‘Snack Shack’ Cast Discuss Their R-Rated Comedy & Making Out With a Mirror


The Big Picture

  • Drumpe’s Steve Weintraub moderates an exclusive Q&A with the cast and director behind
    Snack Shack
    .
  • Filmmaker Adam Rehmeier and cast members Conor Sherry, Nick Robinson, and Mika Abdalla reflect on their experiences making this R-rated independent film in Rehmeier’s hometown in Nebraska City.
  • Snack Shack
    is an R-rated teen comedy and coming-of-age movie set in the early ’90s, also starring
    The Fabelmans
    ‘ Gabriel LaBelle.



For one of our recent events, Drumpe was thrilled for the opportunity to host an early screening with the cast and director of the upcoming teen comedy, Snack Shack. Set in the early ’90s, this throwback is a raucous romp that will take audiences back to a time before cell phones, before the internet was a part of our daily lives. It’s a period director Adam Rehmeier calls « post-Gulf War, pre-Nevermind, » — that is, Nirvana‘s second studio album that signaled a shift in the pop culture zeitgeist. It stars Conor Sherry and The FabelmansGabriel LaBelle, and it’s a solid choice to kick off the summer.


From their Q&A with our own Steve Weintraub, it’s clear this cast relished the chance to film this independent movie on location in Nebraska City, where Rehmeirer grew up. The story, about two best friends who take ownership of a snack shack at their local pool for quick cash, is a « meditation » on the director’s own childhood, and the whole cast and crew spent plenty of time getting to know the small town and what life is like outside of Los Angeles. It’s a feel-good, R-rated comedy set in what Millennials now look back on fondly as « the good old days. »

In addition to Rehmeier and Sherry, co-stars Nick Robinson (Damsel) and Mika Abdalla (The Flash) sit down with us to share their memories from the set. Check out the video above or the transcript below for behind-the-scenes on Sherry’s brutal sneezing scene, all the hiccups and victories throughout their indie production, challenging scenes to film, and tons more.


Snack Shack

Nebraska City, 1991, two best friends get the chance to run the swimming pool snack shack, that later comes to be the perfect scenario for transgression, fun, personal discovery and romance.

Release Date
March 15, 2024

Director
Adam Rehmeier

Main Genre
Cmedy

Writers
Adam Rehmeier

Drumpe: Adam, I’ve gotta start with you. How much of this is your actual story and how much is fabricated?

ADAM REHMEIER: It’s a meditation on my childhood. Starting with the beginning, my best friend and I, we used to go to the dog track, gamble, sink everything into our little beer-making operation in 1991 when you had to get a big tome. There was no internet so you had to get a big tome to learn how to do it. So we brewed beer and we ended up becoming the proprietors of the Snack Shack. So there’s a lot spread throughout that, but having this really amazing summer in 1991 where we ran it the first year was electric. We were making a lot of cash and blowing it on dumb shit and hiding a lot of it from our parents.


I read that you had written note cards back when you were younger and you wrote down the real stuff that happened to you, which is crazy. I wish I did that stuff.

REHMEIER: So, the maturation period is really long on this. It’s 32 summers since this summer, so I had a wall full of note cards, like, “Jump in the bikes in the pool,” and, “Fuck dogs,” and just an assortment of things. They were just up on the wall and they were just these little bullet points that didn’t have a narrative stitched through them. So in the pandemic, after Dinner in America, I decided that this is the story that I wanted to do next. So I put them all up on the wall and I stared at them for months on end and I started weaving a narrative that was kind of this meditation on my childhood. So there’s a lot of fact, there’s equal fiction, but it resonates really deeply with me.


The fact that the producers allowed this to happen in Nebraska City in my hometown is the best part because it also feels like an active character in it, too. I am so grateful for that because as a young man, I never thought sitting in the theater, in the Pioneer 3, literally the theater that we shot in, watching Raiders of the Lost Ark and Splash and Krull and other films, I never thought I’d be on the opposite end making a film, especially about my hometown. It’s really the most special. I don’t know, it’s one of the most special things I think I’ll ever do.

