Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller And Callum Turner Discuss ‘Eternity’

Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller and Callum Turner in “Eternity”

A24

New in theaters right now is one of the most original and refreshing comedies in a good while – A24’s Eternity. Starring Elizabeth Olsen as Joan, Miles Teller as Larry and Callum Turner as Luke, Eternity revolves around the afterlife and the important decision of how (and with whom) you want to spend the rest of eternity.

Directed and co-written by David Freyne, this thoughtful, imaginative yet still very grounded film tells a wonderfully engaging story about the difficult decisions around love, in having to choose between an interrupted, short-lived romance or the comfort of the longtime familiar.

Olsen and Teller give truly outstanding performances, playing an elderly couple that now find themselves back in their much younger bodies, while Turner also excels in playing a forever young man with the swoon-worthy charisma of yesteryear.

Freyne has nothing but praise to say about his leading actors in Eternity. “All the credit is to them,” he told me. “They’re the best actors. I think they really relish the challenge of how you embody somebody who has been 90 years old, but is now in a 30-something year old body and how you carry yourself – how your voice would feel. They brought an old school charm to the piece. It really feels like you’re watching like Billy Wilder or Shirley MacLaine or Al Brooks or these great icons of cinema. They just brought so much heart and humor to it in a way that I wasn’t fully – I knew they were great, but they really exceeded all of my expectations.”

I also sat down with Olsen, Teller and Turner to discuss their individual approaches in properly taking on Eternity for the big screen and what they took into their own lives surrounding this story about life after death.

Jeff Conway: What was it about the prep and the creative process? I mean, you guys had to either play an elderly person that is now back in their youthful body or like with you, Callum, you had to play a guy of a certain era with those mannerisms. How did you all prepare and commit to those roles as brilliantly, in my opinion, as you did?

Callum Turner: I watched Powell and Pressburger movies and Clark Gable movies and Gary Cooper and just sort of tried to delve into their mannerisms and the essence of what it was to be a man at that time, because I think that Luke was stuck. I don’t think that he was yet a man. He just had this idea of what he wanted to be perceived as and he wanted to be perceived as a matinee idol. And so, leaning into that was really my main North Star.

Miles Teller: My grandfather recently passed away. They had been together 65 years. I just remember my grandma telling me at a young age, where she said – “You know, Miles – like getting older, I still feel like I’m 32 years old and I look in the mirror and I wonder who’s this old person looking back at me.” So, you don’t recognize kind of your own reflection, but at her core, she still feels how she did when she was she was younger in a lot of ways – what she finds funny, what she’s interested in, etc. I’ve been very close to my grandparents my whole life, so I was looking forward to this and figuring out what that would feel like with Elizabeth.

Conway: Elizabeth, how did you come to embody Joan? She had such a great older woman vibe to her in a very charming way.

Elizabeth Olsen: Well, thanks! It started with looking at some films that also were references for David [Freyne], but would have been films that Joan would have loved growing up in her own formative years. I think whatever culture is of the time, do inform how people talk and their mannerisms and like society of that time. I also just became really obsessed with Ann Meara and Jerry Stiller. I haven’t seen the documentary that just came out, but I was really obsessed with going down the YouTube “rabbit hole” of finding them on late night, and their banter and their bicker and their humor. So, I think that was a big discovery for me as a jumping off point.

Then, we talked a lot about the assumptions of how you physically think you’re going to feel because you’ve probably lived for many decades with the assumptions that like you have this one part of the back of your hip or whatever that starts to hurt, you know? It’s going to be painful every day, so you already start like correcting it and then realizing it’s gone. That kind of realization was part of the humor and a bit you can’t do too much. I didn’t know a lot of older people growing up. I only knew one grandparent, so I always think of it as such a privilege to get to grow old. It’s like this really exotic idea of something I’ve always hoped I would get to do, so it was fun to kind of imagine how one becomes who they become at that age, because I hope I get to one day, but you never know.

Conway: I have to bring up, during my research – I thought it was so cool that your birthdays are so crazy close to one another. Callum, you’re the 15th of February. Elizabeth, you’re the 16th – and Miles, you’re the 20th.

Turner: No!

Olsen: What?!

Conway: Did you guys know this?

Teller: No.

Olsen: No, because we didn’t film near our birthdays!

Turner: That’s crazy!

Teller: Honestly, my entire like high school guys I’ve met at 14 and continue to be best friends – pretty much everybody’s January/February [birthdays].

Turner: Really? I’m going to put your birthdays in my calendar and text you guys.

Teller: That’s a wild thing. I guess we don’t Google each other.

Conway: Well, with your experiences in and around Eternity, I’m curious – did your thoughts, hopes or beliefs around the afterlife and your own mortality here on Earth shift at all, due to this film and this story?

Olsen: No. We turn to dust, as far as I’m concerned.

Teller: No, but I appreciated because I think it’s certainly something everybody thinks about. Some people from a very young age are obsessed with death or losing family members, but I enjoyed how the decor of this afterlife – I thought it was a really nice way to kind of look at it.

Olsen: I do love how it celebrates the ordinary, this film, even though it is about the afterlife. I do think it shines a light on kind of the most simple human relationships that we can only be lucky to have. That’s the thing that I leave this experience with.

Turner: And the fresh take of the afterlife. Coming back and embodying the moment that you’re the happiest is a fun thing and it makes you question yourself and when you were happiest in your life. Then, the eternity – Where would you choose? Where would you go for the rest of time?

Conway: As I say goodbye, one quick thing – Joan, Larry and Luke, if you could speak to them, what would you say to these people, if only you could?

Teller: Put the pretzels down, Larry! Put the pretzels down, dude. Soft foods. What would you say to Joan?

Olsen: I don’t know!

Conway: Callum for Luke?

Turner: Enjoy the mountains.

Teller: Get that fresh powder!