Drew Tarver & Rosa Salazar On ‘May The Best Man Win, SXSW

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Q: What was the hardest part of shooting an improvised film? - Uinterview

DREW TARVER: We did the little scene at the very end [in which he's dangling from a helicopter]. They yell, ‘Cut’ everybody was having a blast, it was crazy oh my god, I was freaking out and then I just see like the director [mimics director's movement] like 40 yards away, and a bunch of people were kind of just yelling at each other, but not at each other but just really concerned, and I was like, ‘Oh no! What was that?’

ROSA SALAZAR: Those were the moments that were terrifying where you’re like, ‘Yes I got a great mark, like this is amazing!’

DT: Mark is another word for a prank victim.

RS: Prank Victim. But they would come out and be like, ‘You have to do it again. You have to do it again.’ And we were like, 'You evil British man!'

DT: [British accent] ‘You just do it one more time please. We’re going to get it, it’s going to be great.’ Like, he’ll convince you of anything, because we’re like you know this British person can’t be wrong.

RS: I know like you just inherently trust him. It’s hard not to like, it’s hard to do a prank again because if you just did it and it was awesome you improved perfectly and that’s so hard to do, so your timing and everything worked out everything hit and then they’re like ‘Okay do it again.'

Q: Which prank worked out the best? - Uinterview

DT: I think one of the most well-timed scenes in terms of like full arc of a prank scene is when you’re eating the guy’s sushi at the very beginning of the movie.

RS: [The] Dawson’s Creek [looking guy]!

DT: Yeah Dawson’s Creek. It’s so well timed and so perfectly done how she just comes in and then takes it to that weird place, ‘Are you hitting on me?’ and then leaves but comes back and, ‘You should be ashamed of yourself’ takes the last piece and walks off. Like the timing on that was perfect so imagine like doing that, that well and then them being like—

RS: I’m not going to sign [the release]...

DT: Yeah I’m not going to sign or the GoPro messed up and you’re just like ‘Ohhhhh’!

RS: The funny thing is that we didn’t have - the ear wig didn’t work, so I had to just take my own advice on where it should go and it was my first prank. I am so incredibly germaphobic, intensely germaphobic and at that time I was worse, so it was really hard to be like, ‘Oh god I really don’t want to eat this guy’s food.’ But I went to the cleanest guy if you noticed. He’s the cleanest looks like he showered!”

DT: Yeah, your goal was like, ‘I’m only going to prank doctors!’

Q: Why didn't you use your real mother in the "€œMom Scene"? - Uinterview

DT: Yeah that is not my actual Mom but that is a very sweet real woman who, to give it that feel, we didn'€™t meet them and we didn't tell them it was going to happen. They knew they were going to be in a movie, that it was a slightly weird movie. I'€™m not sure, because it'€™s crazy.

RS: We don'€™t know what they tell them.

DT: You don'€™t know what'€™s going on, because everybody needs to be, they keep everybody in the dark including the actors a lot of the time because it just makes for better stuff. So they kept these women in the dark they were like you'€™re just going to go in there, you know what the actor says and they give you an objective and I guess they give her an objective and you both kinda just meeting each other for the first time. And you'€™re doing this weird thing with this old woman, and you feel bad because it'€™s a sweet old actress. There was a moment where I was going to do it to my real mom, I had basically set it up to when my mom was going to visit L.A. We were going to set up my mom, and I was going to try to do it to her because I was trying to do as much as I could for this movie that was real and felt real.

RS: And at that point we'€™re in the end, we're in the thick of it. Not like the beginning where we were like ehhh.

DT: Yeah.

RS: So he was ready to just like do his own mom!

DT: My mom is very religious and that would have been great, but I just didn'€™t think I was going to be able to do it like I did it - more like set her up completely.

RS: Yeah. The moms were good.

DT: I didn'€™t want to waste production time because I knew it was going to be so tough.

Q: This movie had a lot of pranks. What’s a scene that seems fake but is actually real? - Uinterview

DT: The Jerusum Scene.

RS: That is absolutely horrifyingly real.

DT: Yeah we convinced a man to donate his sperm for the Israeli Fertility Crisis.

RS: And he took some convincing, but not that much.

DT: Yeah it was really—

RS: And all for a person to go into a coffee shop and then...

DT: It’s almost like he showed up to the mall planning to do that anyway.

RS: And then he didn’t go shopping after.

DT: Yeah - no no no no.

RS: We were by like the entrance. Like yeah I think I need a nap after that.

DT: Humping on people’s backs is all real.

RS: We got strangled and kicked for that. It's funny because he was, it was funny to me, is that he was terrified of doing this prank. It was the first prank he had to do and all of our fears were actualized, because he got seriously hurt...

DT: Yeah. Another thing that you might think was fake, because it was part of the narrative side of the movie was me getting lifted off by the helicopter.

RS: No one thought that!

DT: Yeah it was a real helicopter.