WARNING: The following contains minor spoilers for Panic, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Actors Olivia Welch and Jessica Sula play best friends Heather Nill and Natalie Williams, respectively, in Amazon Prime Video’s new YA thriller Panic. The characters grew up together in the tiny town of Carp, Texas, but the summer after graduation, as they look toward their futures, their participation in the title game stretches their friendship to the limits, leading to revelations that will change them forever. Welch and Sula turn in nuanced performances that showcase the fears and desires driving their characters, as well as the way they — and their relationship with each other — evolve in response to the challenges Heather and Natalie face throughout the season.
Welch and Sula spoke with CBR about their experiences filming Panic, including what they most wanted to convey through their characters, how they maintained their off-screen friendship even when their characters were fighting onscreen, and what it was like to go up against a CGI tiger.
CBR: Were you familiar with Lauren Oliver‘s novel before you were cast in the show?
Olivia Welch: Well, I had called my mom, just off-handedly, and been like, “Yeah, I’m auditioning for this thing.” And she was like, “No way.” And she was just asking me about it. She’s like, “I actually know of this author. And I’ve read” — I think she had read, maybe, Before I Fall. She had read one of her books. And so she was like, “Oh, I’ve heard of Panic because it was like the other book that she had written.” I hadn’t known about it, but then after I booked the role, I read it and got familiar with the role.
Jessica Sula: Yeah, I think it’s pretty much the same thing. I mean, I auditioned for Panic a year prior and didn’t get it, and then, so it looped back around. And I didn’t read the book until further into shooting. Because Lauren was always like, “It differs from the book,” and I didn’t want to get too bogged down or distracted. And I trusted that the creator of the world, the woman who wrote it is telling you it’s okay, so you’re like, “OK.” And then midway through, I just decided I should probably read it. I want to see what’s going on. And it was kind of cool because it was fun closing the book and then being like, “Oh, now I’m going to go film it tomorrow.” So it’s pretty sweet.
Your characters are both so rich and layered. For you, what was the most important thing that you wanted to convey through your characters?
Welch: This is a good question.
Sula: Yeah, it’s a lovely question.
Welch: Saying that they’re layered, that’s very, very cool.
Sula: Yeah, that’s really very generous and so kind. Thank you for that, because sometimes you’re going through the motions and filming and just normal things happen — like it was very cold or it was really extremely hot — and we’re working insane hours, and you can just only hope that the camera catches something that you’re putting in there when it comes to the character. So that’s lovely.
Because Natalie, I know she’s going to be seen as someone who’s a troublemaker or trying to sabotage Heather or betraying or she’s very big and […] very gutsy, and comes up to her and is like, “What the hell’s wrong with you?” — I hope that they see that through all of that, she is so protective and passionate over Heather. That’s what I would hope for. That’s what I tried to bring. And I think that it happened naturally because I love Olivia. That’s why it’s funny watching it because I’m like, “No, if only people could see in between these takes, we’re just laughing.”
Welch: I feel like with Heather, I really hope that it comes through [that] a lot of her decisions are based, at least I tried to base them out of a love standpoint and love for her sister and her friends and her family. And even the struggles she has with her mom, I feel like it’s a struggle more of not like, “I hate you,” but like, “Oh, I want to love you, and it’s difficult right now.” And so I just tried to make a lot of her decisions from that place. And I hope people see the growth of her and kind of look at how she changes in the ways in which she makes decisions. I think those are the things that I was trying to be conscious of while filming, and I hope that they come through on screen.
I love that Heather and Natalie actually had an authentic female friendship. There are trials and tribulations, but in the end, there’s a longstanding love there. Did the knowledge that there was this deep relationship that goes back over a decade impact your performances?
Welch: Jessie and I are truly best friends. So we were like, “No matter what they’re going through in the show, we know our characters and we know our relationship.” I feel like it was so helpful because we were like, “We love each other so much that we can use that to be in these scenes.” It’s always going to be like the base layer of us acting together.
Sula: Because it’s that thing of some people may say, “Oh, well, if you guys like each other, it must be hard doing all of those scenes where there’s, essentially, kind of friendship breakups.” But I think having the baseline of loving one another helps. And then we love just doing bits and sketches, so we can just bounce off each other, “Wouldn’t it be so crazy if we had an argument? And what if it went like this?” So there’s always underneath all of that tension, there’s always just fun.
Did it help having Lauren on set to answer your questions in bringing those characters to life?
Welch: Yeah. It was super-helpful. She wasn’t on set as much, just because she was always writing.
Sula: So busy writing.
