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Twisters and Nope Actor Brandon Perea Compares His Summer Blockbuster Characters
The scene stealer in Nope, and now Twisters, shares his thoughts on being a memorable — and hilarious — supporting character.
Following in the path of destruction forged by Twister (1996), director Lee Isaac Chung's spiritual sequel Twisters carries over many of the themes and character archetypes from the original, including the endearingly crazed storm chasers who live for the next big tornado on the Oklahoma plains.
In Twister, the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman embodied Dusty Davies, the most enthusiastic scientist in Jo Harding's (Helen Hunt) "Dorothy" weather sensor deploy team. Almost 30 years later, actor Brandon Perea has inherited that "unhinged" role playing Boone, Tyler Owens' (Glen Powell) videographer in his layman's team of social media superstar storm chasers.
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NBC Insider recently sat down with Perea to find out about his blockbuster experiences working with director Jordan Peele on Nope and now Chung on Twisters, and to compare and contrast his comedic characters Angel and Boone.
Brandon Perea Gets Loud to Play Storm Chaser Boone
Whether Boone's yeehawing from behind his mobile camera rig or helping Tyler prep for their amped-up viral truck stunts, Perea is a crack up as the crazy, one-man hype machine for Tyler and the tornadoes.
"Yeah, I was screaming my head off," Perea said, laughing about Boone's constant enthusiasm for the chase. "I call it the easiest job I've ever done. Not to say that I didn't do a ton of prep in order to play Boone because he's crazy. His posture and his face is different so I had to discover all that. But once I found it, it's just the easiest job ever. I just got to run around and scream with great people the whole time."
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Perea praised Chung for giving everyone in the cast "creative freedom" to build their characters from scratch. "He'd ask us just engaging questions, [like], 'What would your character be doing when they're not chasing?' Then that forces you to think of backstory. He's a very good director at making you feel good, and also [being] calm in the eye of the craziness."
Perea's Guide to Effective Comic Relief
Perea said that there was a comfort level on the Twisters set — much like the vibe on Jordan Peele's Nope — that allowed him to just relax and be open to finding the comedic moments that felt right while shooting.
"There's a creative freedom from Peele and Lee Isaac Chung," the actor explained. "They just allowed me so much collaborative freedom, where I could just do something different every take. I'm grateful for that."
In Nope, Perea earned huge praise for his inquisitive IT tech Angel Torres, who carves his own comedic space in the film assisting the Haywood siblings, played by Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer, on their video camera installation.
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"It's just cool to play two completely different characters," Perea said about his comic relief characters of Angel and now Boone. "Humor-wise, I think Angel is more so dark humor and then Boone is just the full level of freedom. It's cool to play two different dynamics but just serve the story. That's like my key thing, like, I'm not trying to be funnier. I'm just trying to serve the story in the most honest possible way that I can just [portray] truth in the way that I can."
The actor said he loves that even though these two characters appear in high-profile films, he's been able to subsume himself into the roles and not be pigeonholed, even by the public. He said he can still walk around and have people not be able to connect the dots.
"If I'm like walking around and someone asks, 'What do you do? What have you been in?' and I say, 'I was in this movie Nope.' [They'll say] 'I watched Nope! Who are you?' I say, 'Blonde hair tech guy' [and get] 'That's you?' I feel like the same effect is gonna happen with this where people are not going to know that's the same actor. And that's what I want to continue to do."
Check out Twisters in theaters on July 19. Click here to pick up tickets.