How much did you debate calling the film Fuck Dogs, and were the producers like, “No?”

REHMEIER: That was the original title. It was just Fuck Dogs the Motion Picture, actually. So yeah, it was some debate. It was decided early on that we wouldn’t go with that.


Conor Sherry’s First Lead Role Proves He’s One to Keep an Eye On

Conor Sherry and Gabriel LaBelle sitting at a table in a bright kitchen eating chicken 
Image via Paramount


I understand. I love learning the random behind-the-scenes shit that you don’t hear, so what would surprise everyone to learn about the making of this film?

CONOR SHERRY: For me, this was my first lead in a movie, but I think the coolest part for me was getting the opportunity to be the first actor called and the last to leave every day, something that I know isn’t normal. I’ve talked to older actors that said that they haven’t had that in very long and successful careers. But to see a movie get made the way that everyone on the crew always sees was really cool for me and changed the way I view filmmaking and everything. I mean, I saw every hiccup and every success and victory, and I just kind of got to be a part of it from start to finish, which was really cool. So, yeah, that was it for me. Everything. [Laughs] I just said everything. I just listed the entire process.


MIKA ABDALLA: I think what was really special about this movie in particular and getting to be a part of this movie in particular was just how much it meant to Adam. We had a lot of time to get close to Adam while we were shooting and so it kind of became not just telling this guy’s story, it became telling our friend’s story, and that just made it so special and so fun. As we’re shooting each scene, he’s like, “Oh, this is the story behind this…” When we’re hiding behind the screen in the theater and Adam’s like, “I remember doing this when I was your age.” That is an experience that I’ve never had before, and I don’t know if I’ll have again. It’s so special.

NICK ROBINSON: I would just echo both of those things. I think Nebraska City as a place became a character in the movie, and it was really cool to be able to spend a summer in the actual place that it happened, at the pool in the hometown. It’s kind of a throwback filmmaking in a way that I hadn’t experienced in a while. It felt sort of like some of the first films that I did, and it was cool to be able to go back and see the process through eyes that were younger and less jaded than mine, maybe. [Laughs] It was just a special process. And getting to know Adam and his family and the town and the story behind it, and just having that context was really special.


REHMEIER: I mean, maybe 60% of the locations were baked into the script, so that was so cool. I knew I wanted to shoot on the brick-lined streets of First Avenue, and the Pioneer 3, and at the river where we used to hang out and stuff and drink beer and smoke cigarettes and whatnot. It was so cool to be there and to do that.

Night Swims, Oners, & Burnouts — Oh My!

Gabriel LaBelle sitting on top of a truck with two guys sitting casually in the truck bed in front of a fenced in pool
Image via Paramount

For all of you, what day did you have circled in the shooting schedule because you were super excited to film something and what day was circled in terms of, “How the F are we gonna film this?”


REHMEIER: Let me start with that. We had six impossible days on this film, six days that were just impossible days that could kill you, virtually. We had one per week, and we usually call those Fraturdays, where it’s like a Friday, Saturday hybrid combo. You sleep all of Saturday, you wake up Sunday and do your laundry, and start it all over. But there were six days, the schedule was brutal, and it was six impossible days. I think some of the night stuff towards the end. When we did the last thing that we did in the film, it was the sunken lot stuff where they’re meeting the Bravo Boys and getting the intel on the Snack Shack. I swear we did that reverse tracking oner, we must have done it 25 times. Everyone was losing their fucking minds. It was insane. It was just like you’re watching everything fall apart. But we got it. We rallied, and we got it. We went into the coverage on the two shots and stuff back and forth and we must have done those 100 times, too. Everyone was just losing it.


When we had the wrap party, everybody else went and partied. I just went to where this fire pit was and sat. I just couldn’t do it. Everyone was trying to lure me into, there were some shenanigans going on in the forest and stuff and they were like, “You gotta come to the tree adventure. We’re all here,” and I was just like, “I cannot move. I’m done. I’m just done with the movie. I’m done with all of it.”

