The Big Picture

Perri Nemiroff talks with Ron Howard, Sydney Sweeney, Ana de Armas, and Daniel Brühl about
Eden
at TIFF 2024.

Eden
is an escapist psychological drama set in the Galápagos Islands based on a true story about a group of people in search of a new life.
Howard and the cast discuss filming in Australia, facing fears, their first rehearsals together, and tease upcoming projects like the
John Wick
spin-off,
Ballerina
, and
Euphoria
Season 3.

Oscar-winning filmmaker Ron Howard first approached the idea of adapting the story of Eden a decade ago, but sharing its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival in a post-pandemic world just makes sense as one of the director’s darkest films to date. It’s a psychological drama based on an unbelievable true story that allows audiences to escape into a Howard film full of “twists and turns” that features a stellar cast.

Eden, adapted to screen by Noah Pink, is a harrowing psychological spiral that settles its audience in the Galápagos Islands with Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Ana de Armas, Sydney Sweeney, and Daniel Brühl, who Howard says are “so different, kind of extreme, kind of wild, unpredictable,” and all in search of new life in the 1920s. Unfortunately, when all these people convene on the island of Floreana, they discover “it’s not Mother Nature that they needed to fear, it was human nature.”

After their screening, Howard, de Armas, Sweeney, and Brühl stopped by the Collider interview studio at the Cinema Center at MARBL to sit down with Perri Nemiroff and discuss this twist-filled adventure and how it challenged its cast and director in new ways. In addition to darker material, Howard talks about new techniques he uses in the movie to build suspense, and the stars share how these roles offered opportunities to learn new skills and face fears while filming in Australia. De Armas and Sweeney also tease exciting updates for the John Wick spin-off, Ballerina, and Euphoria Season 3.

You can watch the conversation in the video above or read the full transcript below.

Ron Howard’s ‘Eden’ Is a Survival Thriller in a Psychological Tailspin
“It just would not leave my mind.”
Image via TIFF

PERRI NEMIROFF: Ron, I know what your movie is, but because we’re celebrating it at a film festival, our viewers might not know about Eden just yet, so can you give a brief synopsis?

RON HOWARD: I obviously don’t want to give too much away because there are a lot of twists and turns. It starts off, really, as a survival thriller, and then it turns into something more psychologically dangerous. It turns out that these disparate groups decided to go to the Galápagos separately to try to reinvent their lives, to go off the grid, and face that challenge. Well, it turned out that it’s not Mother Nature that they needed to fear, it was human nature. That’s really where the story comes from.

I bumped into it in a museum on a visit to the Galápagos. The events took place there, and it just would not leave my mind. This is, like, 15 years ago. I’ve been thinking about these characters who are so different, kind of extreme, kind of wild, unpredictable, and yet what they put themselves through and what they went through was, I thought, so fascinating, entertaining, and memorable. And eventually, we got a tremendous cast to make it happen.

One thing I read a lot about going into this was how this movie would pose a lot of filmmaking firsts for you. Even with all of your experience in this industry, can you tell me something you did for the very first time as a director on Eden ?

HOWARD: I staged more oners. Now, these are not like [Alejandro González] Iñárritu minutes upon minutes upon minutes, but for me, and it had to do with the suspense, it was building a shot that would just look kind of mundane, and then at a certain point there’d be a jolt. There’d be a shock. Not necessarily a horror shock, but a twist in the story that you would not have seen coming. And I don’t think that from a staging standpoint, I’d ever built suspense into a scene quite in that way because it’s not just where the story is going, it’s not just the surprise. Everything that we did in this was about a performance moment, so the psychology of what was going on was always front and center. In a way, being the magician which a director needs to be, that’s kind of the diversion. You’re watching the characters go through this kind of stress test and then, wow, you didn’t see what was coming next because you were so engrossed in them as human beings.

