know, the very first movie I ever did was a "Halloween" movie.
FADEL: OK.
RUDD: And that was terrifying for a number of reasons.
(LAUGHTER)
RUDD: But, yeah, it was somewhat new to me. I hadn't had a ton of experience working on scary stuff.
FADEL: Is there a genre you're, like, no. I'll never do this.
RUDD: Snuff films. I put my foot down.
(LAUGHTER)
RUDD: I said, that's it. I won't do it.
FADEL: A moral stance.
RUDD: That's where I draw the line. Other than that, my line is always open. And email me, call, text.
FADEL: (Laughter).
SCHARFMAN: I was going to send you my new script, too, Paul, and now I'm not going to, 'cause, yeah.
RUDD: I'm sorry. I'm very busy.
(LAUGHTER)
FADEL: Paul Rudd is one of the stars of the new movie "Death Of A Unicorn" and it was written and directed by Alex Scharfman. Thank you to you both, and congratulations.
RUDD: Thank you.
SCHARFMAN: Thank you so much.
RUDD: It's nice talking with you.
(SOUNDBITE OF DAN ROMER AND GIOSUE GRECO'S "WHEREVER THEY TAKE US") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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