Written byLev Grossman(The Magicians) and directed byIan Samuels(Sierra Burgess Is a Loser), the romantic dramedyThe Map of Tiny Perfect Thingsis set in a fantastical world where a teenager named Mark (Kyle Allen) is living the same day in an endless loop when he suddenly realizes that there’s someone else stuck in the loop with him. Along with Margaret (Kathryn Newton), the two experiment with ways to escape their never-ending day to no avail, but they don’t give up while also having a bit of fun with their situation.
At a virtual press junket for the film, co-stars Kathryn Newton and Kyle Allen spoke to Collider about what makes time loop stories so compelling, what makes Mark and Margaret a great movie duo, how they might react if they got stuck in a time loop in real life, the atmosphere on set, family dynamics, and favorite scenes. Newton also talked about the status of aPokémonsequel, while Allen talked about the legendary experience of doingWest Side StorywithSteven Spielberg.
Collider:What do you think it is that makes time loop stories continue to be so compelling?
KATHRYN NEWTON: I think it’s an allegory just for life, all the time. I know we’re kind of living in a time loop right now. The whole world is kind of in a time loop. But even before that, especially when you’re young and this teenage wasteland, every day, feels the same and it feels like your future’s never gonna come, and all you wanna do is grow up, you forget that the future is actually gonna be so bright. When you’re young, you just care about graduating or you care about prom, and then you get these things and you accomplish these small goals, and you’re like, “Now what?” So, I think that everyone can relate to that feeling, especially when you’re young. There’s something to be said about like high school movies, in general. We’ve all been through that experience, so I think that there’s just something everyone can relate to in this movie.
KYLE ALLEN: I think people have a fascination with time, in general, because there’s so much we don’t know about it. When you’re a young person growing up, you don’t even know the little science we have about it. You’re just a young person floating through existence and you don’t really know what to anchor it to. Sometimes you’re like, “Well, why can’t time just work like this? Why can’t time just loop? Why can’t it be Christmas, every day? I wish I had a do-over of that.” Those are real thoughts that you have. I think that’s part of the fascination with it. We’re always fighting time, as people. When we have an opportunity in film to bend time, we take it.
Kathryn, you’re essentially going to have this movie and the Blu-ray forFreakyout at the same time, which are such different films. How do you feel those two films, on such opposite ends of the spectrum, represent you, as an actress?
NEWTON: Well, I think you just nailed it. Everything and absolutely nothing, and somewhere in between that, I go all around. I shotFreaky, and then I had about a week off until I startedMaps. I’m still figuring out who I am. For me, I just approach everything step by step. I’m so happy thatFreakyis out. I feel like it was a really good time for the movie to come out. It was a fun escape and it was exciting. And I feel likeMapsis that warm hug or comfort movie that we all really need right now. Together, both of them balanced me out, as a person. We shot this right up until March, right when quarantine happened and everything got shut down. I still feel like I’m on set. It’s been a whole year and I don’t feel like I’ve done anything, but this movie made me grow.
Whether it’s you and Kyle Allen in this film, you and Vince Vaughn inFreaky, you and Jensen Ackles inSupernatural, or even you and Pikachu in thePokémonmovie, duos can be very important to a story, in film and TV. What do you think makes these two characters a great duo?
NEWTON: I really think it was all Kyle. Without Kyle, this film is not the same. It was really important to me that it was Kyle. I had chemistry with other great actors. Everyone is good, at a certain point. There’s so much talent. But Kyle was the perfect Mark. He has not just the talent, as an actor, but he also has this physicality because he comes from being a dancer. This movie demanded someone who understood rhythm because this movie moves in a certain way. We had scenes that were long, one-shot scenes and reading the script, I felt like I would be able to be literally carried by Kyle. I needed a teammate in that way that was gonna be able to harmonize with me. It was nobody else. Kyle made that happen.
Kyle, how did this duo work for you?
ALLEN: It really takes two people. I’m lucky to have been able to share anything with Kathryn, in that regard. The movie wouldn’t have happened without her, at all. You need a grounding force and you need a talented actor, and half the time, I didn’t know what I was doing, so I’d just watch her and usually it would work out because she could do that. She can turn any scene into a great scene.
You have a background as a trained ballet dancer, so what did it mean to you to get to be inWest Side Story, which is one of the most famous, well-known musicals?
ALLEN: I don’t know if there are words. The amount of geniuses they had on that stage, I just got to absorb that energy. The that I was able to play a part of that and put my little mark on that massive legacy is one of the greatest things I’ve ever done. I grew up watching it. I had two VHS tapes that were live-action. Everything else was as an animated film. I was obsessed with animated films, but I had two live-action –The Princess BrideandWest Side Story. My sister and I would watch it on repeat. We would just rewind it and watch it again. It’s always been a part of my life. There’s only two films, and there’s only gonna be two. The rights for it were purchased for like the next 70 years, so no one can make anotherWest Side Story. It’s a legacy piece.
And you got to do it with one of the most famous directors ever, Steven Spielberg.
ALLEN: Yeah, I got to do it with a little known independent director named Steven Spielberg. I can’t tell you the context, but we were on set and he was like, “Okay, so you’re gonna be coming in here and we’re gonna have you go off this thing, like that one part inIndiana Jones.” And you’re like, “Oh, right, because you didIndiana Jones. That’s why you’re aware of that. Okay, cool. Yeah, I’ll do that. Like in that other movie you directed, that I’ve watched my entire life. Cool.”