Daniel, I believe Ron first brought this up to you 10 years ago. When it was first pitched to you, what part of the script intrigued you most, and then what intrigued you most about it when you jumped into it 10 years later?

DANIEL BRÜHL: I was attracted on many levels. First of all, because working with Ron on Rush was such an incredible pleasure, and the fact that he wanted to work with me again was a no-brainer for me. But then when you hear that from directors, it happens very often in my life that then you don’t hear back from them. They say, “It’s so great with you. We’re gonna do something else again.” I say, “Yeah, okay.” But then he really called me 10 years later.

HOWARD: There’s a little gap. [Laughs]

BRÜHL: But funny, back then, that was in 2013, it rang a bell, and I thought, “Hold on.” Another director that I had worked with also wanted to do this film, and it was a German director that I shot Good Bye, Lenin! back, back, back in the days. He gave me books, and I saw on the first page of these books these books made it to the Galápagos Islands in 1993, some rotten copies of a take on that tale, and another one, it might have been the one that Margaret Wittmer had written, and so I was mesmerized and fascinated by this story right away, especially being German. I thought, “What? This really happened?” And then I remember that I checked out the documentary on YouTube. That was before Ron, and then Ron mentioned it, that particular project, and I said, “Jesus, I would love to do it.” And so, it happened.

Image courtesy of Photagonist at TIFF 2024

HOWARD: By the way, Hans Zimmer, who composed the music for this movie, told me as we were working on the score that early in his life, he’d gotten to know Nicolas Roeg. He worked with Nicolas Roeg, and Nicolas Roeg was very interested in this story. He never got to the point of having a screenplay. Look, it’s classic. It’s such a fascinating set of characters, and they are so outrageous that it really is stranger than fiction, and we needed actors who were willing to go to that place — and I’m kind of looking at you, Ana de Armas. [Laughs]

The reaction to your performance last night is one of my favorite in-theater communal experiences!

The ‘Eden’ Cast Measured Each Other During the Rehearsals
“We needed each other like the characters needed each other.”
Image courtesy of Photagonist at TIFF 2024

Eden feels like a movie that does not work without a pitch-perfect cast. Ron, I think you found it here. For the three of you, can you each tell me the first moment you stopped and said to yourself, whether it was in prep or on set, “I am with the right people. We are going to be able to make the most of this material together?”

ANA DE ARMAS: We did have the privilege to have about a full two weeks of rehearsals, and the setup was really amazing. Even though it was three different families or groups, we all rehearsed together, and everyone was present when the other group was rehearsing. I think it helped everyone in getting the tone, in getting the energy of the other group, and understanding each other, the accent, the weirdness, the kind of measuring each other, the level of eccentricity and craziness, and all of that. It was, for me, doing the table reads, which we did a few of them, and spending so much time together every day rehearsing with the animals. All of it we did together, and it was good to see each other finding what we wanted to do.

SYDNEY SWEENEY: I agree with the rehearsal process. We really saw everybody show up, and then we were able to feel each other out on the accent and the performances. But I think especially when we filmed the lunch scene when all of us were together. There were just so many unwritten nuances that came out amongst all the different characters that I think that’s when I really was like, “Oh my gosh, this is gonna be crazy. This is so incredible working with such amazing group of talent.” I really just felt it come to life in that scene.

It’s an electric scene in the movie. How about for you, Daniel?

BRÜHL: We needed each other like the characters needed each other. We got along better than the characters in the movie, thank god. [Laughs]

I’m glad to hear that!

BRÜHL: Nobody felt at home; we were in a shooting in a remote place. It was hot and sticky and feverish, and it was exhausting, so we needed each other’s company. I remember we also had a great time when Ana was cooking for us or you and your lovely partner. So, there was that mutual interest, and it’s another quality to the film that it’s such an eclectic mix because there’s Cuba, there’s America, there’s Germany, Austria, England. You have all these different cultures, and there was a mutual curiosity in each other, which made it very interesting, on a personal level, to work on this project. So, yes, on the very last day I realized this was a good gang.

