The Big Picture

Wolfs
is a new action-comedy from Jon Watts that pits Austin Abrams up against George Clooney and Brad Pitt.
Abrams had a smooth audition process and did his own stunts in his most action-heavy role.
Abrams sought advice from his A-list co-star Brad Pitt about the kinds of projects he picks.

Wolfs marks the latest on-screen collaboration between Academy Award winners and A-list movie stars George Clooney and Brad Pitt. However, they aren’t alone in Jon Watts’ new action comedy, which is now available to stream on Apple TV+. The two are joined by Euphoria alum Austin Abrams, who plays a mysterious young man who ends up stumbling his way into New York City’s criminal underworld, and it’s up to Clooney and Pitt’s fixers to get him out of a sticky situation involving drugs and a prominent district attorney (Amy Ryan).

I was fortunate enough to sit down and talk with Abrams about his role in the new film, his first experiences with Clooney and Pitt, what it was like working in only his underwear, and what the audition process was like. He also teased his role in the upcoming horror movie Weapons, which marks the latest film from Barbarian filmmaker Zach Cregger.

Austin Abrams Believes His ‘Euphoria’ Dance Prepared Him for ‘Wolfs’
Image Via HBO

COLLIDER: I think we’re roughly around the same age and at least for me, I think George Clooney and Brad Pitt are two of the first movie stars that I have ever recognized. What was the first time that you remember seeing them on screen?

AUSTIN ABRAMS: It’s hard to say. God, I mean, probably around like Ocean’s Eleven or something like that. I don’t know. Do you remember?

I think for me it was Brad Pitt in Megamind. Which was animated, but still counts.

ABRAMS: It’s hard to say. It almost kind of feels like, we were probably watching them before we can remember, I feel like, you know, in a certain way. It’s hard to hard to say exactly. I feel like there’s got to be one. Oh, you know what? It could be could be Batman and Robin, maybe. [Laughs]

Yeah, I think that was the first time I saw Clooney.

ABRAMS: Yeah, it could be that one. It’s hard to say exactly.

Image via Warner Bros.

I had read that there was a pretty extensive audition process for this movie. What was it like? Did you get the script beforehand? Were you auditioning with Clooney and Pitt?

ABRAMS: In ways it wasn’t as extensive as I kind of thought it would be for whatever reason. And I don’t know if that’s because I knew Jon [Watts] already before. We didn’t know each other really super well.

We met like, once or twice, like years and years ago. But it was really just a couple auditions. And I didn’t have the script until at the point of maybe like meeting and talking with Jon about all of it. But yeah, I didn’t end up reading with the two guys. I just really didn’t know what to expect. I thought maybe I would. I was a little bit surprised that I wasn’t. And I don’t know, maybe they just felt like we would go well together or something. It didn’t feel like they needed to. I’m not really sure. But yeah, that’s kind of what it was like.

It took a while. It was over a period of a few months or something like that, of just time passing. And, it certainly was like the scenes of doing the monologue and stuff like that. So just getting that down and having like, you know, maybe three days or something like that to do that in a way that you feel good about was a part of it.

One of the things that I found very amusing is that your character in the movie is either wearing a blouse or he’s just in his underwear. Were you ever intimidated by that while reading the script, especially since you knew you were going to work with these two major movie stars?

ABRAMS: Yeah, maybe for me, I could have been. Maybe I was intimidated for like a second, but then you just kind of know that you just need to do whatever it is you have to do. I think maybe being on stage in Euphoria, I wasn’t in my underwear. But I think actually that kind of primed me because when I read the script for that, I thought that I was going to be in my underwear and not in the shorts or whatever. And I think I also thought that maybe I was going to be actually singing.

So maybe that already took care of me kind of freaking out about something like that. I think maybe, I don’t even know, maybe for a millisecond, but not really that much. I think it was just kind of like, ‘I don’t care.’I’ll just do whatever I need to do to be able to work with all those guys.

Is ‘Wolfs’ a Christmas Movie?

So you’ve played asshole characters before in movies like Do Revenge and in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. At the start of this movie, I was wondering whether your character was going to be more of a hooligan. But I was pleasantly surprised that he was very pure and innocent. Did you bring any of your own personality to that role?

ABRAMS: Everything has to be there, you know, it doesn’t really matter who you’re talking to. In the end, whether the person kind of looks different or moves different or sounds different or whatever it is, it’s like; or maybe there’s different parts of them that are kind of like turned up, you know what I mean? And it’s like, you have to bring those parts of yourself or, lean into them more or discover them for it to feel authentic, At least that’s the aim, you know? So yeah, it’s always you. And any kind of like, you can kind of slowly maybe turn up those parts of yourself. And then hopefully, that’ll start to take hold. But if you try to fake it or fake trying to be malicious or something like that, it just doesn’t really work. You have to feel like what that is for you.

I noticed there’s a lot of Christmas decor in Wolfs. You’ve done a Christmas-related project before with Dash and Lily . Before there’s some kind of debate online, would you consider Wolfs a Christmas movie, despite the fact they don’t even say Christmas?

ABRAMS: Yeah, I would in a sense. [Laughs] I also kind of feel like there’s a lot of Christmas movies that well, this is kind of ridiculous. I don’t even know if it makes complete sense. But just whatever you watch during Christmas, kind of becomes a Christmas movie in a way. Jaws has nothing to do with Christmas. But I watch that I feel like every Christmas, for some reason, I don’t know why that’s always on TV during Christmas. Or like The Godfather kind of feels like a Christmas movie to me for some reason.

