Interview: Froy Gutierrez on ‘The Strangers: Chapter 1’
Froy Gutierrez was admittedly not a fan of horror films. While he had respect for the genre, he wasn’t fully on-board with the concept of sitting in a dark room with strangers, anxiously awaiting jumpscare after jumpscare. That all changed in 2018, when he went to see The Strangers: Prey at Night, a sequel to the original beloved cult classic from 2008. “My dear friend Bailee Madison took me to see it because she’s in it,” he recalls. “I really loved it. I was in the theater with Bailee supporting her as a friend, but also it was just incredible to watch it because at that time, I was still on the fence about horror as a genre. That night, I got to experience the horror genre like a rollercoaster, like an adrenaline-filled, fun experience. I was with the right people to watch a horror film with, as well. I think horror is really special at bringing people together and watching it in a theater, it really makes the experience better. I just had such a blast and from there, I used Prey at Night to get into more horror films. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really fun.”
As fate would have it, 6 years later, Gutierrez is starring alongside Madelaine Petsch in The Strangers: Chapter 1, a new sequel from director Renny Harlin and the first of a planned trilogy that is set to roll-out theatrically over the next year. The film centers on young couple Maya (Petsch) and Ryan (Gutierrez). Celebrating their 5-year anniversary, the two decide to embark on a road trip to Portland, Oregon, where Maya is also looking for a job. After their car breaks down in an eerie small town, however, they are forced to spend the night in a remote cabin. Panic ensues as they are terrorized by three masked strangers who strike with no mercy and seemingly no motive.
Ironically, Gutierrez was aware of the first film – a commercial success when it first debuted in 2008, although it didn’t fare as well critically – he had not actually seen it until he landed the part of Ryan in Chapter 1. “I absolutely heard about it,” he says. “I knew it was a cult classic that meant so much to so many people but I hadn’t actually seen it. I waited until I was done with the auditions and got the part in order to watch it because I didn’t want it to influence my performance of the character.”
When we first meet Maya and Ryan, the two are going through a rough patch, unsure about the next stage of their 5-year relationship. Despite the issues they’re facing, the two are very evidently in love – made implicitly clear by the chemistry between both actors. “It was really important to me that Maya and Ryan felt like a real couple,” says Gutierrez. “That they felt like they’ve not only loved each other and had five years of experience being together, but they also liked each other, that they’re best friends, that they would find each other’s thoughts interesting and would not get bored in the car together. But also that they had this rapport where they would tease each other and get annoyed, and have these cyclical conversations as any real couple that we know does, so it was so important for me for that to feel real. I just wanted [Petsch] to feel comfortable and she wanted me to feel comfortable. We just swung at it together. It was really cool and I’m really grateful for that whole experience, and for her trusting me with that dynamic.”
In addition to starring in the film, Petsch is also a credited executive producer on all three installments of the trilogy. Gutierrez says he learned a lot from Petsch while watching her fulfill her duties as both an actress and a producer on the project. “First of all, the fact that she was starring in and producing three movies at the same time over the course of 52 days is just crazy to me,” he explains. “I can’t even fathom it. I showed up maybe two weeks into shooting and we really hit the ground running. The nights were very long and we didn’t have a lot of time, we didn’t have any time off, really, and it was a lot of action, a lot of practical effects, and so implicitly, you have to immediately trust the other person. Also, she was very much leading rewrites, and in meetings with the director and the producer, working out schedules and rescheduling. She was doing all the things that an executive producer does. It was really easy to build chemistry with her because I had to let her lead, I had to trust her with everything, and then she did the same with me when we were doing our scenes together. She’s so talented, it’s impossible not to have chemistry with her.”
Aside from Petsch’s presence in the film, Gutierrez says the reason he was excited to sign on for the project was the script. While the film is structured like and mostly functions as a typical slasher film, it also dives deep into Maya and Ryan’s relationship, exploring their fractured dynamic as it’s increasingly put to the test by the film’s unhinged antagonists. “When I read the script initially, the reason why I wanted to do this project was because of the last scene and one particular line that Ryan says in the end,” reveals Gutierrez. “I found it to be interesting but also baffling to choose that moment to say that thing. I loved getting to work from that point backwards in the script and finding out ultimately, what I was learning. The script was about love, it’s about protecting the people that you love and it’s about putting them before anything even in the face of the worst darkness imaginable. It’s about choosing to focus on the things that are good and the things that you love. I found it really powerful and it really impacted me reading the script, so to me, that was the most important part to get across. It was like, ‘How can I make sure that Ryan is looking out for Maya?’ I kept thinking while we were shooting that Ryan doesn’t think he’s in a horror film; he thinks he’s in Titanic. He thinks that he’s Jack and she’s Rose.”
Following The Strangers: Chapter 1, Gutierrez says he’s interested in starring in more horror films in the future. “I love this genre now,” he gushes. But as for the moment, he will next star alongside Kat Dennings and Tim Allen in ABC comedy pilot Shifting Gears, which centers on Matt (Allen), the stubborn, widowed owner of a classic car restoration shop. Dennings plays Matt’s estranged daughter Riley (Dennings), who moves back home with her teenage kids. Gutierrez will play Matt’s son and Riley’s brother Nick, a game coder who has put his life on hold to help his father with his shop.
“I’m very excited to be working on this pilot with ABC, Tim and Kat,” he says of the project. “I think the story is really heartwarming and Mike, the character I’m getting to play, is really fun and something a little different [for me]. I’m also really looking forward to working with a live audience again, that should be fun.”
The Strangers: Chapter 1 is now playing in theaters.