Ingersol: A New Voice Belting It Out

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Thursday, 18 February 2016 16:09

Written by Brad Balfour

For Ingersol, music and the arts have always played a big part in her life. Born on July 22, 1990, this Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, native grew up traveling between the US and the UK. Her mother had emigrated from London, England after her parents had met at Oxford University. The 25-year-old singer/songwriter spent her childhood in both countries, which lent a uniqueness to her experience that translates strongly into her music.

At the age of four, Ingersol’s singing debut came about in church choir, and by five years old, she was handling pieces like “Gloria” by Vivaldi and “Bist Du Bie Mir” by Bach. The singer credits choir director Barbara Bruns with promoting her passion for music and performance.

She began playing guitar after a cousin gave her an acoustic that she determinedly plucked at even though it was too big for her to hold correctly. Once her parents bought her a suitably sized electric at 13, Ingersol attended Harcum College’s Summer Music Program where she learned more formally how to play.  

The program focused on rock music with counselors/teachers who were music students from Berkley School of Music, NYU, and UARTS, among others. Ingersol went into the program knowing only how to play Green Day’s “Good Riddance,” but by summer’s end, she crunched out power chords and established a confidence in her musical abilities.  

While there, Ingersol began songwriting and recorded two original songs for her final project; now one of them, “Apocalypse,” is on her debut album, the self-titled Ingersol. Her experience opened her up to knowing more about her own musical direction. 

Three months in Europe visiting Florence, Italy; Paris, France; London, Liverpool, England; and Glasgow, Scotland, during a summer abroad program led her to perform for roommates and “jam” with local musicians — when not in classes. 

Then, while earning her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree from Susquehanna University (‘13), Ingersol also gained experience regularly playing at local venues and charity concerts. 

In her crafting this debut album, she worked extensively with Grammy-nominated producer Alex Salzman, who helped her weave her many musical influences into an intimate, honest, and often profound, songwriting style. And Ingersol completed a video of first single from her debut long player by directed by Erik Palladino.

In addition to her love of music, Ingersol is passionate about painting, sketching, and photography, as well as travel, cooking, family, and animals — especially her family’s pets, currently five cats.

Ingersol’s paintings have been featured as cover art for her alumnus magazine, as well as in several shows.

Ingersol carries her Taylor acoustic guitar (fondly named Babylon) with her everywhere she goes.

And her debut video  can be found on her website:  www.Ingersolmusic.com

Q: Some of your songs have a dark side. Do you have a dark side?

I: I think that it’s something in everybody. Having a dark side just isn’t pronounced when you meet somebody and that’s why I decided to do music the way I do it. I wanted to keep it honest and have it be accessible to people. I’m a happy person on the outside and the inside as well, but everybody goes through rough and tumble times. It’s important to be able to articulate that.

Q: Which of these songs were inspired by your kitty?

I: He’s my mascot, I just have to make sure I sing to him instead.

Q: Does he get the dark songs or the more up tempo songs?

I: He gets the bright and happy songs because he is just a little ball of love. 

Q: Which song is the best for your kitty and why?

I: I think for Pepe it would be "Apocalypse" because "Apocalypse" has that quirky, upbeat, a little bit dark, but uplifting kind of grasp to it. I think Pepe my cat, embodies that. It’s about loving something until death or the apocalypse comes.

Q: So at least you want him to survive to, if not through, the apocalypse.  Everyone associates songs with relationships, what song would you associate with a relationship and what were the circumstances?

I: "Love the Way" is pretty close to embodying all those things because it’s a lovey song and feeling love no matter where you are in life or location you are. So having that long distance relationship and how difficult that can be. I could play that song for somebody I was in love with and it hits close to home with a lot of people that I’ve talked to about it. 

Q: Are all your songs rooted in relationships?

I: "Chasing Shadows" is the most tumultuous relationship description because as an art major and a fool in the middle of nowhere I was surrounded by not the best sort of people sometimes. So I knew drug addicts and people like that I had never been. I was dating a guy that was into drugs and I didn’t know about that. He ended up choosing drugs over me and that’s how I found out A) he was an addict and B) we were over. 

It was supposed to be a slam poem about our relationship. I wrote it with my roommate  and then I was saying it out loud to them and they said, “you should write a song.” So I turned it into a song and he said it helped. It really hit close to home for him during all of that.