SWEENEY: On the last day? [Laughs]

DE ARMAS: Well, actually, you’re kind of right. The last day was the last scene. It was a really intense scene to say goodbye to the shoot.

HOWARD: Every day was intense. We were working on a tight schedule. It was very dense in terms of what the characters had to do because, without giving too much away, the tone shifts, and it’s all very organic. But by going to the places that these actual people had gone psychologically and emotionally, when you watch it, sometimes it’s outrageous. It’s funny. Sometimes it’s horrifying. Sometimes it’s a little heartbreaking. I hope it creates suspense. They were having to mine that and find that tone in the scenes every day, and sometimes one scene would lead one way and that’s what we’d be shooting in the morning, and in the afternoon, it would be something else altogether. So, I love working with actors on complicated scenes, but even I felt like it was kind of a tightrope walk all the time.

Image courtesy of Photagonist at TIFF 2024

Plus, we had no cover sets. We were shooting outside. We had no studio. We would get occasionally stormed out because we hit a stretch of really bad weather, and the only way to make it up was to work really hard and really fast. These guys, and the rest of the ensemble, really lived up to that filmmaking challenge, as well.

The Cast of ‘Eden’ Had to Be Fearless on Set
“I faced a lot of fears just even being there.”
Image courtesy of Photagonist at TIFF 2024

You go all in in every single respect. I wrote down this quote from Ron mentioning that he wanted risk-takers for these roles, so can each of you tell me a risk you took while making this film that will pave the way to even bigger things for you in the future because you did that here?

DE ARMAS: Well, being the embodiment of perfection was very risky. [Laughs]

HOWARD: That’s her character’s mantra to keep herself going.

DE ARMAS: Just the whole thing for me was terrifying. I remember being on the phone with Ron, finally like, “Okay, you’re gonna do this?” “Yes, I’m gonna do this,” and hanging up very excited. And 20 minutes later, I call him back having doubts, feeling scared. I just didn’t know if I had made the right decision, or that I was the right person for it. And I was like, “Think about it again. Maybe you want someone else.” [Laughs] But then, for me, that’s what it’s all about. That’s what I find interesting and fulfilling and exciting. If it’s not that, I don’t want it. It’s what makes me enjoy every day at work. That’s what makes it not feel like work.

HOWARD: I do have to add, with Ana, it’s easy to forget this because she’s so fluent in English now, but it’s not her first language. She’s doing an accent that is basically invented because her character is somebody who, like some very theatrical, bigger-than-life people, kind of invent their persona. That’s what her character has done. And so from a creative standpoint, it’s all art, every step of the way, and she met the challenge.

DE ARMAS: Definitely, that was one of the biggest challenges. Eloise creating The Baroness had to be so eccentric and crazy. It was an invention, but it had to be out there but also still believable for the other people to even consider this woman was saying something truthful. But she gets so entangled in her own story that she actually gets to believe it sometimes, and it’s heartbreaking. She’s very fragile and childish sometimes. You can see she’s lonely, and she’s very vain and loves love and beauty and all that. And then it’s terrifying. This woman is scary sometimes. It was about finding the two extremes and that balance of being believable in her lie.

Seeing those little qualities you just named pop through is what grounds her and it’s what, for me at least as a viewer, based all of her actions, as extreme as they are, in some sort of consistent truth that I believed in.

Image courtesy of Photagonist at TIFF 2024

How about for the two of you? An example of a time when you were more fearless on this set than you ever have been before as an actor?

SWEENEY: I mean, Daniel was building the set. [Laughs]

DE ARMAS: I was very impressed by that.

SWEENEY: All the work that you saw us do, we were actually doing.

