Brand New Cherry Flavor is a limited Netflix series that blends dark magic with the seedy underbelly of Hollywood life in the most surprising ways. Over the course of 8 episodes, viewers are introduced to Lisa Nova (Rosa Salazar, Amazon's Undone), a young filmmaker who desperately wants to make her creative vision known, and the mysterious Boro (Catherine Keener, Get Out), whose destructive magical help in this mission is questionable at best.
Lisa's desire for recognition becomes a quest for revenge once she meets washed-up Hollywood producer Lou Burke (Eric Lange, Antebellum). He offers her a deal to get her project made but then cuts her out of directing it, leaving her full of rage and ready to take him down by any means necessary. Unfortunately, there's plenty of collateral damage to go around - possibly including actor Roy Hardaway (Jeff Ward, Agents of SHIELD), who is enamored of Lisa but afraid of her at the same time.
Lange and Ward spoke to Screen Rant about playing villains versus playing reckless heroes, and about how they view their character arcs over the course of the series.
Warning: This interview contains spoilers for Brand New Cherry Flavor.
Screen Rant: Jeff, you did Channel Zero with creators Lenore Zion and Nick Antosca before this. What was the journey to Brand New Cherry Flavor like?
Jeff Ward: Nick is an old friend. I made a short film out of a short story he wrote in [2015]. I read this short story of his called The Girlfriend Game, and it just blew me away. I couldn't believe that in that short of a time, the story had such a huge effect on me.
And then a couple of years later, he called me in for Channel Zero, and we ended up doing that together. It's still one of my favorite things I've done; I love that show, and Steven Piet [the director] was so good. It was actually while we were shooting Channel Zero that Nick got the rights to this book called Brand New Cherry Flavor that I had never heard of. Then four or five years after that, we had kept trying to work together again, and this came up. I read with Rosa, and I was lucky enough to get it.
It was crazy because I got the scripts with that infamous fourth episode with that wild sex scene with Rosa and [me]. When I read that, I was like, "Oh my God, this reminds me so much of the first time I read The Girlfriend Game." It was just as weird and crazy and erotic, but insanely dark and wild. I was like, "This is such Antosca specialty." This is what he's so phenomenal at doing, and that's what brought me to Cherry Flavor.
When I read the pilot, I was enamored with it immediately - even though Roy is not really in it - because of Lou's character. I thought was so well-written and interesting. And then we got lucky enough to get Mr. Lange to bring him to life so brilliantly.
Speaking of Lou's character, it must be tough playing someone who is such a mix of what is detestable in life - because we know another Lou is lurking around every Hollywood corner - and what is pitiable, because of the supernatural circumstances. Can you talk about balancing those two extremes?
Eric Lange: Yeah. I've played a bunch of bad people in my career, and my goal is always to try and get the audience to be on my side. What I love about it is watching someone who was at the top of their game slowly become eroded, and the trap is to just go with the erosion and wallow.
What's fun about Lou is that he's a fighter, and he's really trying to climb his way back up this mountain. And this curse he has been visited with, albeit for some poor behavior, is so severe that I really thought, "I think I can get some people to think that's too much." You're still a d*****bag, but you shouldn't be going through this.
It wasn't just that he just sat in his living room with a bottle of Jack Daniels and wallowed in self-pity. He is actively trying to construct a way out of the failure he's living through. I think Lou was really funny, too. He's childlike almost at times.
And I've mentioned that wig - I love that wig so much. I was like, "This is a period piece. He's a larger-than-life 90s figure. This hair I have won't do." But Natasha made this incredible wig for us, and we had her put a little bald spot in the back. So that even his powerful mane of hair - his Michael Bay, whatever you want to call it, hairdo - was coming apart at the seams. It's just so much fun to play people like that.
I love that symbolism. Jeff, the chemistry with Roy and Lisa was on fire, crackling throughout. Can you talk about that relationship, and how Roy's danger-seeking death wish is affected by Lisa and their push and pull?
Jeff Ward: Yeah, it's so interesting, because we quickly realized that we had to figure out exactly who Roy was. Because there's the larger-than-life movie star - that's who he's left as in the novel, which is obviously so different. But we were trying to give him somewhat of a pathos.
I felt like he was this actor that was more of a popcorn guy, but he actually reveres Brando and Pacino and De Niro - the Actors Studio guys. He's always like, "I want to be a real actor. I'm not just this action star, pretty boy guy. I want to be someone that's there for the craft." And it's people like Lou Burke who [make him feel that way].
It's not in it anymore, but there was a scene we shot that was at the party where Lou came up to me. And Eric made the most amazing choice in this scene because I'm wearing the leather jacket that I wear the whole time. And it's literally people like Lou are like, "There's these tried and true things. Here's Roy Hardaway, so plug him and let's give him a basic script and whatever." But he did his thing to me where he comes up to me and starts pitching me a movie - and there were little straps on the leather jacket. And he came up and grabbed both of them like handlebars to talk to me, so I literally couldn't move. I was like, "Ugh, I want to be away from this guy so much. I hate this guy."
It was such an amazing choice because it's literally that he's shackled by this popcorn career. But he wants more than that, and I think it's coming from his childhood, where he feels responsible for the death of his sister. And also, this very famous and charmed life that he's now living, I think he feels like it's a fraud.
He's chasing that darkness because he wants it in his work, and he's chasing that darkness because he's trying to punish himself. He's lived a life of trying to punish himself for what he did to his sister. But it was so interesting because it felt like he said, "I want darkness. I want darkness. I want darkness." And then he met darkness in Lisa, and he kind of went, "Whoa, I didn't mean this. This is crazy."
And he's even willing to go so far. I remember we were talking about the scene where he says, "When I was wrapping a dead body and a shower curtain for you, I was like, 'I think something's wrong here.'" He pushes and pushes and pushes, and then literally begs her to stay away from him. Because I think he can feel that it's going to lead to destruction.
Eric, aside from "Don't be a creep," what lessons did you take away from Brand New Cherry Flavor?
Eric Lange: Oh, my goodness. Stay away from black magic. That would be one. If your career's going sideways, maybe find an alternate career. Be better to your wife and your son? I don't have one off the top of my head.
All 8 episodes of Brand New Cherry Flavor are currently streaming on Netflix.
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