Barbarella Chats with BLOAT actors Malcolm Fuller and Sawyer Jones

Hey friends! Barbarella here to chat about feeling bloated. Wait that’s not right. I’m here to chat a bit about Bloat, which will be in Theaters, On Demand and On Digital March 7, 2025. It’s a new horror thriller in which Ben McKenzie (“Gotham,” “The O.C.”) plays Jack, a man stuck working while his family vacations in Japan. As if the FOMO isn’t bad enough, one of his sons starts behaving strangely after almost drowning, and his wife, played by Bojana Novakovic (Edge of Darkness, Drag Me to Hell), must grapple with everything essentially alone, while Jack grows increasingly frustrated with his inability to do anything more than bear witness and offer recommendations and theories. 

Bloat proves to be pretty fun, generating some tension from the fact that poor Jack is stuck in front of a screen in another country, balancing work and family drama from afar. His sense of powerlessness and the increasing frustration that develops as he video-chats with his family and hears increasingly more unsettling news makes him relatable and really heightens the unease I feel while watching. While the final act doesn’t engage me as much as the setup leading up to it, I enjoy enough of the concepts within the story that overall, I like the movie. 

I got the opportunity to chat with the actors who play the two sons, Malcolm Fuller and Sawyer Jones. Check it out!

Barbara: Would you guys tell me about the casting process. Did you get sent the script or did you have to audition? What was that like for you? 

Malcolm: My agency, Innovative Artists, submitted me for the casting, and then I got sent the whole script before the audition. Usually, you just get one scene. I got to read the whole thing and then audition. 

Sawyer: Yeah, me too. My agents sent me out on the audition, and I also got the whole script, and I just started reading it. I was like, “This movie’s awesome, and I want to be a part of it.” [It was] inspiration to give it my all. 

Barbara: Very cool. Are you a fan of horror movies? 

Sawyer: Yeah, big fan. 

Barbara: What was it like filming on location in Japan? 

Malcolm: I loved it. I mean, I’ve never been out of the United States before that, so it was great. We got to see the countryside of Japan. We got to see Mount Fuji, lots of gorgeous mountains and some lakes and stuff. We got to see Japanese architecture and how different the houses were. It was really cool. 

Sawyer: Yeah, it was awesome. I always wanted to go to Japan, so getting to go there while filming with my castmates was really an awesome experience and made the whole thing even more fun. So yeah. 

Malcolm: We actually got enough free time that Sawyer and I and our parents walked around a little bit and we saw Shinto Temple. 

Sawyer: Going to see the temple was awesome. There was also another day when we went to this really cool building. It was super tall in Tokyo, and we got to go up the elevator, and we were on the very top of the building, so it was really cool. 

Malcolm: You could see the city sprawling as far as…you couldn’t see the end of it. I mean, it was huge. 

Barbara: What would be some advice you’d give to somebody that was traveling to Tokyo? 

Sawyer: I would say eat. The food was delicious, for sure. Yeah, just enjoy it. Go see all the fun stuff you can. 

Malcolm: There’s this one street, Takeshita Street, that’s kind of a tourist attraction ‘cause it’s lined with gift shops where you can buy all sorts of cool things. You can buy shirts that say weird things in Japanese. So yeah, I’d say you should definitely visit that if you’re going. 

Sawyer: And the convenience stores. They’re awesome.

Barbara: What makes ’em awesome? 

Sawyer: Well, they have a ton of snacks in there and stuff, the most delicious stuff, like full meals and just very convenient. Yeah.

Malcolm: It’s cool because brands that you’ve never ever heard of before. 

Sawyer: And very different flavors and stuff that I normally wouldn’t find in America. 

Malcolm: Yeah, I bought candy at one, at a family mart, and then I brought it back and then I Google-translated it once, and it turns out they were throat lozenges. 

Barbara: That’s hilarious. How did you approach your roles? How did you kind of prepare for the character and get into that character? 