SHERRY: It was funny, though, because Gabe and I were really looking forward to the night swim, the double date, but what they don’t tell you is that the pool decided to turn off the heaters about a couple of weeks into filming when real summer kind of ended. So we’re like, “Oh, night swim! Night swim!” It was so — my whole family’s here — fucking cold. And even in the daytime, when the line is like, “Yo, this water is piss warm,” we were, like, tapping out for stand-ins, I was shaking. It was terrible, but so fun. I’m like, “Let me complain more…” [Laughs]


REHMEIER: Let me echo that. Yeah, he was shaking in the pool, him and Gabe were shaking in the pool, so the juxtaposition is they’re freezing in the water and we’re baking in the sun. I remember I went over to the edge and I just said, like, “Keep it together. Everybody else wants to fucking be in there. Just keep it together and suck it up.”

SHERRY: Yes. Which we did, right?

Director Adam Rehmeier talking to Conor Sherry and gesturing ahead on the set of Snack Shack
Image via Paramount

ABDALLA: It’s not gonna be interesting because it’s the same story, but literally, I was like, so excited to do those night swims. Also, the concept of a night shoot when you’re doing a film with people that you really enjoy being around, it sounds like a lot of fun until you’re actually doing it and then it’s like three in the morning and you’re in an ice-cold pool, and you’re like, “Oh, I would rather be maybe anywhere else.” But yeah, so a combo of best and worst day at work.


ROBINSON: I was excited for all the burnout stuff. I was really looking forward to doing the burnout in the truck for days in advance. We had a great stunt coordinator who let me do it, so I was stoked. And then just all the party stuff, too, like the poker scene was really fun. That whole night that goes from the sunken lot out to the poker game, into the drive-thru when they’re tossing burgers in the back — all that stuff was really fun.

SHERRY: And the first day in the Snack Shack was huge because Gabe and I got out there two weeks early and we’re kind of watching our set designer and the whole team build this Snack Shack that they built. So, watching that come together. The first day we shot in there and it was full of candy and kids, real Nebraska kids running around, they were all the background. That day was electric, for sure.

Connor, I think I have to ask you the most important question I’ve asked tonight. What is it like prepping to make out with yourself in a mirror?


SHERRY: Well, that was one of the very few non-scripted moments of this movie…

REHMEIER: It was a choice.

SHERRY: [Laughs] Yeah, that was my big Conor Sprinkle on top of the movie — I don’t know why that’s all I could think to say. No, it wasn’t prepared. They literally just put music on, and I thought people did that. Same with the licking of the hand to check your breath. We don’t do that? We don’t do that. Okay. You guys do the hand one, right? Everyone’s done that in the back of the car, right? Terrific. Well, I’m glad I’m getting this out of the way right now.

Conor Sherry Evokes Jim Carrey-Level Comedy in ‘Snack Shack’


Being serious, it’s a great scene, but something that really impressed me watching it is you have to do a lot of physical comedy in the movie. There’s a scene where you’re going down the stairs. How much was that in the script and how much was it you, Adam, figuring out that he could do these things?

REHMEIER: So I watched Conor’s humorous interpretation speech. He won the national competition.

ROBINSON: It’s actually amazing, you guys should check it out.

SHERRY: Glory days in high school. Let me stop.

REHMEIER: It reminded me of Jim Carrey, like the physicality of it. He’s that rubbery and springy, and I was just absolutely blown away with the physicality, of what he was doing with his body. As far as Moose versus AJ, it was fun for me to make him the really straight one of the duo and to have him pulled way back and reserved, because those moments of physicality are explosive and they’re really funny on camera because he’s so uptight for most of the movie. So it was just a blast because I knew that he could do it. I knew he could do the falls and he could do those physical aspects of it, so it’s amazing watching him do that stuff. I mean, the fall was real, wasn’t it?