Q: What can you tell the tale behind other songs? Are all the songs specific to relationships?

I: They’re all specific to relationships in some way, shape, or form. “Sailor” is about my great grandparents. My great grandfather was a flight deck commander for the USS Shangri-La during World War II. He passed away in 1999 and my great grandmother passed away in 2006. So I had most of my life to get to know them very well. 

When they died I was going through all this stuff and I found the letters my great grandmother wrote to my great grandfather while he was away in the Pacific. I obviously elaborated a tiny bit for the song, but I decided I wanted to write a song about their love and no matter how far away they were or how hard things they were going through were, they always had each other to come back to.  

Q: You might have a whole future album in those letters.

I: I love them. They make me tear up every time I read them.

Q: And any others?

I: My single, “Comfort Comfort,” has a cool story. The whole conflict behind “Comfort Comfort” was in my younger relationships, when you feel comfortable with somebody but you don’t really think you’re in love and it’s that awkward in between phase when you want to spend all your time with them but you can’t understand why. You’re comfortable being around them and that song is about that feeling. I couldn’t figure out a word for it, so I had to write a song about it instead.

Q: How did you meet producer Alex Salzman? Was the musical attraction immediate?

I: We met through my manager Liz when we were looking into recording. I drove up to his studio and played a few songs in his beautiful studio. We got to talking and it was like a lightbulb turned on. His vast knowledge of everything in the industry and our similarities in music appreciation really helped us hit it off. I think I started recording with him a few months later. He put so much into this album.

Alex deserves a lot of recognition for this, because he worked day in and day out. We’d wake up and get to the studio at 10 and be there all night. He worked his butt off and I couldn’t have done it without him. He deserves a lot of kudos for everything he has done. Alex really is incredible. He is talented on so many levels. I have never met someone that talented ever. 

Q: How did he finesse the songs?

I: Finesse is the key word because I come up with these crazy ideas like, “How about a glockenspiel” or, “let’s add a dulcimer.” Alex would be like, “Okay, let’s pick one of those.” 

If you listen to the songs carefully you can hear a bunch of instruments coming in and out. That’s where Alex really shone through, getting the arrangement together so it made sense. He’s just a genius when it comes to that.

Q: What’s been the most rewarding so far in making record or the first video?

I: Honestly, it’s really hard to pick just one. This whole experience has been a whirlwind. Recording the album was a dream come true. Everything about it [was incredible] from being in a studio every day recording and tweaking things, to meeting the incredible musicians on the album and getting their insight on my work.

The video helped me really put into perspective how big we were going. The video director Erik Palladino really blew me away with his vision and gave me a chance to get on stage and do what I love to do. 

Q: You also paint; if you have the option between painting or singing, but for you was it ever really a choice?

I: Art and music go hand in hand. It’s really difficult to say I’d be doing one or the other, it’s as the wind blows and how I’m feeling.

There’s a quote from Leopold Stokowski that I always get wrong, but I’ll see if I can remember it. "A painter paints on canvas, while a musician paints on silence."

It’s that same concept, I always have a craving to fill empty space, whether it’s with beautiful loud obnoxious noises or actual physical paint. It’s just that I want to alter the emptiness. 

Q: What was the first song you heard — do you remember it? Is your music rooted in it? 

I: I have the lyrics to Sting’s "Fields of Gold" tattooed on my foot. The first time I heard "Fields of Gold" was on a cassette tape in my living room and I fell in love from there, I just needed it. There’s something behind the story of words and Sting is incredible. Sting always hits me right in the feels. 

I also really identified with Freddie Mercury growing up, and still do to this day, I know pretty much every Queen lyric. We never watched TV growing up, so I would listen to his voice and imagine him marching around the stage with his microphone. I didn’t even know what he looked like at the time. It was just from how my parents described him. 

I also listened to “Smash” by the Offspring a lot as a kid and they have remained a staple throughout my life. They are so energetic and sharp. Their lyrics did wonders for my four year old self.

Q: How old were you?

I: Around three years old. I had been listening to so many types of music my whole life that it’s hard to name one, but I think that was the first conscious moment where I remember listening to a song and saying, “Oh gosh, I love this.”

Q: And what was the very first concert you attended?