I love how, in this film, you’re both talking about a temporal anomaly, as if it’s just a totally normal thing for people to know and talk about. Did you know what it was, before doing this? Did you have any clue, or did you have to look that up?
NEWTON: No, I had to look it up. I think I knew what it was, but whenever you’re doing a movie, you do some research, and then there’s also a part of you where you just slip into the character, so you act like you know everything. That’s the real secret. I don’t know anything. I just fake it and, for some reason, you guys believe me.
ALLEN: I did my best, but I think it’s beyond human understanding. We learned the definition of it.
How do you think you guys would react, if you found yourselves stuck in a time loop? Is it something that you would find some way to take advantage of?
ALLEN: If you’re stuck in a time loop and you don’t have a way out yet, you absolutely take advantage of it. You do anything you want, really.
NEWTON: I would eat, all day, every day. I would just eat cheese fries, all day, and watchSpongeBoband fly wherever I wanted. You could do a lot with your time, if you knew that you were gonna get to do it all again tomorrow.
ALLEN: You could go to the library and just like pick out everything that anyone has ever done and re-enact it, one by one. I would stick to car chases with no consequences. That would be amazing. That’s the only reason people don’t do it. And still some people do it anyway because it’s that much fun, apparently. It’s prison level fun.
It’s challenging to see if there could be a romantic relationship between these two characters, when they have to keep reliving the day, again and again. Does it feel like it’s hard to progress in a relationship, when you have to start the day all over again, every time it hits midnight?
ALLEN: If the person you’re with is not conscious of the day repeating, I think it would be possible.
NEWTON: Could you imagine if you were in a relationship, and then you were the only one repeating the day?
ALLEN: Yes, that would be Adam Sandler in50 First Dates.
NEWTON: I love that movie so much.
ALLEN: Me too. I watched it so many times, as a kid.
NEWTON: Me too.
ALLEN: He does it very well, but also, that’s scripted. And it’s Drew Barrymore.
NEWTON: With Mark and Margaret, even though they’re living the same day, over and over again, and you think that they have no direction, but Margaret has a focus. Even though Mark is trying really hard to get her, she won’t come off of her track, so that might make it difficult.
Were there aspects of the story or the characters that changed at all, along the way, from when you had first read the script?
NEWTON: I feel like it stayed very true to the story that Lev [Grossman] wrote and to the script. The only thing that changed is probably my hair. Everything else stayed the same. Kyle and I fell into Mark and Margaret so easily. And Ian [Samuels], our director, approached us so sensitively and treated us so carefully. He would whisper. There was just a way that he carried the set and set the tone for the movie. Everything was just about capturing the moment and finding the truth in the moment, and just leaning into that. It was really easy.
ALLEN: Yeah, absolutely. For me, things tend to come together when I’m in the environment and actually there. When you’re studying the script from afar, you create all of these ideas and things, and then you get there and everyone else has also already done that. When that happens and everyone’s bringing what they’ve created for the film together, you get hit with a ton of bricks and you’re like, “Oh, this is what this is. This is what the character is. This is what story is.” One of the most beautiful parts about filmmaking is that everyone brings their vision, and then uses the best of it to create something to give people.
I love how we get the relationship between Mark and Margaret, but we also get their individual relationships with their families.
ALLEN: That was such a huge part, for me, in finding the character. There was Jermaine Harris, as the guy that I see every day and my best friend, and Anna Mikami, who plays Phoebe, who he has a crush on, and Josh Hamilton, who plays his dad, and Cleo Fraser, who plays his sister, and he learns things from all of those people. I just looked at that. They were the people that made Mark. They were the five people that he’s most like. That was really helpful. I just leaned on their performances for that.
Do you guys have a favorite scene or moment in the film, either with each other or just something for your own character that you felt a special connection to?
NEWTON: There’s one scene where we’re eating in the diner and I really loved it because the director told me to do something to Kyle, which was anything I wanted. I threw ice cream at him and it just filled me with so much joy.
ALLEN: We had a lot of fun. I liked the kitchen scene. That was really fun to do, mostly because there was fire and all this action, and we really had to play off each other.
NEWTON: He’s talking about the stair walk scene, where it was all one take and we’re moving through a kitchen and there’s fire and we’re putting a plate down and there were a bunch of extras. It’s a rhythm, and that took us about a week to prepare.
ALLEN: Me and the choreographer, Gabriel Del Vecchio, who is also my mentor, spent a lot of time in prep, just walking through the spaces because there were a few different places around the set that we used to create the sequences. We just spent a lot of time in there, going over it again and again. It’s really beautiful when all of those things pieces come together. That was probably one of the most fun for me.
Kathryn, I love how thePokémonmovie was wild and crazy, but that also worked. Have there been any conversations about sequel? Is that something you’d want to return to?
NEWTON: Oh, my gosh, there was so much talk of a sequel. We were in Japan, talking about the sequel and what the script was, and there was a script being written, and I haven’t heard anything. But I’m dying to know what Lucy Stevens and Psyduck are up to in Ryme City. Who are they saving? What investigations are they a part of? What is she doing?
The Map of Tiny Perfect Thingsis available to stream at Amazon Prime Video.