SHERRY: Yeah. It was the one day I think our stunt guy wasn’t on set.

REHMEIER: It was a oner, though. How would he do it?

SHERRY: He wouldn’t. He would just probably check if I’m okay. But I do want to do a quick shoutout — my high school drama teacher’s here from San Jose, and so much of that physical comedy… In high school, I did multiple farces, which is a play like One Man, Two Guvnors, Noises Off, and I this man taught me to fall down — Mr. Santana — so many stairs every single night that when this happened, easy. Not my first time.

For the cast, I heard that Adam had you guys listen to a playlist to get you in the zone. Were there any songs that you hadn’t heard that you’re like, “This is a really good song?”

ROBINSON: The Deep Purple song, I thought, in the pool that’s playing.

REHMEIER: Oh, Urban Dance Squad, “Deeper Shade of Soul.”

ROBINSON: “Deeper Shade of Soul,” I like that one.


REHMEIER: That was one of my favorites around that time period.

‘Snack Shack’ is a ’90s Throwback

Gabriel LaBelle and Conor Sherry smiling in front of a crowd outside the snack shack
Image via Paramount

Well, one of the things that this film does so well is it pulls you back to before the Seattle sound hit, before the internet, before cell phones. It was like that last hurrah of innocence.

REHMEIER: I have a little way to phrase it that’s really good. It’s post-Gulf War, pre-Nevermind. There you go. So it’s before Seattle happened, it’s before that whole scene happened. People think, typically with the ‘90s they’re thinking a little bit later, they’re thinking grunge and they’re thinking hip hop and those kinds of things. We were watching like, Yo! MTV Raps and also Headbangers Ball equally, and there was all this weird crossover music in there that was happening. So, we tried to keep the soundtrack where it wasn’t just everything going in ‘91 because we were listening to stuff in the ‘60s and ‘70s, too, what we considered classic rock. I know now it includes stuff from the ‘90s because I’m a fucking dinosaur, but for us at the time we were listening to a lot of different music.


For a role like this, how are you actually getting ready? How early on before the first day of filming are you thinking about your character, thinking about the lines, how you wanna do things? Is it in the last week or two leading to that first day of filming?

ROBINSON: I was one of the later hires, I think. I came on a week-and-a-half or two weeks, three weeks at the most before filming started, so I just kind of jumped in with both feet. But I think it felt really natural, to be honest. Going back to the place, the setting, just being in the town that it happened and with Adam being so generous with his memories and his experiences, it just created an atmosphere that felt really organic to enter into. And there were certain parallels for me coming into this being the older guy, being the dude who’s had some more experience, it just sort of felt like a natural fit in some ways.

REHMEIER: To be the big brother.

ROBINSON: Yeah.

REHMEIER: You were all summer. You were kind of like the shepherd of this flock, if you will. For better or worse.


ROBINSON: I don’t know if I really have taught you guys anything at all, but yeah, it felt natural. It felt right.

Nick Robinson smiling towards the camera in Shadow Brother
Image via Vanishing Angle

SHERRY: Yeah, I agree. It was really cool for me to work with someone that I had obviously looked up to for so long, and didn’t even know he was gonna be in the cast.

ROBINSON: Obviously.

SHERRY: It’s true. It really is. My mom and I watched Maid and didn’t even know it was you until you a week into shooting with you. I was like, “What the fuck? You were the fucking guy!”

REHMEIER: He came to me because he was scared of you. He said, “I was scared of Nick. I’m scared.”

SHERRY: I did not say that. [Laughs]

REHMEIER: You said that he was scary in Maid.


SHERRY: It was terrifying. But yeah, I agree with all that. It was very true. It all felt very real. On our off days we did the same shit. On Saturdays we were at the pool. It was a five-minute walk.