I: The first concert I went to was a Pink concert back when she was doing “Missundaztood.” My parents originally said I wasn’t allowed to go because she was risque and I was like 12 years old. But it was for a friend’s birthday party so they agreed to let me go. She was so incredible and cool on stage.  I was blown away seeing her perform. I wanted to do that.

Q: Was this before Pink did the circus and acrobatic stuff?

I: This was before that. This was when she had pink hair and it was shorn on one side.

Q: So how do you feel about the statement that women can’t rock?

I: I strongly disagree with that statement, that women can’t rock. There is a certain type of person that has to be a rocker and it might just fall into being more men than women because of the barrier of women not being able to do things. 

Through the years women have been able to step forward and really hold their own on the stage when it comes to rock. I know women are generally more emotional than men, so there’s a deeper seed of the lyric of the rock music. If anything women are better at rocking.

Q: There are certain female singer/song writers you didn’t reference in your bio like Tori Amos or Kate Bush. What do you think of them?

I: I definitely know both of them very well. What I struggle with is that I listen to so many different types of music and I get inspiration from all of them. I struggle to pinpoint who my favorite artists are or who my influences are because everybody is an influence. If I listen to a song once it’s in my music repertoire. There are so many amazing women in music history and rock history that I just draw a blank.

Q: How much did you improvise for this record or is it more structured?

I: A lot of it is improvised because of my history of jam bands.

Q: Did you go to Grateful Dead concerts?

I: No [laughs]. In college I had a band and we used to play every single weekend. We’d do concerts, like battle of the bands type stuff to raise money for different organizations and we’d do other fundraisers for fraternities and sororities and for the school in general. We had a lot of fun. Having that as our background made doing improv an integral part of  recording, which will also hopefully translate to page. It’s been a while, so I’m really excited for spring to come so I can get back up there.

Q: With a name like Ingersol, there’s some European element in your background; isn’t that Scandinavian?

I: Nordic, somewhere in the North. It’s a family name. My parents met in England, so my mom is definitely from the other side of the pond. My dad’s family is Mayflower family. Pretty old school America. It’s a pretty interesting mix of cultures.

Q: How does that affect your music? Is it rooted in your background?

I: I grew up listening to a lot of classical music where instead of having an A, B, A, B arrangement you have a very complicated arrangement where it stems from emotions. You want to bring people up and take them back down and really throw them around.

And Alex Salzman, my producer, has a really strong background in classical music. With us sitting in the studio together we came up with these wild arrangements where at first we’d be like “this is too wild, too crazy.” And then we sit with it, add a theremin to it, and decide it’s perfect. It was interesting to see everything blend together, our taste in music and stuff like that.

Q: Do you dream of a day when you can bring in a full orchestra for a recording or tour?

I: I hope so. That would be so incredible. There were so many talented musicians that worked on the album and it would be great to get them back again or other talented musicians. The Ingersol Orchestra, let’s get that started, it’d be awesome.

Q: Does your music have a healing force or is it for your own therapy?

I: That’s a tough question because I can only speak for myself. It’s helped me a lot to grow and change and learn about the world and myself. I know my little sister has always loved it and that it helped her grow a little bit, but I don’t know for sure about other people. I think that there’s a level of honesty and surprise in it that helps me at least.

Q: How old is your sister?

I: She’s 18, she just started college.

Q: She keeps you on the youthful tip, right? You’re already over the hill!

I: [laughs] She tries.

Q: It’s not like she suggests that you put a rapper into the mix.

I: No, but she wouldn’t be opposed to it. She’s pretty well rooted in the things I like ’70s rock. She listens to more Led Zeppelin than people my age. 

Q: Where do you live now?

I: I live outside Philadelphia right now. Born and raised.

Q: Do you think your music has a suburban quality?

I: Right now we’re technically in the city but I don’t count it as center city. Philadelphia is such a sprawling place. Kind of suburban but a little bit Philadelphia. 

Q: Philadelphia is very under appreciated. It has a great Chinatown.

I: I agree, it’s just great. 

Q: Do you associate any of your songs with food?

I: I probably need to start doing that.

Q: Do you have songs you recommend for when people are eating?

I: I like the old Kentucky-Fried-Chicken-and-a-Pizza-Hut song. My eating food music is definitely John Coltrane.

Q: Jazz giant John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme is one of the first records I ever owned.

I:  It’s so good. I cry every time I listen to it.

