Brandon Perea Feared Following Philip Seymour Hoffman

Two years ago, Brandon Perea delivered a breakout big-screen performance in Jordan Peele’s Nope, and now he’s back in Universal’s latest July event film, Twisters. Directed by Lee Isaac Chung, Perea plays Boone, who’s nearly unrecognizable from his Nope character, Angel Torres. He is the right hand to Glen Powell’s Tyler Owens, as their team of “tornado wranglers” are the ragtag group of storm chasers that are most similar to Bill (Bill Paxton) and Jo Harding’s (Helen Hunt) motley crew in Jan de Bont’s now-franchise starter, Twister (1996). 

Perea’s character is also the closest analogue to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Dusty from the original film, and while the latter may have had more of a scientific background than Boone’s role as videographer, they’re both devoted friends, tie-dye enthusiasts and the life of the party. Needless to say, the pressure of having to follow in Hoffman’s footsteps truly put Perea through his paces.

“I read [the script] for [another] role, and …  in the middle of reading the script, I told my partner, ‘Oh man, there’s this funny guy, Boone. He is kind of the Philip Seymour Hoffman type. Shout out to the poor bastard who plays him because that’s going to be so much weight on your shoulders.’ And I ultimately ended up being that poor bastard. So, of course, I was terrified,” Perea tells The Hollywood Reporter.

Before he became an actor, Perea was, at one point, the youngest professional jamskater, which combines breakdancing with roller skating. So, when he read that Boone performs a backflip after a successful storm chase, he felt like the part was tailor made for him until the trick was removed from the final draft. So he eventually decided to take the initiative and perform the flip anyway, crediting Tom Cruise’s improvised backflip in The Outsiders (1983) as inspiration. Ultimately, he performed the flip around twenty times on set.

“I was like, ‘I’m going to do a backflip. You can always get away with something once.’ So I got away with it 20 times, and now it’s in the movie,” Perea says. “Anthony Ramos was in the farther part of the wide, and he just kept looking at me and being like, ‘Why does he keep doing backflips, man!? This dude is going to hurt himself!’ And I was like, ‘No, I could do a million of these.’”

Perea’s big break came in the form of Alfonso “French” Sosa on Netflix’s mind-bending series The OA. The show instantly developed a cult following that still pines for its return after being canceled following 2019’s season two. Co-creators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij sat down with THR earlier this year, and they, surprisingly, spoke about the series’ potential return with utter conviction. Perea has also heard his former bosses’ confidence with regard to a revival, and so he’s keeping himself ready for anything.

“I’m one of those people that has a feeling it’s not over. I think they have a way to continue the story, which I have no idea about, but I’m down and I’m willing to be a part of The OA whenever it’s time to come back around,” Perea says. “It just feels like there are some chapters that we’ve got to close that aren’t closed yet. We have this weird feeling, and Zal is very hopeful.  He’s not even hopeful; he just seems very sure of himself. So that gives me assurance as well where I’m like, ‘You know what? I feel like we will [finish].’ So I carry that same hope, and I’m not surprised by it at all. Those two are warriors, man.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Perea also discusses how his own iPhone footage ended up in Twisters, before reminiscing about his experience on Peele’s Nope set.

Well, your relationship with Universal continues. Did they bring you Twisters right after Nope? Or was it not as connected and fast-tracked as it seems? 

It’s not as connected as it might seem. After Nope, I was looking for the right next project, and it took a long time, actually. It took a lot longer than I thought. After Nope wrapped, it took about a year to find the right next thing, and it ended up being Twisters. When I was in my agent’s office after Nope dropped, they were like, “We’re tracking stuff for you.” And then they brought Twisters up, and I was like, “Oh man, that’s a scary task.” And then they were like, “Lee Isaac Chung, the director of Minari,  is directing it.” And I was like, “Oh my God, there’s no way I get that part. That sounds like too much of a dream.” And then I ended up meeting with Isaac, and it all went from there. So it just happened to be at Universal, but I got greenlit by Universal pretty quickly, I think. It still took a little bit to get it going because so many heads were involved. 