REHMEIER: We swam together, we hung out together, we did everything together. We stayed in the Lied Lodge. We have breakfast in the same area where people come to your table, they sit. It was like summer camp. It really was. We had a two-week period that I had with everyone except Nick where we were just hanging out and stuff. We’re not sitting around going through the script and doing stuff like that, we’re hanging out with each other. We’re telling stories and we’re walking around, and we’re going in the alleyways and all the nooks and crannies of Nebraska City, and they’re just sponging and feeling the town and feeling the people. They showed up and I already had a job for him. They were working in the real Snack Shack for a couple of hours each day for, like, the first week or so, and they were meeting the lifeguards and they were going on little dates driving around with the lifeguards and stuff and hanging out. It was like they were just sponging off the town and feeling the vibe.


SHERRY: And that was the hugest part for Gabe and I. The second we landed in Nebraska and recognized all the storefronts from the script and knew all the streets and everything from our prep, the energy that we had in that kind of immediate best friend dynamic, that we just got to fuck around for two weeks doing nothing, which is Nebraska. That’s basically what this movie was built out of, having nothing to do and making shit up. So yeah, that energy carried us through shooting, for sure, and it was huge. Those two weeks were awesome.

ABDALLA: I just remembered that we did actually, you and me and Conor and Gabe, spent maybe one day when that woman came into the meeting room…

REHMEIER: “You get out. You get out of here.”

ABDALLA: [Laughs] Yeah, we got kicked out. They were having some other convention there. They didn’t like us. But you did open the room for a day or two to discuss the script and discuss what was going on and make sure that we didn’t have any glaring confusions or questions or anything. And then from there, I feel like you really trusted us, which was very cool.


Gabriel LaBelle, Conor Sherry, and a crowd of people with the camera crew set up in the snack shack behind them
Image via Paramount

I’m fascinated by the editing process because it’s where it all comes together. Which of your friends and family or a test screening gave you a note that you’re like, “Oh shit, we need to fix this?” Something that might have happened in the editing room.

REHMEIER: Honestly, the first time we screened the film, it might be my favorite screening I’ve ever had of something. It was just 10 producers and they came and we sat in the screening room at T-Street and we watched the rough cut together, and there were a lot of tears and there was a lot of silence, and I got a big hug from each of the producers. They were like, “Just keep doing what you’re doing.” So it was kind of the opposite of that. There was a lot of trust off of the rough cut.


My editor’s here, Justin Krohn, and we worked really hard and we had a plan. My production designer [Francesca Palombo] and my DP [Jean-Philippe Bernier] are both here, and we had a really solid plan. We mapped out exactly what we wanted to do, shot for shot, and we executed that and then it just became attrition at that point. We had a two-hour and 20-minute movie. Now it’s 1:52, so, “We’re cutting out 30 minutes somehow. We’re gonna get 30 minutes out of it.” So we did, we reduced it. That part is where you start getting into the minutia, and you have to really look at when you cut something at any point, how the cause and effect of all the shots are affected. So, Justin and I, my editor, we’re looking at the entirety. You can’t just cut something and think that there’s not a consequence for it. It’s all cause and effect as you go. So if you shorten something in the end then it affects the beginning. So yeah, I had a really enjoyable post-process on this.


For people that don’t realize, that’s not the norm.

REHMEIER: It’s not the norm, but if you plan it out the way you wanna do it and you execute it that way, it makes it significantly easier. It’s doing the work and being really dedicated to craft. That’s how you make things work.

For each of you guys, when you think back on the shoot, what’s the day or the scene or the thing you’re really gonna remember? The thing that sticks with you about the shoot.

REHMEIER: This is horrible that this comes to mind first, but I just have to say it, [to Sherry] I’m sorry, buddy, it’s a you thing. It was like day three when we shot the shit where he had to sneeze.

SHERRY: Ah, shit.