DE ARMAS: Milking the cows …

BRÜHL: I did take the risk to confront my snake phobia because there were some scary moments. In the middle of a take, a very friendly gentleman would show up out of nowhere and tell you to stop, with some long scissors, and to step away. I mean, I have to say, in Australia, there are all these poisonous creatures and we were dealing with snakes every now and then.

HOWARD: We had snake wranglers. Daniel just called them scissors — no snakes were harmed, but a lot were caught.

For what it’s worth, I pictured the right thing! Sydney, how about for you to take us home on this one?

SWEENEY: I felt like I just had imposter syndrome the whole time I was there working with Daniel and Jude [Law] and Ana and Vanessa [Kirby] and Ron. Every day I was like, “Oh my gosh, I cannot believe I’m here. Am I supposed to be here? Did they make a mistake? Am I the wrong person?” So for me, I was nervous. I faced a lot of fears just even being there because everyone is such an amazing actor. I was like, “What am I doing?”

Nerves come from a place of being passionate and caring, and that’s what I always hold tight to.

Also, just because I won’t be able to bring this up because we don’t have enough time, you have two of the most epic birth scenes I’ve ever seen in my entire life on screen in a single calendar year. You crushed those scenes. I’m very impressed.

SWEENEY: Thank you!

Image courtesy of Photagonist at TIFF 2024

Before I let you go, I have to ask about some upcoming projects. Sydney, our viewers are rabid for Euphoria , and there’s one particular performance challenge that I’m curious about because there’s obviously a longer wait for you as an actor between making Seasons 2 and 3, and you’ve accomplished so much in that period of time. Are there any particular skills you’ve gained in that period that you’re especially excited to apply to Cassie?

SWEENEY: Whenever I’m on set on different sets, I think the most that I learned is from the crew and how different departments need different things, and just being able to use that and making sure that everybody has what they need and their tools that they need to be able to move forward. So I think with Euphoria, especially just making sure that everybody can give their 100%. I’m really excited. I can’t wait. I don’t really have anything to say, but I’m really excited.

Always thinking with the producer mentality. I like that. I want more of that from you, as well!

Ana de Armas Says ‘Ballerina’ Is “Dangerous and Sexy”
“It’s very John Wick.”
Image courtesy of Photagonist at TIFF 2024

Ana, you’ll get my next one because our viewers and readers are also massive John Wick fans, and you have Ballerina coming up. Someone was just telling me that you did additional photography, and that involved Chad Stahelski, which is so cool. You get the person who directed the first film in that franchise in there with you. By working with him, is there any new layer of that movie that you were able to unlock?

DE ARMAS: Oh my gosh, I love Chad. And I have to say, every time they say you have reshoots, it’s not good. You don’t feel good about it.

It’s an important part of the process.

DE ARMAS: But I really have to say he was so right about it. All we did in those reshoots had to be there. We got amazing footage. It’s really spectacular. A trailer is coming out soon, I’ve been told. I saw it, and it’s beautiful. I’m very proud of it. It’s really exciting. It’s dangerous, it’s sexy, it’s very John Wick. I think people are going to be surprised. I’m biased. Of course, I like the movie, but I think it’s really cool. It’s going to be amazing.

Rock solid tease. That makes me very hyped.

Also, one of my greatest missions in this line of work is to demystify reshoots and additional photography.

DE ARMAS: I have to say, I was finishing Eden and we started the reshoots like two weeks later, so that was a big switch mentally and physically to get back to that.

HOWARD: Weren’t you beginning to do fight training and physical stuff even while you were on our picture?

DE ARMAS: Mhm. It was really full-on right away. It was a hard switch, but it was great.

Special thanks to this year’s partners of the Cinema Center x Collider Studio at TIFF 2024 including presenting Sponsor Range Rover Sport as well as supporting sponsors Peoples Group financial services, poppi soda, Don Julio Tequila, Legend Water and our venue host partner Marbl Toronto. And also Roxstar Entertainment, our event producing partner and Photagonist Canada for the photo and video services.