Q: It’s an important record. It does all the right things, it makes you aspire to higher planes.

I: It wraps all your emotions into one big ball and pushes it down onto a record plate and you just play it over and over and over and just get wrapped up in it.

Q: Do you think you could live without music or art?

I: I don’t think I could ever live without music. Music is my art, art is just an outlet for it, if that makes any sense.

Q: What made you so disciplined to play music?

I: It was really just my need to make noises. I had been singing for as long as I can remember. Everything I could say I would sing instead. I was never good at taking lessons of any type so I had to teach myself everything.

It was just listening to records or movies and deciding I was gonna play it, then just sitting down and figuring it out. It’s like solving a math equation or something like that. I have to do this. I’m really stubborn. 

Q: I could never stand my own singing enough to stick with music. You don’t have to think about that. Sound comes out of you and it sounds right.

I: I’m sure it’s the same as with you and writing. It’s like how you just write something down and it just clicks?

Q: No, it’s complete and utter torture for me!

I: It’s just feeling, really. When I go to speak, sometimes I just feel like I need to sing instead. I was born with this thing inside of me that I just need to make noise and it turned out to be actual music, which is pretty cool.

Q: When did somebody say you should be a musician?

I: When I was a little baby we did singing in school and it made me really happy. My parents have always been so supportive and say, “Oh you’re the best.” But you know when your parents say you’re the best sometimes it doesn’t actually means that, they just love you. That’s what I was worried about. But over the years I figured out I might have something still.

Q: Did you do solos when you did choir?

I: I did duets with my big sister. That was when everyone said, “Oh my gosh, they’re so great.” and we did all the duets after that.

Q: You have a big sister too?

I: I’m one of three girls. My big sister is 28 and the little one is 18. 

Q: Are they expecting you to put them to work?

I: I hope so. My little one wants to do a Christmas album with me. She’s so talented. 

Q: What would be your ultimate Christmas song?

I: I would love to do “Silent Night.”  It’s nice and simple but beautiful.

Crowdfunding on IndieGoGo: Filmmaker Kenny Hargrove’s Snow Campaign

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Sunday, 10 January 2016 18:18

Written by Donna Cheng

Kenny Hargrove wants to raise money — fast. A week before his January 21 deadline on IndieGoGo’s crowdfunding platform, he has 80 plus contributors donate approximately $7000 for the pre-production phase of his first feature film project, Snow. 

Unlike Kickstarter’s “all or nothing” policy," IndieGoGo lets you keep all the money you raise (minus the 5% platform fee and 3-5% transaction fees) whether you make the funding goal or not if the flexible funding option is chosen. Hargrove’s pressure is that an anonymous British angel backer promised to match $10,000 of the intial $25,000 funding goal, but only if $15,000 is raised. His campaign page is on: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/snow--4#/

The campaign’s press release pitches the film as “Male Filmmaker Crowdfunds to Break Hollywood’s Glass Ceiling for Female Dramas.” The tagline is “Snow: A Woman’s Journey Toward Love and Destiny,” and is compared to Madame Bovary, and Under the Tuscan Sun. “What would you do?” asks Rose, the protagnist when presented with a female’s complex choices, in the campaign’s pitch video on YouTube.

A former financial journalist in Asia and now a screenwriter and playwright living in Los Angeles, Hargrove has had experience writing press releases and marketing that is his advantage. Pre-launch, he had cultivated 10,000 plus followers on Twitter and more recently on Facebook beforehand, retweeting a refined cultural mix of art, indie films, and dance.

Hargrove also networks consistently in Los Angeles film and theater circles, well groomed in his Ivy League style, seen photographed with upcoming actors at industry events. Experts say that only 1% of followers will be core supporters, and that only 10% may donate. A filmmaker would need to have a considerable following or contact list before considering crowdfunding.

The campaign’s launch, with the help of his “campaign ambassador” team of nine females and one male, was announced not only with emailing contacts but maintained in social media. A steady stream of pretty photos of the film’s heroine and classic movie actresses are posted daily, and Hargrove also cleverly links current news involving women to his campaign plea.

