Interview: Vivian Kerr and Anthony Rapp Unwrap How ‘Scrap’ Went from a Short to a Feature
Vivian Kerr is no slacker. For her feature directorial debut Scrap, she’s not only in charge behind the camera, she also wrote it and stars in it. The film is based on the 2018 short of the same name, which was directed by Leena Pendharkar but also features Kerr in the writer-actor role and co-starred Anthony Rapp, who reprises his role in the feature adaptation. It tells the story of Beth (Kerr), a young, single mother who finds herself living out of her car after being unfairly laid off from her job. While she searches for new employment, her daughter Birdy (Julianna Layne) lives with Beth’s brother Ben (Rapp) and his wife Stacy (Lana Parrilla). Unlike Beth, the married couple are finding getting pregnant to be difficult and are currently struggling through unsuccessful rounds of IVF.
The film approaches the two siblings’ very different living situations with total honesty, while never forgetting to be entertaining and gently humorous. The pair have a lived-in authenticity, thanks in equal parts to Kerr and Rapp’s truthful performances and the screenplay’s well-drawn characterizations. In anticipation of the film’s release, Kerr and Rapp sat down with us to discuss the transition from short to feature film, the joys and challenges of directing oneself, and how siblings sometimes know us better than anyone else.
Cody Dericks: Vivian and Anthony, thank you so much for joining me today to talk about Scrap.
Vivian Kerr: Thanks for having us.
Anthony Rapp: Thank you.
CD: This movie is basically impossible to describe without using words like “lovely” and “nice,” but it obviously has a…”grit” is the wrong word, but it addresses some social issues and modern trials and tribulations that affect lots of cities, but especially Los Angeles. Vivian, I wanted to start by asking what inspired you to tell this story?
VK: I’ve lived in LA basically since my early twenties, and so I think my neighborhood in Hollywood had changed a lot. And there were a lot more people who were really struggling and down on their luck and living in RVs and cars, and some of them had children and employment, and I think it was just hard to see every day, and I wanted to maybe do something about that. But I felt like that had been portrayed a lot in movies where maybe the characters had another issue going on, like mental illness or drug addiction, or it was more about them aging out of the foster care system or something. I felt like that had already been really explored in a rich way. So I wasn’t really sure if I had anything to contribute to it. And then I started thinking, well, how would I get there? What would have to go wrong in my life for me to end up in that situation? And so starting to think about that a little bit was the original genesis for the project.
CD: It’s your feature debut as a director, but you’re also pulling triple duty, oh my God, as the writer and the star. And this is adapted from a short film of the same name, which was written by you and stars you and Anthony, but that was directed by Leena Pendharkar. What made you want to toss that director’s hat on top of everything else you had going on with this movie?
VK: Well, I think I definitely wanted to direct a feature for a long time, but I think I had been not sure about it in a similar way – is it wise to be playing the lead in a feature and then also directing it as your first feature? Is that the best way to do this? But then I had the benefit of doing the short and then going on a long festival journey in 2019 with the short and watching it over and over and over, watching audiences respond to it so strongly. I realized the story mattered a lot to me, and I definitely was like, “This is the one, I’m going to take the plunge with this.”
CD: And Anthony, how did you get involved with the short film in the first place?
AR: I just got one of those nice moments where I get an email in my inbox from my agent saying, “You got offered this role.” That’s happened a number of times. Not all the time. I still have to audition too, but when that happens, it’s always nice when I open up the script and it’s actually a good script because it was a little bit like, “What if it’s not good? Awkward!” So yeah, it was a good script. And then just with scheduling and logistics, it just worked out perfectly for timing. I must’ve already been doing Star Trek: Discovery at that time.
VK: Yeah, I think it worked out because you were on a break or hiatus or something.
AR: Yeah. I love doing small projects and interesting projects, but you can’t always do it obviously. So it’s just kismet. And then a couple years later is when I got the feature script sent. I don’t remember Vivian ever saying anything to me, “Oh, I want to make this into a feature,” maybe, but I don’t know.
VK: I think I said, “Oh, it’s going to be a feature.” And you were like, “Oh, okay.” But I think that that happens a lot. Do you know what I mean? Even I’ve been in shorts just as an actor and they’re like, “You guys, we’re gonna make this a feature!” And I’m like, “I’d love that.” But then you never hear anything. Because it is so hard to get funding for a feature. So I have to thank Anthony for staying with the project too. I mean, not many people would be willing to do that.
