Shay Rudolph Relives The Same Day Over and Over To Save Her Family In The Present
Time travel meets Groundhog’s Day in the new family comedy The Present. In the film, a trio of siblings discover that their grandfather’s old clock can manipulate time. Together they repeat the day to try to save their family when their parents announce they are separating. Pop Culture Planet’s Kristen Maldonado spoke with actress Shay Rudolph about family and filmmaking.
Rudolph calls her character Emma “very relatable” as she deals with finding herself and reconnecting with her family. “What I really tried to connect to was the aspect of trying to figure yourself out and sort through all these different aspects of your life. Like the family aspect and the friends and the romance and the things that you really love,” she told me. “I definitely sometimes struggle with that. Like balancing everything because sometimes it can just all get really overwhelming when every problem is arising all at once, which Emma also deals with a lot. There's just that element of not necessarily being lost, but really just trying to get to the core of who you are.”
While Emma and her brothers relive one of the worst days that a family can experience, Rudolph would love to go back to something more fun if given the chance. “I would probably pick a childhood day to go back to where it’s just like a good classic summer day hanging out the backyard with my sister,” she said. “Like nothing overwhelming me that I have to deal with. I don't know that I'd want to live it forever, but, if I could go back and just experience one day again, I think that'd be nice.”
Family is central to the story, especially the idea of “losing sight of what really matters and having to come back to that and reconnect with the people in your life that you really love.” With her own close bond to her family, she understands what Emma is going though. “My sister's only two years older than me so we've always been each other's built-in best friends. We have had years where our age gap is a little bit different,” she shared. “Like when I was 11 and she was 13 and I still wanted to play with all our dolls but she wanted to grow up. We've gone through those moments of separating and then having to reconnect and become each other's best friends all over again, which I think is definitely something that you see in the movie.”
The cast had “natural chemistry” and “immediately clicked” as a family on set. “Everything just felt so easy and smooth sailing, like we were already siblings or best friends. We just both felt really comfortable around each other,” said Rudolph. “It felt like we were a family already and Isla [Fisher] and Greg [Kinnear] are just such incredible actors. I bet they could have chemistry with anyone, but they were so sweet and so funny and just really easy to work with and so incredible to learn from.”
Rudolph continued: “My experience on The Baby-Sitter’s Club definitely helped me prepare for this. Not even acting-wise, but just like regulating yourself throughout the day because they're really long shooting days”
With its time travel element, it allowed the cast to step outside of the box. “We had to film this whole scene that was going to be in reverse for when they're showing the day going backwards. It was a really interesting process because it had to all be one simultaneous take of us doing all these different actions. We got to go through like five minutes of doing a scene of all actions, like washing the dishes and setting the table and putting the food out and all those things with a crane moving camera. That was really awesome to be able to ask all those questions about the process and learn a little bit more of the behind-the-scenes filming side of things,” Rudolph shared. “There were also some cool stunts that we did, which was new for me. I've never really done stunt work or like had anybody have to teach me how to do the choreography for something falling over.”
Rudolph is fascinated by the process of filmmaking and even learning more about it in film school to take her work to the next level. “I'm studying screenwriting, so learning lots more about the behind-the-scenes aspect of filmmaking and everything in front of the camera,” she told me. “I really have loved it so far and learning […] more about creating my own stories rather than bringing someone else's to life. Obviously I love both of them so much, but it's just fun to play around with all the different types. Hopefully, one day I can write something that actually makes it to the screen.”
Can Emma and her brothers fix their family before its too late? Find out in The Present out on digital and VOD.