He splashily thanks donors by name on his social media, and provides video updates in his personable manner, strolling by a romantic foggy coastline. His Twitter handle is: @peaseblossom7. His Facebook page: www.facebook.com/thesnowmovie

Using IndieGoGo’s self-help platform, he tweaks his campaign’s messaging and perks, upping the levels from hand-written poetry about you from Danish poet, Ulrikka Gernes, to free room and board as an extra or intern in Tuscany. You have to admire Kenny Hargrove’s charming persistence.

Hargrove (right) further elaborates on his campaign for Snow in the following interview.

[All photos in this story by Lindsey Ricker]

Q:  What is the meaning of the title Snow?

KH: As I mentioned in today’s campaign update, it’s a metaphor for trying new things, exploring new challenges.  I’d never experienced a snowfall until I left California for New Jersey when I went to Princeton.  So, it’s about experiencing the new.  The protagonist Rose has similarly never had the experience of having a snowflake fall on her. 

Q:  Do you want to open up and talk about the LGBT affair?

KH:  Sure.  It’s actually featured in one of the promo videos, the scene with the two women at the pool.  I tend to shy away from it because it’s the dominant subplot but it’s really not what the story is about.  I’m happy if people see Snow as a love story but it’s really a change your life story.  That said, the poetess that the painter Rose falls for does help to move the story along and makes it more of an art film.

Q:  Why Is the real life poet so important to this film?

KH:  She’s a dear friend and I’m eager to help get the word out globally about her wonderful poems.   That said, it’s not really critical which country the poet is from or that she is a poet necessarily.  I just thought since Danish actresses had originally asked me to write something for them, why not use the work of my real life Danish poet friend Ulrikka Gernes? I’m really happy she’s a part of the project.  She’s very encouraging and an incredible human being.

Q:  Is she donating to the film?

KH:  Yes.  She is donating the use of her work in the actual screenplay.  She is donating perks in the form of handwritten poems that will be mailed from Denmark for crowdfunding donors.   Through her, her publisher has also donated 25 copies of her latest poetry collection to the campaign as well as a perk.  Additionally, she did make a contribution to the crowdfunding campaign, which was a nice surprise.  She’s given so much in other ways, it seemed unnecessary.  That said, we need every cent that we can get.

Q:  Are you the anonymous matching donor?

KH:  No.  I’m a starving artist.  If I had $10,000 extra to donate to the project I’d probably not pursue a crowdfunding campaign.  It’s too much work and I would have preferred to have remained a private person.

Q:  Have you written the script yet?

KH:  Yes.  This is my first screenplay and everything I’ve learned about writing as well as directing has gone into it.  That’s why it’s so personal.  The first draft was completed in 2005.  I began to shop it around in 2007 after table readings in New York and Los Angeles and also staging some scenes through my directing workshop but it wasn’t until 2009 that it was really good.

Q:  Have you cast the film?

KH:  No.  Some “name” actors had been verbally attached but as their careers take off they’ve tended to forget about little indie films.  That said, the script is out to a few Oscar Nominees at the moment whom I don’t want to mention.

Q:  Is the swimming pool promo a sample of what to expect?

KH:  Yes and no.  There is no swimming pool scene in the movie.  However, we shot the promos during the summer at the Hollywood Hills home of the cinematographer so it seemed like a fun thing to do.  But, as I mentioned earlier, the relationship with the Danish poetess Oona does help to drive the story.

Q:  This is your first crowdfunding campaign. Why was the campaign time extended?

KH:  The basic problem is that most people that I want to reach still don’t know about the campaign.  I should have contacted several hundred people before the campaign but I’m doing it as I go along on a one-on-one basis.  That’s very time consuming.  We’re just beginning to move into mass contacting of groups of people.  

It’s not really what I prefer but we don’t have time.  Hopefully that will speed things up.  It does seem to take several days between when I contact someone and when they actually donate so an extension could make sense. Lots of people said that they would donate.  Hopefully they will.  The question is when and how much.

Q:  What do you plan to do concretely with the first round of funding?

KH:  This seed money is for the lawyers to draft private placement memoranda and talent attachment letters (formal offers to “name” talent), a casting director to help find “name” talent”, and a line producer to help revise the budget, which hasn’t been updated in 8 years.

Q:  What do you think the real cost of the film will be in the end?

KH:  The current pie-in-the-sky budget from 2007 is $2.8 million not including salaries of “name” talent.  However, it can be revised downward significantly by using the low budget agreements of the various guilds, deferring as much salary as possible, and making use of state-level incentives programs that can easily cut costs by 20% or more.  Unless we can attach a “name” actor or two, it would be wise to get the budget down towards $1 million so that investors have some hope of recouping their investment.