Sawyer: Well, for my character there is some of the movie, I’m Kyle, and I’m a nice normal kid, and that wasn’t too hard, but when it comes to this other side where he’s sort of possessed, it was kind of difficult to try and envision myself as something without human characteristics or anything. I just decided I’d try and go as different as I could possibly make it. I stopped applying human characteristics, traits, and thoughts to the character, and I just tried to make it as abstract and otherworldly as I could. 

Malcolm: I would say for my character, I mean obviously much simpler than Sawyer’s character, but I tried to just make myself how I would react if my brother started doing all these weird things and eating lots of cucumbers and such. It was pretty interesting because while I’m not exactly changing how I’m acting, I’m kind of changing how I would be reacting to something that wouldn’t normally happen. 

Barbara: In between takes, did you kind of stay in character, or were you able to just go back to normal and everything?

Malcolm: Kind of went back to normal. 

Sawyer: For me it depended on the scene. I feel like most of the time I could go back to normal, but sometimes when I have a more intense scene, and I have to film and go do other takes and stuff, you don’t want to necessarily go, “All right,” and then go back in because it can be a little disorienting, especially if you’ve taken time to get into character. So just depending on what we’re filming. 

Barbara: How long did it take you to get into character for this role? 

Sawyer: Not too long. Maybe on the drive there, getting on set, I’d start to sort of change my mindset and think a lot about stuff that I think my character would be thinking about, but it wasn’t like I needed to go and get into character. I sort of did it as I went, and so I’d say gradually over the course of maybe 20 minutes, I probably got into the right mindset to be able to film. 

Malcolm: For me. I mean there were a few emotional scenes that I had to film. For that, I generally would just kind of stop thinking about random stuff that goes through my head and focus on maybe sad real-life experiences and try to start feeling the actual feelings that the character would be feeling and that helps me get into character. 

Barbara: Is it hard to get out of that once you get into that emotional space? 

Malcolm: For me, not really. No. 

Sawyer: I wouldn’t say so. I mean, when you get really immersed into a certain aspect and really think about it, it can little take a minute to readjust. But I’d say generally not too hard. 

Barbara: What was your favorite day on set and why? 

Sawyer: Well, every day on set was a real gift, and it was awesome. But there was one day where in the scene, I had a frog, and the frog was really cool. I got to pick up the frog and hang out with it. So that was fun to be able to hang out with the frog. I like frogs, so yeah, that was fun. 

Malcolm: There was this one scene that I was in a cop car, and then I got out of the cop car, and I had dirt on my face, and I think that was pretty fun because I was in a cop car. 

Barbara: Okay. Are either of you fans of cucumbers? 

Sawyer: I like cucumbers. I don’t love cucumbers, but I was definitely able to eat them. 

Malcolm: If there’s a salad that has cucumbers in it, I guess I’ll eat them, but I never choose a cucumber. 

Barbara: Yeah, I couldn’t eat cucumbers for the longest time. I mean, I think five years ago I finally decided I liked them, but before that I just didn’t like them ever. I liked cucumber water, though. Would you talk a little bit about working with Pablo; what was her style with you, and what was that experience like for you? 

Sawyer: I mean, she was an awesome director. I feel like we worked really well together. We both had a mutual love for horror movies, so we were able to have a mutual understanding. She had such a great vision, and the vision was so solid, she was able to really give us great directions, but also she was very willing to let us play with it and mess around and do other stuff and see how it would work. So yeah, very great director. 

Malcolm: Yeah, I would say the same thing. I mean, she was great at giving us pretty clear instructions about what was going on and maybe where she got the inspiration for this scene. Like he said, she would let us kind of play with the character and make it our own and take some creative license and stuff like that. 

Barbara: How long was the shoot? 

Malcolm: Ten days, I think, in Japan, and then New York…I don’t remember how long. We were in New York for… 

Sawyer: Almost two weeks, I’d say around two weeks.

Malcolm: Yeah. 

Sawyer: Two weeks in both I’d say, roughly. 

Bloat will be in Theaters, On Demand and On Digital March 7, 2025. Check out the trailer!