Ali Scher and Cast on POPULAR THEORY – Jeanne Wolf interviews

For AWFJ, I did a Q and A with the creator/director and main cast members of Popular Theory after a well-received movie screening in Santa Monica.

The Popular Theory story is about Erwin, a chemistry-obsessed and somewhat shy schoolgirl. Her aunt, played by Cheryl Hines of Curb Your Enthusiasm fame, worries about Erwin because she’s so absorbed in her science studies that she doesn’t make friends. She finds a friend, Winston, another chemistry geek, and together, they invent a popularity serum that they add to chewing gum to make anyone instantly attractive. And it works! Lots of lessons about the value of popularity and the value of following your own passion make the story end with lots of smiles.

Cheryl Hines: I’m Cheryl Hines. I actually went to beauty school. I haven’t been there for a little while, so this part really spoke to me.

Jeanne Wolf: Cheryl, will we expect to see you in one of those hairdos?

Cheryl Hines: I would love to wear that birdhouse. That birdhouse was a hobby. But it was too much work to take that wig on and off. So, the actor who played her father didn’t take it off for lunch.

Jeanne Wolf: Ali, how did you talk Cheryl into doing this movie? She’s a big deal.

Ali Scher: She is a big deal. We met for coffee, and she told me about her former hairdresser and barber career. I don’t know; we just, like, immediately hit it off. I think we just had, like, a connection. Good connection. I think we both just kind of knew. I feel like it’s maybe a couple of minutes of sitting down. Yeah, it’s going to work.

Cheryl Hines: As a director, Ali is not only brilliant behind the camera, framing the shots, but when she talks to the actors, especially the young actors, she really speaks to them in a way that makes it easier. If you’re on a set, you know, you could often feel the clock ticking, like, we don’t have time. But she’ll take the time to talk to you about each scene.

Jeanne Wolf: Erwin and Winston’s chemistry is the key to making this film work. Ali, was it a challenge when you were casting?

Ali Scher: As the director, I can feel it when the right people are reading together. I think the story of casting Sophia is one of my favorite stories because we had, like, narrowed it down to two little girls. I saw over 100 girls for that part. Wow. And my casting director saw 500, and they, like, narrowed it down to 100. Then, we narrowed it down to two little girls. We’re shooting in Atlanta, and one of the little girls lived in Atlanta, and it would have been so easy. Like, this is an independent film. We don’t have a lot of money -she already lives there. We don’t have to put her up. We don’t have to fly her in. The other little girl lived in Normandy, France, and my casting directors said, “Let’s go with the little Atlanta girl. She’s so connected when she reads with us. But something bugged me about it. And I was like, “No, no, no, I need to take the weekend. I sat on it for a long time because I had a stomachache when I thought about casting this other little girl, the one from Atlanta, and it took me a while to figure out why. Then, I realized that she was so connected when she read. But this is a story about a little girl with a connection problem. And that’s what Sophia played. And that’s why I was constantly coming back to her. And we flew Sophia in from Normandy, France.

Sophia Reid Ganzert: We had a 15-minute break between auditions. And I remember after I met Lincoln, I went into the room with my parents and said, “I really hope they hire him to play Winston. He’s, like, the best one. I hope they hire Lincoln”. And, you know, they did. I was really happy about it.
Lincoln Lambert: She told me a little later after. But, like, I honestly felt the same, too.

Jeanne Wolf: Were either of you nerdy in real life?

Lincoln Lambert: I was a giant nerd. And I did get made fun of a lot when I was growing up. And I think one of the fun things about this movie is it’s like, who doesn’t wish that they had a button that would make everyone like them? Like, who hasn’t had a wish for instant popularity at some point in their lives? It’s like such a human desire instinct. This is a fun way to explore why. What’s wrong with that notion? You know, like the quality over quantity that we’re talking about and just the idea that these people aren’t really your friends at the end of the day. So, yeah, this movie means a lot to me.

Jeanne Wolf: Sophia, did your understanding of Erwin change as you made the film?

Sophia Reid Gantzert: I just felt like I was going to play the role completely differently before I read the script. I would do it way more obnoxious and classic nerds, like how they are in Disney movies. But then, I read the script, and I was like, oh my gosh, I cannot do it like that. Like, this film is way too important. Ali’s notes really helped me because she didn’t just tell me what I needed to do. She told me why I needed to do it.

Lincoln Lambert: For the role of Winston, I remember that I really wanted the role of Winston. I was hoping to get this because the way he acts and the things he does just made me laugh. And it was just so cool. And I’m like a Monk fanatic. The TV series “Monk” and how Monk has OCD and is a germaphobe inspired me. I took some inspiration from him. I love science, too.

Sophia Reid Gantzert: I struggled with the body language. I have a bad habit of using my hands often when speaking. And Ali didn’t really like that. So whenever, you see me when I’m sitting down and I’m not eating, she would come over and be like, Sophia, are you sitting on your hands? You need to sit on your hands. I’m sorry. Erwin’s very, like, put together. So she doesn’t really, like, use her hands. See? I’m doing it right now. That was kind of the biggest challenge.

Jeanne Wolf :Is there some of Erwin in you Ali?