REHMEIER: I know, I know. But he took these napkins and he just twisted them up in the strangest way I’ve ever seen. These things were really long and they were pointy and they were paper-based, and he would, between takes, shove it up his nose as far as he could. I mean, like, brain-tickling way up his nose and then he’d have this reaction, and he would say, “Okay, I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready.” Just watching him do that and then watching Mika, because she had real loads, she had like 36 shot loads in that Minolta, and she just kept taking the snaps. So she’s got, like, two rolls of him and these awkward faces.

ABDALLA: I have so many pictures of this.

REHMEIER: It’s just beautiful. My mind just goes to, like, “What is Conor doing? Why is he shoving that shit up his nose like that?” And he’s like, “This is how you sneeze. This is how you do it. This is how I make myself sneeze.”

ABDALLA: And then the tissue at a point became less effective. He’s allergic to a lot of stuff and so he was plucking like the long blades of grass that he could find and shoving them up his nose. And this was my first day of work and this was the first scene that I was shooting, my first time working with this kid, and I was like, “Seriously? This is the next eight weeks of my life?” [Laughs]


REHMEIER: You looked at me and you were just like, “Are we really doing this all summer?” Like we’re doing this?

SHERRY: It’s true, but guys, it’s because that was the scene that I did for my self-tape that got me the part, and that’s what I did in the self-tape so I could authentically sneeze. And pressure was on when the day was ending and I couldn’t get a real sneeze, and he’s like, “Just fake it,” and I’m like, “No, I can do it.” So that’s when I moved to blades of grass. But yeah, it was brutal. My nose was, like, actually bleeding. Truly. It was a bummer. And I think every single one in there is fake — not a single authentic sneeze. All of that.


ROBINSON: Well, I’ve got a story about Conor… No, I’m just kidding. There were so many. It’s sort of like every day felt unique. The first one that comes to mind is we spent the day in the cornfields after Moose smokes weed before the poker event, and that somehow just felt like it summed up the whole thing. The sun was going down, the cicadas were chirping, it was in this cornfield that smelled like corn, and it captured the essence of summer in this small town. Sitting on the back of the pickup truck, I think of that day.

REHMEIER: I concur.

SHERRY: A lot of the montage stuff was really fun because it was really just a continuation of what we did on the weekends and our off time.

REHMEIER: Scene 92, Jordan. Are you panicked? Are you panicked about Scene 92? He was just so worried about that. Shooting in Arbor Lodge State Park at night, that’s where we lured the cops. When we were kids we would throw rocks at cars and stuff, or throw them at cop cars and get them all riled up and have them chase us through Arbor Lodge. That was a lot of fun. That’s what we did for fun, you know?

Nebraska.

REHMEIER: Yeah.


SHERRY: Yeah, that was it. Specifically the one in the back of the truck when we’re, like, celebrating and getting to throw fries. I mean, when do you get to stand in the back of a truck going, I don’t even know, 30, maybe 20 that felt like 50, just throwing food? We just kept shooting that. So much more than what made it was shot, and the burger being thrown, that only happened once. I’m glad it made it in. It was just fun. Gabe and I were just having a blast honestly. All of those things, just fucking around.

ABDALLA: My bit was about the grass mostly. [Laughs] I mean, it all just felt like it was happening, and honestly, in my mind, it’s hard to get past the grass part.

REHMEIER: Talk about the night he went back with his costume missing.

ABDALLA: Oh yeah. It was maybe the last day of shooting, or like the second to last day, and it’s like 2 p.m. because we’re doing night shoots, and Conor’s waking up and he’s calling me, and he’s like, “Dude, do you have my car keys?” And I’m like, “No?” He had taken his shoes home with him and put them in the trunk of his car and locked himself out of his car, and then couldn’t find his keys. So then it was this big panic with all the producers and Hannah [Greenblatt], our costume designer, to figure out what we were gonna do about this thing that was happening. I remember Charles was there in the parking lot when it happened and he had just gotten off of work, and Conor’s like tearing through all of his bags of stuff in the parking lot, and Charles was like, “What’s going on?” And Conor was like, “I can’t find my keys,” and Charles was just like, “I’m off the clock,” and then went home.


