Netflix’s Slumberland transports audiences to a magical place teeming with both dreams and nightmares. If you ask one of the main cast members, the Irish actor-comedian Chris O’Dowd, the film recreates the fun and excitement of our childhood days.
The star, best-known for the films Bridesmaids, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and The Cloverfield Paradox, said during a virtual roundtable for Filipino press, The STAR included: “I remember the adventures when I was watching the film and it was definitely evocative of those adventure movies of the ‘90s. But it also reminds me of when I was that age, when we had treasure maps, like we would draw out treasure maps and look at these places and get ourselves into excitement.
“And that was the point. So much of what we do now as adults is trying to recreate that excitement from within ourselves. I feel like the film does a good job of that — of revisualizing the excitement that we had as children.”
In Slumberland, he plays the awkward, loner, workaholic bachelor uncle Philip who is suddenly thrust into parenthood after his only brother, a fisherman, gets missing at sea and leaves a daughter, Nemo (played by Marlow Barkley), to the former’s care being the closest living relative.
Nemo struggles with her day-to-day life in the big city with her uncle. But somehow, at nighttime, she finds escape, comfort and even the hope of reuniting with her father in a fantastical world where he meets the eccentric, playful and child-like Flip (Jason Momoa) who becomes his guide and partner on her new dreamy adventures.
When he first read the script, Chris was really moved by his character’s story arc. “I thought it was a character that I see very often in life but not on screen. A middle-aged man who’s kind of closed himself off to the world by looking at a screen or a lock or a hobby and has stopped making friends. And it’s harder, I think, as you get older to make friends. So, there’s no fresh ideas running through his veins. And so when I read the script, I recognized (something) in the character and was drawn to it.”
Entrusted with a responsibility that he’s completely clueless about, his character Philip learns parenting from Google, which is something Chris could relate to in real life.
“Well, I felt his pain as a parent who googles different parenting things on a daily basis. My kids had the flu this week. So I wanted to just double check what the normal temperature ranges before you go to the doctor and all those kinds of things. A lot of parenting is done by Google, hahaha!” he said.
“But I also find, which I’m sure you guys who work in this sphere, I also read a lot of parenting books going into the parenthood thing and you find that more than talking about kids, they really talk about society and social issues and all of these different things. So, I found that through parenting — and I know this sounds cliche — you find out a lot about yourself really. And I’m at the stage of parenting where I’m growing frustrated because I can see the flaws I don’t like in myself and my own children. They’re starting to bear up and I can’t blame them, hahaha.”
Other life lessons he learned from the movie and his role are: “You try to stay open to fresh ideas. You know, his unhappiness is mostly born out of rot. It’s like a toy in the cupboard that’s been left to gather dust. That’s what his character is. And he just needed to be brought around and wheeled about a bit, to be remembered what his purpose was.”
Slumberland also tackles grief and what Chris could share about this is: “I’ve had to deal with a good bit of grief over the last few years, my own and kind of my partner’s grief and I don’t know if I have any great solutions. But what I did find is that sometimes obviously time is the thing that heals. But sometimes, you can put things back a little bit. It’s just sometimes you just get through the first month by all means necessary. Doesn’t have to be the most healthy f**kng way to respond to everything and the most rational and mature way to respond to everything. Just get out of the first month. And then you can start to heal.”
The film’s tagline is “an adventure beyond your wildest dreams.” The STAR asked Chris if he could remember any real-life adventure that also transcended his wildest dreams.
“I actually got a good one. It’s a visual and please forgive me if this is rude in anybody’s… I once flew in a hot air balloon, above the salt flats in Utah in a hot air balloon in the shape of testicles, hahaha! I know that sounds very strange, but I promise you that if you Google ‘Chris O’Dowd hot air balloon testicles,’ it was for male cancer awareness. We flew it over large events to have men test their balls. I definitely didn’t dream of it. So, I would say that one above Salt Lake, Utah was beyond my wildest dreams. I’m sorry if you’re googling it now and you can see it because that’s not ideal, hahaha!”
Slumberland is directed by Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire & Mockingjay), written by David Guion and Michael Handelman (Night at the Museum; Secret of the Tomb) and produced by Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, David Ready and Francis Lawrence. The film also stars Weruche Opia, India De Beaufort, and Humberly Gonzalez. The film premieres on Nov. 18.