Ali Scher: Well, Erwin is definitely a reflection of me, and that’s why the character and the casting for it were so important to me. Because, like Sophia said, she’s unapologetically herself. This isn’t the story of a nerd who gets a makeover suddenly, you know, she never changes herself. Yeah, she makes the wrong decision to try the gum and stuff like that, but it’s always her. She’s always wearing her sweater vest. She’s always got her glasses on. She always knows more than everyone around her. She doesn’t try to dumb herself down. And I think Erwin is the kind of person that I like. I wish I’d been more like when I was younger. I wish I’d been more confident and owned myself more.

Jeanne Wolf: Sophia and Lincoln, it wasn’t hard to play the part where you two were fellow nerds bonding. But you had to go from being best friends to being angry and staying apart from each other.

Lincoln Lambert: Honestly, even when we’re not shooting, we were like, hanging out a lot. I mean, it was kind of hard to be apart from each other.

Sophia Reid-Gantzert: The part in the movie where we’re yelling at each other was really difficult to do because that was all ad-libbing. So, we were just, like, yelling random stuff at each other. It was so stupid. Like it didn’t mean anything, but we were yelling. We were yelling at each other for like eight minutes straight. And we were just saying everything we could think of that was hurtful. It was really hard.

Jeanne Wolf: Marc, playing the father to Erwin, was trying to help her. That led to some head-to-head confrontations. But you can understand why when you tried to stop what seemed like an obsession with science, Erwin was upset, to say the least.

Marc Evan Jackson: You know, you look into your kids and try to understand them but it’s not always easy. In the film, my daughter Erwin is conversing with a poster of her hero every day because he was a famous scientist, and that’s a bit worrisome regarding her social development with other kids, which is important when you’re growing up. It’s nice for kids that you love to hear why you love them, but it’s also good to know they care about you wanting to help them, even if they don’t agree.

Jeanne Wolf: Chloe, you play Erwin’s sister, who is already very popular but sort of flaunts it and doesn’t have much sympathy for her sister’s nerdiness. But she does change.

Chloe East: I think she is learning how to become nicer and more understanding. I know it’s really basic, but I think a lot of times you see the most popular person in high school or just in life, and you see that it’s really just some overall insecurity that they have. And in this case, it was about her own little sister. Everyone wants to be popular. You want to be cool. But, yeah, just being nice is important too.

Cheryl Hines: A lot of times we get so caught up with social media, we just want to be liked by as many people as possible. But I think there’s something very unique and relevant about this movie today. You just want one good connection. And some people do have a ton of really good connections and friends, but really all it takes is one.

Jeanne Wolf: I think we learn a lot from movies. I’ve learned a lot of ideas, good and bad.

Cloe East: I think movies are important because, you know, everyone watches movies, and I think they’re a really good way to give people messages and, you know, teach people about certain topics. And I think that’s why we really need movies. I think they’re really important.

Jeanne Wolf: Lincoln, how about you?

Lincoln Lambert: I think movies, you can learn some great lessons from them, and it’s really important. Like having people like you, right? You just need to have that one good friend who understands you and shares what you love.

Jeanne Wolf: Is acting your passion?

Lincoln Lambert: Yes, absolutely.

Jeanne Wolf: And so, how has that changed you?

Lincoln Lambert: I mean, I’ve been doing this forever, like, as long as I can remember, and it’s all I want to do, so, I mean, yeah, I’m. I’m just happy doing this and am so blessed to be here.

Audience member: Ali, how did you land on the color choices for each character?

Ali Scher: I wanted Erwin to feel like an iceberg floating around in the world. Like she’s this lonely iceberg floating around in a sea of warm colors, and Winston had to be a warm color but also outside the general pool. So, we just, you know, plucked the color out of the warm palette and just gave it to him so that it didn’t belong to anyone else. And orange and blue are complementary. My boyfriend is obsessed with orange and blue, and I think it rubbed off on me. I think it’s really important to me that a color story run throughout. That are like synonymous with the the film and go in hand-in-hand with the film.

Here’s a fun detail about the music. The entire percussion for the soundtrack is like beakers and test tubes filled with different amounts of water and hit with musical hammers. Isn’t that cool? It fits right into the theme of chemistry.

Audience member: I thought the cinematography was amazing. When did you first hit upon the idea that having that kind of intimate cinematography would help tell the fun story in a clever way?

Ali Schur: Damien, our cinematographer, should be answering that question, but I’ll do my best. I had a vision for what I wanted this movie to feel like and look like. And I’m obsessed with transitions. How will we carry, like the people from one theme to another in a way that feels artful in it, in a way that feels natural and smooth, but also creative and fun? So that’s what Damien went for. A lot of the time, I just looked through the lens and said, this looks amazing.

Jeanne Wolf: Ali, speak a little bit about the journey of when you came up with the idea and how long it took. And now that we’re sitting right here, what does that mean for sure?

Ali Scher: It’s at least 11 years ago that Joe and I wrote the script. I tried to get it made so many times like I had so many false starts and production companies. There was a time in 2020 when we were really about to get it made, and then the pandemic hit, and that was a bummer because I got my hopes up. And then I think I just like woke up in 2022, and I was like, this is going to happen this year, and I’m not going to let it not happen. And I just kind of bullheaded forward and just forced people to invest. And I just found the resources for it that we needed to have and like talk to the people into doing it.