Michael Cera, Sophia Lillis, and Hannah Gross on Bad Accents and “Humbling” Choreography Fails Filming ‘The Adults’ (2024)

This interview was conducted prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Michael Cera is a master of playing awkwardly lovable weirdos. From Superbad to Juno to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, he’s made a name for himself in these excellently eccentric dramedies. Sophia Lillis has had a somewhat similar career path, oftentimes playing the offbeat outcast in projects like It, I Am Not Okay With This, and , and Hannah Gross has found a niche in the indie sphere as well as appeared in more commercial projects like Joker and Mindhunter.

Together, they’re electric as the core trio in Dustin Guy Defa’s The Adults. The three of them play fractured siblings: Cera is Eric, the eldest and most emotionally unavailable who’s struggling with a poker addiction; Gross plays Rachel, the responsible and uptight middle child; and Lillis is Maggie, the youngest and sweetest who just wants everyone to get along. Their chemistry is undeniable as they do silly voices, strange bits, and spontaneous songs and dances in an attempt to reconnect.

And their chemistry is obvious in this interview, too, where the three of them spent the whole time laughing and teasing one another as I asked them about which character they relate to most, the special way in which their own families communicate, the most difficult scene to shoot, choreographing their own dances, and more.

COLLIDER: First of all, congratulations on this movie — I really love that the heart of it is sort of this relationship between these three siblings, and the dynamic feels so authentic and lived in. I'm curious if you did anything specific to try to build that chemistry between you three.

[Silence. Laughter.]

MICHAEL CERA: I think you can see the chemistry is very alive.

HANNAH GROSS: Any more questions?

CERA: It lives on. It lives on. We rehearsed.

GROSS: It was very much in the script.

SOPHIA LILLIS: It was fun because, like a week in advance, when we met, we had to make up these characters and voices and dances, and it was fun because you don't do that as an adult just normally. But getting to like be kids in front of people and you just meet them — it's kind of a really, really quick icebreaker. I think that helped a lot.

CERA: And dancing. Choreography, which is very humbling — to dance in front of people.

LILLIS: And sing. I’m a solo karaoke type of person.

I love that. And you mentioned the script, which is such a great script. You also mentioned that you brought your own things to it and sort of helped develop these voices and these characters. I'm curious how much was in the script and how much you were allowed to improv and bring yourself to it.

CERA: It was quite scripted. Not really that much improvising that I remember except to sort of loosen things up or make things feel natural and not too scripted. But the script is very specific and structured in a very conscientious way. So we sort of just worked on the script.

Definitely. I feel like all the characters are so specific — you've all been mentioning that, and I feel like you can really relate to all of them. I'm curious if there is one specific character you feel like you're the most like or that you relate to the most. Is it your own, or is it maybe someone else in this trio of siblings?

LILLIS: I see a bit of myself in Maggie. I am technically the youngest sibling. I have a twin brother — he's older than me by like a minute. And then I have a stepbrother who's older than me by…I should know…

CERA: By more than a minute.

LILLIS: By more than a minute.

CERA: Put it that way.

LILLIS: So I'm definitely the youngest, technically. So I get that kind of relationship. It is very similar to my own experience.

What about you, Hannah and Michael?

GROSS: I would say I’m Eric.

CERA: To a T. I don't know if I relate really to any of these people. Maybe Maggie. Maggie if anything. I don't have come from like a warring sibling thing — like they kind of have this silent cold war thing happening between them, and Maggie is sort of the peacekeeper. I'm a middle child myself, and I sort of relate to that a little bit — the keeping-the-peace, trying-to-keep-things-harmonious thing that Maggie is burdened with.

RELATED: ‘The Adults’ Review: Michael Cera Finds Authenticity in Specificity

I really love how this film sort of captures that specific language that families speak with each other — I think obviously through song and dance and through humor. Is there a specific language that you would say that your own family speaks? I know mine is movie references. My family's always speaking through movie references.