My primary frame of reference for you is the clean-cut Alfonso “French” Sosa from The OA, so I honestly didn’t recognize you at first as this shaggy livewire named Boone. Were you pretty exhausted at the end of each day in trying to maintain his level of energy? 

Honestly, I’d say that a role like Alfonso “French” Sosa in The OA is harder than Boone because there’s so much more contained emotion that you can’t release. With Boone, it’s all out there, so it’s so much easier to commit to the bits and just throw things at the wall and see what works. So I call Boone the easiest acting performance I’ve ever had to do. Just being able to run around and scream and have fun was the easiest gig, and I was so grateful that it just felt that easy. So, shout out to the cast and crew who dealt with me running around and screaming the whole time. (Laughs.) They made it easier for me and allowed me so much freedom. But I wasn’t really tired either. Everyone was having fun. But there was a day where it got really cold, and we were pretending that it was a summer movie at that point. So that part was like, “Okay, I’m tired. It’s 3:00 AM, I’m wearing a tank top, and it’s cold.” So that was really the only time I got tired, but the rest of the shoot was truly a breeze for me.

As the guy who used to do high-flying tricks on skates and bikes, did they let you do Boone’s backflip when he celebrates a successful tornado intercept?

Oh, I did that backflip about 20 times! I did a lot of backflips. Anthony Ramos was in the farther part of the wide, and he just kept looking at me and being like, “Why does he keep doing backflips, man!? This dude is going to hurt himself!” And I was like, “No, I could do a million of these.” But, funnily enough, I remember reading a first draft of the script, and it said that Boone does a backflip after they [intercept] a tornado. So I think Isaac had me in mind [for that], but then I freaked out because a new draft of the script took the backflip out. So I was like, “Am I not going to get the part now? What is going on?” (Laughs.) But, ultimately, I wrote it back in. It wasn’t in that final draft, but I was like, “I’m going to do a backflip. You can always get away with something once.” So I got away with it 20 times, and now it’s in the movie.

You’d literally been training your entire life for that moment, so I’m glad you got to do it.

Exactly. Someone brought up that Tom Cruise did a backflip off the hood of a car in The Outsiders, and they were like, “He just did that on his own dime, and that was one of the things that made Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise.” And I was like, “Oh, really? I was just backflipping to backflip.” So I’m no Tom Cruise, but there was a cool little correlation there. 

That sounds like a story Glen Powell might’ve told during your long hours in the truck.

It was actually one of our co-producers who brought it up, but I have heard a lot of great stories about Tom. He sent Glen a [white chocolate] coconut bundt cake to our set, and it’s super famous. So I want to be on that list so bad because that slice of cake is in my mind to this day.

As far as Boone’s psychology for chasing storms, what percentage of it is adrenaline versus that really grating word known as clout? 

Honestly, I think it was all adrenaline, and that’s what I’ve learned from watching real storm chasers and their videos. There’s just this full thrill, but there’s also a balance because you have to keep the audience hooked even when something is not happening right away. There’s an in-between. Chasing is always exciting, but for the people who aren’t inside the chase with you, you’ve got to keep them engaged. So I’d be like, “It’s almost here! It’s coming! I swear it’s coming! Keep watching!” So there’s a balance and an in-between, but when it happens, it’s uncontrollable, animalistic rage.

While they’re not carbon copies of each other, you essentially play the Philip Seymour Hoffman role in this movie. Like his character, you are the loyal and supportive friend who provides comic relief. Did you let yourself draw that comparison at all? 

Well, what’s funny about that is when I first got the script, I didn’t know which character I was actually reading for. I just got the script to see if I was into it. And then we had the roles mixed up. My agency was like, “Read for this role,” and I was like, “Okay, great.” So I read it for that role, and then I kept seeing the Boone part on the page. And I was like, “Oh, this is kind of like the Philip Seymour Hoffman role.” And, in the middle of reading the script, I told my partner, “Oh man, there’s this funny guy, Boone. He is kind of the Philip Seymour Hoffman type. Shout out to the poor bastard who plays him because that’s going to be so much weight on your shoulders.” And I ultimately ended up being that poor bastard.