Q:  What is this SEC stock investment about?

KH: President Obama’s 2012 Jobs Act offers new financing tools for smaller and newer businesses and investors in the form of equity crowdfunding.   This is done at least partly online like donation -based crowdfunding but the funds involved are much larger and the process requires SEC scrutiny.  Instead of receiving t-shirts and mugs, investors get equity.  If a film makes money, they make money. 

The part that interests me is Title III, which the SEC just approved October 30.  It allows new companies to raise as much as $1 million using as many as 99 investors and relatively minimal documentation.  It’s basically a poor man’s version of an initial public offering of stock.  While it sounds perfect for indie filmmakers, some lawyers caution about potential lawsuits from less sophisticated smaller investors (who were previously barred from buying securities). 

Most film projects don’t get made.  Most that do get made lose money.  You have to find investors who understand that basic statistic and are still comfortable joining the project for reasons other than return on investment.   Hopefully I won’t have to go that route.  Hopefully, having higher visibility through the donation-based crowdfunding will attract funds from friendly investors and film production companies in a more private way.  I feel that it may be already happening.  The universe is now aware of my project and is beginning to push it towards fruition.  At least that’s how things have felt over the past few weeks.

If you would like to donate, head over to his IndieGoGo page: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/snow--4#/

FF Cast Talks About Becoming Superheroes in Making “Fantastic Four"

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Interviews

Published on Tuesday, 11 August 2015 18:28

Written by Brad Balfour

In the aftermath of Fantastic Four’s opening, critical reaction hasn’t exactly been glowing. From established critics to the blogosphere, from the Rotten Tomato reporters to serious fan-geeks, this Fantastic Four re-imagining hasn’t fared well — though maybe it is an overreaction, given the huge expectations developed by a fan base 50 years in the making.

When artist Jack Kirby and writer Stan Lee's creation, Fantastic Four number one, appeared in November, 1961, Marvel Comics barely existed. DC Comics -- home of Superman and Batman --  defined the superhero genre at the time. So there was a need to go against the grain with heroes that did not necessarily relish having powers, ones that were bestowed upon them accidentally. The Four’s real powers were their brains, quality of character and determination to both be normal and/or use the powers for something other than themselves. Their nemesis, Dr. Doom, was the embodiment of fury and self-obsession.

The groundswell that made Fantastic Four a benchmark in comic book history -- and the core series in Marvel’s history -- also built up a level of anticipation that was not rewarded with 20th Century Fox's first cinematic edition of Fantastic Four or its sequel, Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

Released in 2005 and 2007, these two tried but didn’t quite establish both the grand mythos or the quirky charm of the longstanding printed series. Its cast — older, established actors Ioan Gruffudd, Michael Chiklis, Jessica Alba and Chris Evans — tried but didn’t quite succeed in convincing audiences of their super-ness.

So when the quartet of leads who play this Four — Miles Teller (Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic), Kate Mara (Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman), Michael B. Jordan (Johnny Storm/The Human Torch), and Jamie Bell (Ben Grimm/Thing) came to an Apple Store to do a Q&A just before the film’s opening, they offered some insight into the making of this new-gen Fantastic Four. In doing so, they gave the audience a sense of the film’s creation and the dynamic the cast developed to make it work for them.

In being rebooted, this film deviates from the core origin storyline by making their visit not into outer space but to another dimension and offers a far more sinister and deadly Victor Von Doom played by Toby Kebbell).In being rebooted, this film deviates from the core origin storyline by making their visit not into outer space but to another dimension and offers a far more sinister and deadly Doctor Doom. Much of the blame has been laid at the feet of everyone from the studio, to the director Josh Trank and/or producers or even some of the performances. Yet this cast has shown a pretty enthusiastic belief in their performances and how they were making the best of it all for the release of this film.

Whatever has been said about the film since its opening, no one can fault the cast’s credits in establishing acting chops and opportunities to try on a range of characters.

Of the four, Teller’s been in the spotlight most recently having had lead roles in two critically acclaimed films — 2013’s The Spectacular Now and last year’s award nominee Whiplash. He’s also portrayed Peter Hayes in the commercially successful The Divergent series and will headline the upcoming biopic Bleed for This, playing boxer Vinny Paz.