CD: I’ve also seen plenty of shorts that become features, and then the feature it’s like, “You didn’t need to expand this.”
VK: Oh no.
CD: This is not the case with Scrap. I’m just saying.
VK: Okay, good.
AR: That was the thing too, again, to open up the feature script and just hope that it was going to be as strong as this short was because yeah, I think in some ways, shorts are delicate things. But you might say in some ways it’s easier to make something nice and compact. But then when you have to stretch it out into a feature, it could get a little wobbly, and the opposite happened, it just got stronger and stronger.
CD: Vivian, you mentioned always wanting to direct something. I’m fascinated by the concept of actors directing themselves. I feel like that is such an insane task to take on. And what was it like as a performer kind of being your own boss?
VK: I loved it. It was great. I really did love it, but I also think that was the benefit of, I don’t think I could have done this 10 years ago. Do you know what I mean? Or I mean, I guess I could, it would’ve been very different, but I think because I had been primarily an actor for a long time… We’d done the short and I had written the script and I’d thought about it for so long, I was like, “I know I can play this role. I know I can prepare to play this role. I know how to do all of that, so I know how to take care of myself as an actor.” So I was like, “That I’m not worried about.”
For me, the learning curve was the directing. It was all of that prep work before we started shooting, making sure we had all of our ducks in a row. But yeah, I loved it. It was great being my own boss, what are you talking about?! I mean, I’m doing it again. I want to keep doing it. Obviously I’m still acting in things that I am not directing. I’d be open to directing things that I’m not acting in, for sure. But I think there’s an efficiency, if you’re acting and directing. You kind of cut out a middleman there. So it’s like, well, that’s one actor I don’t have to give a note to because you could just pivot on things in a really efficient way, I found.
CD: Anthony, you almost look terrified by the notion.
AR: I just feel like I would miss the collaborative feeling of having a director. That’s just the thing. I feel like I would miss that. I really like having someone to bounce off of. And not that I don’t have trust in my abilities or instincts as an actor. I mean, I do more or less, but it’s more that I like diving in and then having a director take me aside. And even if they say one little thing, the way that can ripple out. I really feel like I would miss that. So I mean, I’ve directed a short film myself and I want to direct more, and I’ve thought, directing myself…I also don’t want to have to think about that stuff. I want to just simply be concentrating on the whole thing more so than being responsible also for performing. But I also understand many, many people have done it over the years very well.
VK I definitely want to talk to more people who are actor directors for sure. We don’t get to, there’s no clubhouse where we all get to go hang out, but I’m sure that everyone has their own way of doing it. But I’d be fascinated to learn and read more about how other actor-directors do it.
CD: Now, speaking to the actual film itself – Anthony, in this film, you and your onscreen wife are trying to expand their family via IVF, and you are yourself the father of two little ones. Did you draw upon any of your real life experiences of parenthood for the part?
AR: Well, I wasn’t yet a parent. We had just begun the process of working with an agency. So we were in the early stages of it when we actually filmed. So I didn’t have any direct experience to draw on in terms of even the IVF side of it really, or trying to get pregnant. So it was an interesting parallel but not a direct link. So in a way, it prepared me in some ways, although thankfully our journey was much less harrowing than Stacy and Ben’s.
But I’m very, very happy that this story about IVF is being told so honestly and authentically because I know a lot of people really have big, big struggles with it. Then there’s people like Beth who pretty much sneeze and get pregnant. There’s that too. That disparity of human experience I think is something that hasn’t really been explored that much in storytelling. And I think there’s a lot of shame and taboo around it for many, many people. And I’m hopeful that our film, even just this much, can open up the door for people to explore that in a more personal and cathartic way.
CD: And Vivian, I really love the sibling dynamic between Beth and Ben, especially the fact that no matter how successful Ben may be as a writer, Beth is always going to be there to just bust his chops a little bit. I have three brothers myself, so that was very, very truthful. Do you have any siblings of your own? And does that relationship at all resemble Beth and Ben’s?
VK: Well, thankfully, it does not resemble. I only have one sibling, an older sister named Marion, who is also a performer, and I dragged her to be part of the film. She, in the flashback scenes, plays our mother. So that’s my real-life sister, which was great. It was so fun just to have her come on set for one day and be doing this flashback sequence. So she’s five years older, but we’re so close. We’re very, very close. We’ve always had a great relationship. So yeah, no, not like Ben and Beth at all, no.