Mika Abdalla as Brooke the lifeguard smiling at someone in the snack shack
Image via Paramount

SHERRY: Until bright and early the next morning my phone is blowing up, “Did you get the shoes? Did you get the shoes? We’re shooting in two hours.” And then they broke into the car.

ABDALLA: And what did they find in the front seat of your car?

SHERRY: Jesus Christ. I was working long days and I would go to Taco Bell every once in a while and– A lot of wrappers! A lot of wrappers, okay?

REHMEIER: He’s a wrapper hoarder.

SHERRY: It was a one-person car and there was a space.

So you’re trying to say in Nebraska City there’s a lot of Taco Bell?

SHERRY: It was a big thing. There’s not much, and that was it. And Walmart. That was huge.

[To Robinson] Are you aware that Conor had a nickname for you?


ROBINSON: For me? What was it, actually? I’m not sure.

I read about it and it says Nick “One Take” Robinson.

SHERRY: Adam’s nickname.

ROBINSON: “One Take” Robinson, I’ll take it. I definitely do a lot more than one take.

REHMEIER: Nick’s a pro. He’s been doing this a while.

SHERRY: They’d always do Nick’s coverage last. I don’t know why, maybe because they knew he could pull it off and they were worried about us so they wanted to use the takes when they could. I remember there were a couple of times when it would be his shot and time would be running out, and Gabe and I’d be like, “Oh no, it took us so many,” and then Adam would roll and on the first one he’d be like, “Well, there we go. That was it. That was gold.” And then Gabe and I would be like, “What the fuck? What the fuck is this guy doing?”

REHMEIER: He’s the nuance master. That’s why.

SHERRY: It was very cool to see.


ROBINSON: I do remember the barbecue sequence. The sun was going down and we were doing it in a oner…

REHMEIER: And it rained.

ROBINSON: And it rained.

REHMEIER: It pushed everything. It rained and we had a three-hour rain delay because of lightning strikes there. Every time the lightning strikes, you gotta wait a half hour or so or more.

ROBINSON: Yeah, that’s right. And so we were like down to the wire, the last ray of sun was coming down over the field and we had time for one more shot. We were able to get it done. But I mean, it’s part of the fun too.

REHMEIER: The take in the film is the last take that we did on that day, but it was the last possible moment for that oner and we got it.

ROBINSON: I guess I live up to my name. What can I say?

REHMEIER: Ol’ One Take.

Conor Sherry and Gabriel LaBelle in bright T-shirts running outside a building front doors looking worried
Image via Paramount


You guys are clearly making this movie on a budget. You obviously have to film multiple scenes, probably on the same day with different emotional beats. This is your first movie, so what was this experience like for everyone when you’re running gun a little bit on something like this?

SHERRY: One, it was very cool, but it really felt like, it sounds so actor-y, but it really was like a flow state. It really felt like as we were shooting everyone was, including the crew, Adam worked with the same crew in his last movie, so everyone, sound, costumes, everything was like a family. For me, what was really important was that from day one, including the town, as being, like Nick said, a character, I just felt very safe. I really felt so far from LA, so far from the noise and the bullshit of life outside of a tiny town in the Midwest, and that was really huge for me, and really just powerful. It was amazing. And Gabe and I just trusted each other so much that I didn’t feel like I could fuck it up if I tried because it was just happening. So, it was really cool.


REHMEIER: A big thing for me is personnel. Like you said, it’s a family affair. So if you wanna shave time and do that, it’s a crew that’s adept enough to do it. So production designer, Francesca, DP, Jean-Philippe Bernier, it really helped, costumers off the last one, sound, Danny McCoy — these are people that all know how to work with time constraints. That’s how you accelerate through things, by hiring correctly for the job. Everybody that I just named, we’re making this film with love, which it is a family affair and that’s just so important when you’re working and you’re doing an independent film and you don’t have a lot of time. That’s the way to get what you want.

Snack Shack is now playing in select theaters.

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