Jordan has also culled some serious accolades, particularly for his performance as shooting victim Oscar Grant in the award-worthy Fruitvale Station. But he also built his own fan base through a couple of high profile, gritty television series, Friday Night Lights (as East Dillon High School quarterback Vince Howard) and The Wire (as teenage dealer Wallace). He also played Steve Montgomery in FF’s director Josh Trank’s debut scifi thriller Chronicle, and, costarred alongside Zac Efron and Miles Teller, in 2014's That Awkward Moment.

Jamie Bell has shuttled between copping serious creds playing Revolutionary War spy Abraham Woodhull in the TV series, Turn: Washington's Spies  and a set of genre-based vehicles such as 2005 's King Kong, Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin (2011), to the futuristic Jumper (2008), produced by FF’s Simon Kinberg (there's a sequel underway) and the much praised Snowpiercer (2013). An English actor and dancer, this 29-year old rose to prominence in his debut Billy Elliot (he won the BAFTA for Best Actor in a Leading Role in 2000).

While Kate Mara hasn’t been in the action spotlight of her younger sister Rooney who starred in Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, she's made her mark as a character actor in the Netflix political drama House of Cards as Zoe Barnes, appeared in the Fox series 24 as computer analyst Shari Rothenberg and was in the FX horror mini-series American Horror Story: Murder House as Hayden McClaine. The 32-year-old actress made her film debut in 1999 with Random Hearts and was cast in 2005's Brokeback Mountain.

Nonetheless, despite the disparaging reviews and advance notice swirling around them, this quartet was enthused by that day’s fan ballyhoo and this Q&A was culled from that event. Excelsior.

Q: This is a different, darker, more serious spin on the superhero genre in general and Fantastic Four in particular. Are you playing Sue Storm or are you playing a “superhero?”

KM: This was a unique superhero film screen test, for me, anyway, because I’ve screen tested for many of them and never got any roles, unfortunately. But with all the other ones I’ve auditioned for, you have to get in costume and do the powers and all that. This one was more about the chemistry between Miles, Jamie, Michael and I. So it didn’t feel like any other drama or film I auditioned for.

Q: Fantastic Four is a beloved property in a genre that has good standing right now in pop culture. Everyone has been excited for this film and the other superhero films coming out right now. Michael, did you go after this, or did its producers come after you?

MJ: I’m in a unique position because this is something I’ve always wanted to do, but it came at me. It was a great opportunity to work with [director] Josh Trank [who had worked with Jordan on his debut sci-fi superpowered Chronicle]. We were playing video and sitting in the house one day talking about future ambitions, and he asked me if I wanted a job and if Johnny Storm is someone I wanted to play, and I said, “Yeah.” It was an awesome opportunity and I’m glad it worked out.

Q: Miles, were you able to see yourself in this context when you heard about this character and read about him? It’s different from other roles you’ve played.

MT: I have pretty eclectic taste and that’s a good thing to have. You want to keep yourself fresh; you don’t want to repeat yourself. I had just got done playing a character that’s closer to Johnny’s thing, [one with] a bit more of a temper.

That wouldn’t have interested me at the time. But I was into this guy who’s obsessed with science and discovery — wanting to push the human race forward. I love that kind of spirit in Reed. He doesn’t care about whether or not this person likes me or if they think I’m weird, no, man. He’s dead set on creating something that will give us the ability to travel inter-dimensionally [no matter what], and I like that [attitude].

Q: Jamie, you’ve done motion capture performances before. Could you have done this role without having that knowledge and experience going in?

JB: Well, I’ve worked a few times with Andy Serkis, who’s considered a guru of performance capture. For those who don’t know him, he did Gollum in Lord of the Rings and Caesar in Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

So I had seen how Andy really used this technology to his advantage and really got under the skin of these characters, and [was able to] move audiences around the world and give them these experiences. So having worked with him before on Tintin, that technology was useful.

Q: What does it look like on set when the scene is in another dimension and you’re playing The Thing, which is not a suit, but it is performance capture. Are you in a void? What does it look like?

JB: It’s just a green void. It’s green, everything is green. The floor’s green, the wall is green, everything is green.

KM: Jamie’s suit was green as well.