Welch: She was always down — you could text her and be like, “I have a question.” And she’d be like, “I can call you at 7 p.m..” She was very available to all of us, which was really great, and I feel like to even the people as the cast expands, she was available to everyone. She was very knowledgeable. It was great. She was like a wealth of knowledge for all of us.
Sula: Yeah. Because you need the history of something or the thought behind something and you can go, truly, straight to the source, which is pretty lucky. That was very cool. Lauren also was just kind of relaxed with things too. She was like, “I have my plan. I’m going to write it. But you guys are doing great, so just keep doing what you’re doing.” So that was also encouraging.
Welch: Then she started, as the season went on and she would watch us all as actors, she started to write more for our voices.
Sula: Yeah. Yeah.
Welch: And you could see it, she was definitely paying attention and growing the characters with us as we were all finding each other along the way.
Some of the challenges look really scary. Was there one that was especially difficult to film?
Sula: It wasn’t necessarily a challenge, but I think the thing that was just grand and big and just fun to witness was the [Demolition] Derby. We actually got to see a Derby happening in front of us, which was really crazy, because the stunts [for the challenges] are planned and things are broken up so you get a general idea, but it’s so safe and it’s so technical that you can [only] see pockets of it. So when I watched the show, that was the first time I fully got to see the stunt, the challenge on a whole. But to watch them and take place in real time was the Derby. And that was really fun. Although the jump [challenges] was cool because the stunt doubles were amazing.
Welch: Yeah. It was really incredible. But […] we had a great stunt team. And don’t do any of the stunts in real life because it’s CGI magic. We’re a few feet off the ground when we’re at the top of the granary in Episode 2. Everything was very safe. But I would say the Demo Derby was really fun because it was real stunt drivers crashing into each other over and over again throughout the day.
What about the tiger? I’m assuming the tiger was entirely CGI.
Welch: Yes, it was.
Sula: I just want to start a rumor that it was me in [motion-capture]. Like, full green screen, Andy Serkis-style.
Welch: Jessie was like, “No, I’ll be like [makes tiger noise]” [Laughs]
Sula: If you look closely at the tiger, it does have my face. [Laughs]
What is it like acting opposite this entirely CGI character, Olivia? You have to act like you’re terrified of nothing essentially.
Welch: That sequence with the tiger, the tiger’s big moment — not to give any spoilers — but we shot that for two days. I filmed coverage and stuff on it for two days, and it was an intense sequence. It was something that I always knew was going to happen, and it happened so late in the season that the whole time we were filming, I was like, “But one day, I’m going to have to do that tiger scene to nothing.” And it’s so high stakes, and it was like a really great challenge as an actor, because that was the first time I really had to act to nothing. And it was so intense. And I feel like I learned a lot about myself, and I really prepped for those days of filming.
And then also I’m a huge movie nerd, and getting to work on movies to me is so cool because I’m like, “Oh, my goodness. That’s how they do that shot? That’s incredible. I’ve always wondered my whole life how they get shots like this.” And so doing the tiger stuff, it was fascinating because I was like, “Oh, this is how you film something when they’re going to CGI something in.” So I just feel like I learned a lot about movies and then also myself as a performer. And it was a cool, and I feel like, rewarding time to film those scenes.
What do you hope people take away from the show?
Sula: Olivia likes this thing that I said a bit earlier, which is, knowing your limits. A real sign of just coming into your own and growing up is that you know that you can say no. Learning to say no is really hard. And I think with Panic, it’s wrapped up in high-stakes fear. You got to say yes. You got to jump off this cliff. You got to do this crazy stuff. But in the heart of it, with these teens, they have an option to turn away, to say, “You know what? This is too much. I don’t want to do it.” I mean, in reality, you should do that. And then in kind of a general life thing, learning to say no is important and being comfortable with it and not being pushed around; because being brave doesn’t mean you have to do the craziest thing.
Welch: And not avoiding the things that you’re fearful of. [There are] fears that will affect them for their whole life and they’re distracting themselves by playing this game. And it’s all about the lessons that they learn during the duration of the show. I feel like at the end, distractions are just distractions and that fear will always be there unless you face it head-on.
Has there been any talk of a second season?
Welch: I think maybe. I know ideas have been tossed around. We don’t know anything.
Sula: Yeah, we’re really truly kept in the dark. All I know is I think we’d love to give it another go. We’d love to be the characters again. And I think we all hope people will like it enough to want that, too.
Written and created by Lauren Olivier, Panic stars Olivia Welch, Jessica Sula, Mike Faist, Ray Nicholson, Camron Jones, Enrique Murciano, Moira Kelly, Nancy McKeon and Rachel Bay Jones. It’s now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
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