So, of course, I was terrified, but I was also grateful to be able to play a part that you can make stand out in a sense. That’s what Phil Hoffman did his entire career. He stood out in these great supporting roles, and he just brought so much fun to the first film. So I just wanted to bring a pinky-nail amount of fun that he brought to it, and I hope I did. The toughest part of the gig was carrying that weight, because Philip Seymour Hoffman is literally one of my favorite actors of all time. We also shared the same number on the call sheet, and I was like, “Oh, shit. That’s crazy.”

Boone wore some tie-dye clothing like his character did, so it’s all there.

Yeah, exactly! 

He’s the videographer of Tyler’s (Powell) crew. Did any of your footage make it in the final cut?

Dude, a shit ton of it made it in, which is cool. I was surprised — especially the stuff in the truck. We never got coverage with the real cameras. It was only my iPhone camera that got some of those scenes; that was the only coverage we got. So it felt like a lot of weight on my shoulders, actually. I was like, “Oh, shit. We’re not covering this with the Panavisions at all? Nothing?” And they were like, “No, no. We’re using your iPhone footage.” And I was like, “Okay.” 

We have 20 cameras going at once: GoPro footage, the real film A and B cameras and then just my iPhone in the truck. But I never thought so many of the shots that live in the final cut were going to make it. There’s stuff where my phone is on Glen inside the truck, so I was wigging out when I saw the final cut. They did such a great job with the CGI, because if you see the footage on the iPhone, there’s C-stands, other cameras and all this other stuff out on the windshield. So I just thought those shots would die right after that, but they put it all in and a lot of my camera work is in the final, funnily enough. So I need a credit. (Laughs.)

Based on the behind-the-scenes footage, the tornado simulation must’ve been pretty intense. Is there one day in particular that epitomizes shooting in a manufactured tornado?

It was every time we were outside on the road. We’d be attached to another truck that was driving us, and people on that other truck would launch rockets of ice, dirt and water at us. So it was basically a bunch of rain, hail, wind, and dirt. We had all these big jet engine fans, and then they just hosed us down with dirt and ice. There was a point where I stuck my head out to load the rockets, and I was just getting pelted with dirt. I turned orange because there was so much dirt, so the resets were rough. But they really did a good job of making us feel like we were in the eye of a storm, and it was just cool to be on an actual road where you’re actually hitting the bumps. That stuff was not on a stage at all, so they kept it really true to make us feel like we’re entering a storm.

Before I changed careers six-and-a-half years ago, I owned a marketing company. And, one day, at the end of my first year, my work laptop with all of my clients’ sensitive data just died out of nowhere. So I dropped the laptop off for repairs at the store where I bought it, and right after I left the store, I got a call that the computer I’d just dropped off had been stolen off the counter where I left it. The employee didn’t store it away quick enough. So it became this whole ordeal as the police tried to help out, but long story short, it was never resolved to my satisfaction. Well, that store was Fry’s Electronics ….

(Laughs.)

So when I was introduced to your Fry’s Electronics character in Nope, I had a trauma response to being back in that store again. It was my own personal horror movie within Jordan Peele’s horror movie. Anyway, just know that your work can strike a chord in ways you’d never expect. 

(Laughs.) You had PTSD from this guy who was just farting around at his job. So I hope I portrayed it correctly in the sense of, “Man, this guy reminds me of the lazy bastard who just left my laptop on the counter.” Angel Torres is definitely a dude that would leave your laptop on the desk and just walk away.

Exactly. You took me right back there. It was like time travel.

That’s so good. I’m glad I was able to play it in the most real sense that I could.

As the tech and digital camera guru in Nope, did DP Hoyte van Hoytema give you a tutorial of some kind?  

Oh yeah, for sure. I went to set a couple times on my days off just to shadow and to see what Jordan and the camera crew were doing. And since Angel was a part of the filmmaking aspect with [Michael Wincott’s fictional DP] Antlers Holst, they taught me how to load a film camera. So I learned how to load 35 and 65, which is a cool gift. So I was in Hoyte’s team’s camera truck, and I heard all these incredible stories from the films that they’d done, like Tenet. And at that time, they knew that they were going into Oppenheimer next, so they were already in prep for that. 