Anyways, yeah, I would say kind of in a sense it is. You look at something like Eyes Wide Shut, you know, doesn’t really seem like a Christmas movie, but it takes place during Christmas. It’s kind of interesting. But, yeah, I think, kind of. [Laughs]

So this is easily your most action-heavy role to date and I I would imagine a bigger budget. I was curious, was there things that like surprised you that you weren’t expecting while working on a big action movie set?

ABRAMS: I think I was surprised by how grounded it was in a way of that. And I think a lot of that has to do with Brad and George and Jon and stuff like that. They’re all sincere, kind, thoughtful guys.

It didn’t feel like there were any big egos on set or anything like that. Which maybe I imagined that that could happen. And not to say that I was expecting that, but I can imagine that can happen on some sort of big set, or with those guys or something. But it wasn’t like that at all. So I probably say in a sense that was kind of surprising. And then also just how long it takes to shoot action was something I hadn’t fully comprehended until I did it.

Did you do a lot of your own stunts then?

ABRAMS: Mostly yeah. Just because I’m in, my underwear for it. So, it’s hard to fake it with a different body. You ended up having to pretty much do most of it.

Austin Abrams and Jon Watts First Met Over 10 Years Ago
Image via Apple TV+

You had mentioned that you’d met Jon well before even auditioning for this movie. How did you guys first meet?

ABRAMS: We have a mutual friend that he’s known for a long time that I worked with, and I think we met before he even shot the first Spider-Man.

The friend is Jake Schreier. And I think maybe he was during maybe Paper Towns. Jo maybe even like sat in on an edit or something like that. So before that even kind of came out, I think he knew of me. But yeah, it was a long time ago. Yeah, it was pretty brief from what I remember as well.

Did you ever ask Brad and George for advice on the set of the movie? Did they give you any advice?

ABRAMS: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, they’re pretty generous guys. So you can really ask them anything. God, there’s like, so many different things. The thing that stuck with me about Brad is asking for his thoughts on the projects he chooses, and he chooses ones that inspire him and that he loves and then hopes that other people love them. There’s just a lot of different things, hard to kind of pick and choose. Also just being able to kind of like, see them and kind of learn through example, through them, you know, just seeing how generous they are to people and their kindness and thoughtfulness, how they really take the time. Also, seeing how they protect themselves. It’s a fine balance because they’re in a situation where people are always wanting more and more and more, and you want to give, but also you gotta be careful because then you’ll just be run thin, you’ll have maybe nothing left to give anymore. We all have to have boundaries. Just seeing those kinds of things, but you know, in general, just seeing how they just treat people day to day was really cool.

Austin Abrams Teases His Next Film ‘Weapons’
Image via Sony Pictures/Apple TV+

I just noticed your Weapons hat. I am a massive Barbarian fan. So I have been anxiously awaiting Weapons since they first announced it. I’m curious if you can tease anything or talk about what the set was like.

ABRAMS: The only thing I’ve thought about is it’s hard to know exactly what to say just because they don’t want to spoil anything for anybody or step on someone’s toes, and say something and then be like, ‘Hey, we weren’t ready to present that to people.’ I think what I can say, I can’t say it’s a great cast. It’s a great story that I know people are very excited about. I was very excited about it. Of course, it has Zach’s amazing sense of humor to it.

It feels like a very deep kind of movie. I feel like Zach is able to kind of like, kind of trudge something up that is really maybe subconscious or something like that. Perhaps in him and in all of us. It has a lot of similarities to me in the sense of Barbarian in the vein of it, or the feeling of it, you know, the horror element and also the comedic element and stuff like that.

That’s probably the best that I can say without pissing someone off (laughs). But yeah, man, it’s just a great cast and a great story. That was one for me as well, was really looking forward to doing and I’m happy that it worked out.

I can tell you’re clearly a cinephile. I see the 2001 poster. I see the Heath Ledger Joker.

ABRAMS: [Laughs] Yeah, I know. I realized that before I got on this thing, I was like, ‘fuck, I’m like decked out in movie shit right now.’ I swear to God, it’s not normally like this. I mean, it’s just all you can see right now is just different movies. It’s just funny, but yeah, anyways, go ahead. [Laughs]

Do you have a dream director that you would want to work with next?

ABRAMS: Yeah, man, there’s just so many, There’s someone like Fincher or something like that. There’s just kind of all the classic dudes that don’t even need saying, the kind of Paul Thomas Anderson folk or Sean Baker people and all that kind of stuff. So yeah man, there’s a ton in there, but there’s folks that of course you want to work with.

Austin Abrams Talks About Playing Teenagers as an Adult

You’ve played teens before and even recently, despite being in your mid-twenties, do you find it challenging to slip back into a more youthful mindset or does it come pretty natural to you?

ABRAMS: Kind of both. It’s a bit mysterious. I don’t really think I can probably do that stuff anymore at this point. At a certain point, it’s just gonna feel false. And like, you don’t want that of course. But, it’s kind of both. Cause it’s like, you’ve been there, but do you want to go back there? You know what I mean? Maybe that’s part of the struggle. [Laughs]

But then there’s different sides of it that you get to explore. I don’t think I ever considered myself to be the more popular guy in school that Max was in Do Revenge. So that can be kind of interesting to like explore the what-could-have-beens. Not to say I wouldn’t have been as terrible a person as he was (laughs). But yeah, it’s kind of both. It’s kind of hard to say, sometimes it does feel like you’re kind of going back to territory that maybe you don’t feel like exploring again. You know, I feel like exploring kind of new territory.

Wolfs is now available to stream on Apple TV+.

Watch on Apple TV+