JB: I’m basically in pajamas that look like a jockey with a wig cap on and I got [to wear] stilts to get me up to 6’8”. But the funny thing about that is that I’m in scenes with these guys….

For us it’s a leap of faith in terms of acting, as though we’re in an environment and then reacting as such and then it’s going to be put on the screen. We really have to have a lot of faith and trust in the director and the story so we don’t look like idiots when the movie comes out.

Q: Earlier this summer, with another big movie [The Avengers], actress Elizabeth Olson [Scarlet Witch] said she had to do what you had to do, create something with her hands, and you just have to go with it. Do you feel silly on set, or do you feel like, “I’m in it with these guys, I can’t half-ass it.”

KM: The first day I thought I felt like an idiot, but then you have to own it. You got to go for it. Also, we all had to do stupid things, so any time I felt stupid I just looked at Jamie.

Q: What were the stupid things Miles and Michael had to do?

MT: It was a scene — I think they show it in the trailer — they were trying to get this one line and I was saying, “The light, it’s swallowing the earth!” Every time we’d do it they just didn’t get it. So they’d re-write it or add a scene and I would just be in a different environment saying, “The light! it’s swallowing the earth!”

We did it in three different scenes, and after a while I’m just like, “Screw the light. Let the earth get swallowed, it’s not a big deal.”

And the stretching stuff, it’s all in your imagination. When I’m on the bed and my body is stretching, Josh was walking me through it, saying, “Your hand is stretching down and going to this grate and your fingers are grabbing it.” And it’s nice, it takes you out of your head and you just have to give in to the process.

Q: Michael, you play a superhero that flies — did you have to work on your flying pose?

MJ: You want to have your own unique kind of style with this, so I played with a couple different poses and I went with what I was most comfortable with. With those safety harnesses and flying harnesses, they aren’t as comfortable to the males as they are to the females, what with the way the anatomy is made up, if you follow me. So that was the most uncomfortable part of the movie, the flying stuff and the harnesses.

Q: How much of your costumes were CGI or actual outfits?

MT: The wardrobe was not CGI at all. Obviously when Michael is flaming-on, it has to be CGI to look like flames. But the suits… Reed’s looks different because built his own suit at one point. And you have to think, if I’m building a suit and also stretching all the time, it has to contain all that business so I’m not overflowing with limbs and stuff. So yeah, the suits were all real.

Q: You have all been in some great TV series. I’ve seen Jamie in Turn and Michael in The Wire as Wallace. Like the Marvel Universe, these shows have huge fan bases. How did these two experiences relate?

MJ: I don’t know. When the Wire came out it was after the fact that it got attention, it wasn’t while we were filming it.

Q: The same for Friday Night Lights.

MJ: Friday Night Lights was also an awesome show. But it’s the same thing. I didn’t get the instant gratification from the fans. This movie hasn’t even come out yet and a massive amount of fans are here showing love, so it’s pretty awesome to be part of the Marvel Universe.

Q: Miles, what was the best thing you got from acting school and the worst thing?

MT: Being in acting school was the greatest time in my life. It’s tough going from film set to film set and you have to work on yourself. In theater school, you’re with sixteen other weirdos in sweatpants who are pretending to be seaweed while their teacher is playing whale music, and you’re pushing an imaginary box across a ballet stage for 30 minutes, stuff like that.

If you’re not learning and you’re not growing and not getting to work on things… I miss it, yeah.

The worst thing, the debt. The student loans. And also, I think a lot of people got caught up in… they couldn’t do sense memories or some can’t hold a coffee cup and they forget at the end of the day you’re just talking to another person, so they can get a little intellectual. But it was the best experience of my life.

KM: I knew I wanted to be an actor when I was nine years old. I used to watch movies with my mom and little sister. I was completely obsessed with film then and it was all I wanted to do.

Q: Who were your superhero inspirations?

JB: Tim Burton’s Batman.

MT: I liked Batman, but for me it was also Indiana Jones and Dick Tracy.

MJ: There are so many, but I’m going say Darkwing Duck.

KM: I loved Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman.

Q: And if you had powers, what would they be?

KM: I’ll give MBJ a power that he needs, and it’s to be on time.

ALL: Ooooohhh [laughs].

MJ: I want… The power to stop time.

KM: You do that already.

MT: I dunno, man. Fly, just fly. I took yours, right?

JB: For me? Teleportation… [Laughs].