Ella Balinska shares how she nailed first takes for 'The Occupant'

UPI

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1 of 5 | Ella Balinska, seen at the "F1" premiere in June in New York City, stars in "The Occupant." File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- Snowy elements during the filming of The Occupant, in theaters and video-on-demand Friday, required star Ella Balinska to get many scenes right in just one take. The actress plays Abby, an engineering geologist who survives a helicopter crash.
In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Balinska described filming on location in the Caucasus Mountains in the country of Georgia. The snow had to look like no one had been there before Abby, meaning the filmmakers could not remove footprints after the first take.
"When we're doing these massive shots, we had to get it right the first time," Balinska, 28, said. "Otherwise, we were limited to only doing closeups and it loses that vast scale."
Leaving the snow untouched also made it challenging for director Hugo Kejzer to set marks for the actress to hit during each take.
"If it was really specific, we'd get a rock and try and throw it as best as we could to the little area so it only made a tiny mark in the snow that you wouldn't see on a wide shot," she said. "It was like a ballet on the snow and on the side of the mountain."
Balinska said she, Kejzer, cinematographer Robbie van Brussell, drone operator Bram van Woudenberg and the crew on the mountain shared a shorthand to achieve those shots.
She appreciated the technical challenge, too, as Balinska calls herself a technical actor.
"Honestly, it just gets to a point where you kind of want to work a little bit smarter," she said. "If you don't need to repeat a shot, I would prefer not to, especially when it involves falling into the ice."
Balinska first read the Occupant script in 2019 and intended to follow up on her films Charlie's Angels and Run Sweetheart Run with the project. Delays, including the COVID-19 pandemic, postponed filming until 2022.
Now, the film comes after her role in the Netflix Resident Evil series and film Skincare. Ballinska said her workload served the role of Abby.
"By the time we got to shooting the project, I was like, I'm exhausted," she said. "Funnily enough, [it] psychologically put me in the right place for this character because the character's exhausted too. And I think it made it 10 times more real and truthful than it ever could have been if we shot it in 2019."
During her journey, Abby reaches John, another survivor, via radio and attempts to find him. Rob Delaney was cast as the voice of John after filming wrapped, meaning assistant director Toby Sherbourne read John's lines on set for timing.
Since Sherbourne was not an actor, Balinska imagined the performance the eventual actor on the other line would give.
"A lot of the time, I'd learn the entire scene myself," she said. "I'd imagine different deliveries of different lines that he had in relation to what Hugo wanted for the scene. It was just a lot of spinning plates in one go which is definitely tricky but we managed to get it done."
Other challenges included limited filming hours when the sun was in the right position above the mountains, staying hydrated and sun protection.
"Everyone forgets the snow is a massive reflector," Balinska said. "I had my feet wrapped in plastic bags and my feet taped so I wouldn't get my feet wet. Then we realized my feet were getting sweaty and damp so we'd have to change the plastic bag."
Balinska said she is drawn to physical roles like The Occupant, the action-packed Charlie's Angels, the horror pursuit of Run Sweetheart Run and zombies of Resident Evil.
"I think [it's] a really interesting challenge to be able to balance the emotional demands as well as physical demands," she said.
She also appreciated how The Occupant was a human survival tale, as opposed to playing a trained agent in Charlie's or backed by a team in Resident Evil. Abby was working in Georgia to pay for experimental cancer treatment for her sister and was flying home after her sister took a turn for the worse.
"It's not one of those projects where the main character is trying to save the world and they're trying to get through a situation with all these amazing weapons," she said. "No, it's literally just one person's very humble and quite quiet and painful drive to just get home."
The remote filming location meant there were no Hollywood comforts for the cast and crew in real life. The entire group stayed in a cabin in the Caucasus, and everyone chipped in behind the scenes.
"We found ourselves carrying film equipment up the side of the mountain just to be able to get the shot," she said. "We were all staying in a cabin getting the shot done. It was really remarkable."