CD: And Anthony, I know you have a sister and a brother, but I was wondering, similar question, was there anything in Beth and Ben’s relationship that you found paralleled your own?
AR: I mean, there have been some moments of tough things between us. Part of it was when I was a kid, I wasn’t always aware of it because I was traveling a lot and doing my acting thing, that was hard on them in a way that I wasn’t really aware of at the time. And there are aspects of those dynamics that we’ve gotten the chance to really talk about and address as adults. I don’t think it’s as in the trenches as Ben and Beth are with each other in terms of the kind of sparring they do. But I think the navigating thorny things from childhood that didn’t fully get explored at the time because we were kids – which is some of what happens with Beth and Ben – I think that was resonant for me.
CD: Now, for both of you, your interactions and energy as a pair of siblings on screen is so real. I know you obviously worked on the short film first, but did you do any sort of bonding off-screen to further sell that dynamic?
VK: No, now I’m like, maybe we should have gone and played mini golf or something, I don’t know. The problem is that on indie films, you have no budget for a rehearsal day. So I think we just got on a Zoom call, but even the Zoom was so perfunctory, it was like, “We good?” “Yeah, we’re good.” “Cool. See you on day one.” You know what I mean? I just knew it was going to work, which is interesting. We didn’t even have that much time on the short, but I just knew it was going to work. And then, I can’t remember, do you remember what the first thing was when we shot the feature together?
AR: Was it driving around? I really don’t…I’m sorry. I don’t remember.
VK: No, I don’t remember. Or maybe it was when I came to the house for the first time? I don’t know. But yeah, it was great. It just was right. It just felt right from the get-go. And then the cool thing about Anthony is he’s willing to just try whatever. So I liked that we could be mean to each other because I’m like, sometimes siblings, it’s not always…Do you know what I mean? Siblings can go for the jugular sometimes. So sometimes I think we would do a take and then we would do another one, and I was like, “Yeah, let’s go for it and let’s make it dirty and mean.” And he was like, “Yeah.” He was willing to just do it. And maybe there might be someone else who’s trying to be a little bit more like, “Oh no, I don’t know.” But to me, like you said, siblings spar, they get down and dirty.
AR: It also occurred to me that because Ben and Beth really don’t talk very well about anything, that I think, I don’t know if it was conscious, but we didn’t ever really try to pick apart and talk about this stuff with each other. We just did our own preparation and came to the scene because I think that that was part of it, honestly, that if Vivian and I talked about it and really analyzed and picked it apart, it might’ve taken away some of that…we’re both very much in our own worlds coming together to meet. And I think that that was an instinctual way that we approached it, if that makes any sense.
VK: And that’s my preference very much, even as an actor. I’ve been, I think, in situations before where another actor maybe reaches out and I’m always down to talk things through or whatever. But if I get the sense that they want to try to pre-plan anything, I’m like, “Hmm.” That takes so much fun out of it for me. I don’t like to do that at all because I think the magic happens when actors do their individual preparation and then show up. And as long as it’s not crazy in terms of the acting style or someone thinks they’re in a very different kind of a movie. But for something like this, which is so performance driven, yeah, you want to go off, do your prep, show up, and hope that there’s some exciting things when the cameras start rolling.
CD: Well, I can say that there definitely were, as somebody who really liked this movie a lot. Just to close things out, Vivian, I’m definitely going to be keeping an eye on your name as a director in the future. Do you have anything you’re currently working on as a director?
VK: Yeah, actually. So my second feature, which couldn’t be more different, it’s an 1890s Victorian Gothic psychological thriller. So that actually just had its world premiere at Newport Beach Film Festival and hopefully it’ll do some more festivals in 2025.
CD: Amazing.
AR: Did you say the name? Seance.
VK: Oh no, it’s called Seance, yes. Because apparently I can only do movies with one word titles that begin with S.
CD: Awesome. Well, I’m so excited for people to get the chance to check out Scrap, and thank you so much for chatting with me today.
AR: Thank you, Cody.
VK: Thank you so much, Cody. It was great meeting you.
Scrap is currently in limited release from Rue Dangeau.
He currently resides in Chicago and is a proud member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics. He also writes and podcasts for Next Best Picture and co-hosts his own podcast “Halloweeners: A Horror Movie Podcast.” You can follow him on Twitter, Letterboxd, and Bluesky @codymonster91
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