Joey King has nothing against method acting – it’s just not for her.
Especially for projects like her most recent work, the Holocaust series “We Were the Lucky Ones.”
Based on Georgia Hunter’s best-selling novel about her family’s struggle to survive the Holocaust, Logan Lerman stars as Hunter’s grandfather Addie alongside King as his younger sister Halina. Rounding out the cast are Sam Wolfe, Robin Weigart, Lior Ashkenazi, Hadas Yaron, Amit Rahav, and Eva Weiler.
“I think anyone who is a style actor is really brave and amazing, but personally I’m not a style actor,” King told me on this week’s episode of Just Because. diversePodcast. “And when you’re filming a show like this, I don’t know how I could be because having those release moments between the settings and your friends (is essential).”
“Sometimes you need that version at the snack table with each other…because it’s getting really dark,” she continues. “It’s going to be very sad and there’s going to be times when you don’t know when it’s going to hit you. Everyone’s had different moments where we’re all sitting there having a good time together, just filming a scene and then someone’s breathing really hard and crying because it’s a wave that’s washing over you.”
Hulu also made trauma therapists available to the cast and crew on set. “They would come by to check on each of us a lot, which I thought was really cool,” King says.
But ultimately, it was the cast leaning on each other that made King feel like the toughest days were bearable. King’s movie nights with his co-stars were especially helpful: “We would watch Finding Nemo because we needed to.”
King, 24, says she first encountered anti-Semitism when she joined Instagram at age 12. “A roller coaster in terms of how many times I would experience that, but it was traumatic when I was that age,” she recalls. “Now I expect it because anti-Semitism isn’t the only thing I encounter regarding cyberbullying. So it feels like one of the many symptoms of the big diagnosis of bad internet people. I’m sad, but I’m not really surprised.”
King’s career has spanned many genres — from leading the fantasy action film “The Princess” and Netflix’s “Kissing Booth” trilogy with Jacob Elordi and Taylor Zakhar Perez to her Emmy-nominated work as Gypsy Rose Blanchard on “The Act.” One of her upcoming films is the romantic comedy “A Family Affair” directed by Richard LaGravenese with Nicole Kidman and her childhood sweetheart Zac Efron.
“To say I was a fan of (‘High School Musical’) would be a massive understatement,” King says. “To say I was obsessed would be a bit more accurate.”
Last year, King starred in Taylor Swift’s second music video, the first being the music star’s “Mean” video in 2012. Swift directed King and Taylor Lautner in the video for her single “I Can See You.”
“She had her vision, but she also loved seeing what the actors came up with and did themselves, and she wanted to make sure she got it,” King says of Swift. “But she makes some shots and when she gets them, she owns them. She’s a confident director.”
You can listen to my conversation with King on “Just for Variety” above or wherever you download your favorite podcasts.