I also went to set on the day that we were filming day for night stuff with Daniel [Kaluuya] on the horse, so it was crazy to see the final. On the day, we were shooting at 1:00 PM or something like that. It was bright and in the middle of the summer, so it was hot. People were dropping like flies. There was heat exhaustion going around. But Hoyte showed me a black light to a daylight setting, and I was like, “What is going on here?” So he took me to the coloring tent and showed me all of the coloring stuff. And he was like, “Brandon, we’re doing science right now. This is science. We’re shooting day for night, and we need the black light to light Daniel just a little bit. We need an opposing factor that’s not the sun.” And I was just like, “This is insane!” So to see how excited that dude is about his art form really inspired me a ton. Hoyte is a legend. He has his own garage where he puts all these camera pieces together that aren’t meant to go together, and he’s constantly experimenting and exploring. So I learned a lot from that dude, and I’m very grateful to be captured by him. He’s a proper legend.

Were you all pretty bowled over by Michael Wincott’s “Purple People Eater” monologue? 

Oh yeah. What’s crazy is that he did that scene multiple times and in so many different ways, which was insane. There was one take where he started crying after, and we didn’t know how to do the scene because we just didn’t expect it at that point. Of course, we rehearsed, but it was like, “Do we walk away when this dude is crying? Do we console him? Is it too weird to walk away? I know I’m supposed to walk away.” So there was a point where Keke and I looked at each other, like, “Are you walking, or am I walking? I don’t know who’s going first. I just can’t leave right now.” And so we swapped. I think Keke’s character left first, and then I was like, “I’ll wait a little bit to leave.” So it was great to see Michael Wincott work, man. Love that dude.

When his DP character showed up with the non-electrical camera, the siblings did this hilarious handshake in celebration. You’re in the scene, but out of frame, so were you still there to watch that go down?

Yeah, I was there, for sure. That’s one of the things that’s great about Jordan and his team. They really wanted all the actors there for people’s coverage, even if I wasn’t supposed to work that day and it was Keke’s coverage. So I still went to set anyway and would read the lines off camera; they just always wanted the actors talking to the other actors. They never wanted some scripty [script supervisor] reading, and so we were there for damn near everything, even phone call scenes. I was also there for the infamous handshake, and they did that celebration multiple ways. There’s a different take in the commercial, but the one in the final is perfect. It’s so good.

I’m still grieving The OA’s cancellation. I often rewatch scenes that feature Prairie’s violin theme, and you’re involved in two of them. But I spoke to Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij earlier this year, and they still talk about the show as if they’ll finish it someday. Does it surprise you that they’d keep hope alive like that? 

Oh, not in the slightest. It doesn’t surprise me at all. I’m one of those people that has a feeling it’s not over. I think they have a way to continue the story, which I have no idea about, but I’m down and I’m willing to be a part of The OA whenever it’s time to come back around. I leave my door open with it, too. It just feels like there are some chapters that we’ve got to close that aren’t closed yet. We have this weird feeling, and Zal is very hopeful.  He’s not even hopeful; he just seems very sure of himself. So that gives me assurance as well where I’m like, “You know what? I feel like we will [finish].” So I carry that same hope, and I’m not surprised by it at all. Those two are warriors, man. The stuff that we went through for that shoot and how we got it done — I appreciate those two so much.

Lastly, how was your time with Kogonada on a Big Bold Beautiful Journey? 

Wow, you’re tapped in. It was a quick little thing, but it was fun to be on set with Colin Farrell and Margo Robbie, who are proper A-listers. I learned that they’re the nicest and sweetest people. I entered that set with a lot of nerves, because I’m usually part of a set from day zero to wrap, but for this set, I jumped on in the middle. So that was a scary feat for me because you never know how anyone’s going to be. They’re superstars in everyone’s eyes, and they’re incredibly talented. So to feel so welcomed and to have a normal set chat with them and to realize, “Oh man, they’re just nice human beings,” was awesome. That just showcases why their careers and lives are where they are. So I was just grateful to meet them and work with them and Kogonada, too. It was so fun, and that movie is going to be sick. I’m a small part in what is going to be a great movie.

***Twisters is now playing in movie theaters.