CERA: There's a lot of that. A lot of that in my family. Actually, I have an older sister who does quite a lot of voices. Not like invented characters like this, but she's just sort of like an amazing impressionist. But she'll do anybody. She'll go to the DMV and have a weird person serving her, and then she'll come home and tell you the story and really render that person, and it's great.

GROSS: I'd say bad accents are probably my family language.

CERA: That’s a fun one.

LILLIS: We like those, too. I wish there was movie references in my family. My brother doesn't like movies, which is just so odd to me. That's so strange.

GROSS: We're going to restrain him tonight.

CERA: Do you think that's sort of an attack on you and your life choices?

LILLIS: You know, I don’t think much about it. He just said it feels like it's a waste of time to sit down and watch something for two hours. I guess that’s something. That means he's active.

GROSS: Productive.

LILLIS: Productive. That's a good mindset. But he's coming to this one, so he's gonna have to suck it up. But as for their sibling talk, no, I don't really know what it is. It’s kind of stuff that we've experienced before and we talk about again. He does do some voices. He's more of a physical guy — he does more physical acting instead of voices.

I think that the tone of this movie is so cool because there is obviously some really raw emotion and drama going on, but it is really funny — I laughed out loud multiple times. I'm curious about what was the most difficult thing to shoot and then what was the most fun scene to shoot was on the other side of that.

CERA: When you say difficult, the first thing that comes to mind for me is when we were doing our scene in the backyard where we do all of our characters in this sort of showdown, horrible thing, but it was just very, very cold.

LILLIS: Oh, physically.

CERA: It was physically challenging and also very challenging as far as what we were all having to do and retain — kind of demanding in that way, especially, I think, for Hannah, who was like destroying her voice.

GROSS: Later to be put on the audience, who has to listen.

CERA: Transference of pain.

GROSS: That’s what good acting is.

CERA: That’s what we do.

LILLIS: You guys tucked it out.

GROSS: You were there.

LILLISH: I was also there. I didn't say much. I was like, “Don’t do it. Let’s party.” I think that’s what I say.

CERA: You were enduring the cold.

LILLIS: Well, yeah.

GROSS: Feeling little hot pockets just turn to rocks.

That makes a lot of sense. Michael, one of my favorite one of your other films is Molly's Game , in which you also coincidentally play a poker player. I’m curious if there’s something about that sort of character and world that draws you to it because I feel like that's such an interesting parallel.

CERA: You know, what's funny is with this movie, Dustin [Guy Defa] had been developing the script — Dustin who wrote and directed the movie, our friend — and there was no poker aspect in the script until kind of like the 11th hour of the script. But Dustin discovered poker himself through the pandemic, and he and I were part of a poker group on Zoom with a bunch of people having a little activity to lose our minds during the pandemic. And Dustin got really intrigued by it and put it in, and it became such a major part of this character and this movie. But that just came up that way. But yeah, I love how all of Dustin's personal poker emotions got channeled into this character because it can be very aggravating, playing poker.

So fair. We were talking about the singing aspect, and I have to say, you all genuinely sound so good together. I'm curious if you have a favorite musical moment of the film, and then the follow-up question is when are you dropping the album?

LILLIS: I thought it was a lot of fun doing that final scene. I don't know about the singing aspect but the dance that we did because it was sort of a last-minute thing. But Hannah and I worked on it like a day like a weekend before. We were getting kind of nervous because we kept mentioning, like, “We are not choreographers. We did not know we were gonna be tasked with doing this, but we hope it's good.”

CERA: I remember when they showed me and Dustin this choreography that they'd been working on — it was such a good moment.

GROSS: It did feel very familial to be like, [deep breath] “Okay.”

CERA: I remember shooting that scene because there's this one section of the choreography that you left open for freestyle. And remember when we were shooting, Hannah saw an opportunity to like slide between Sophie’s legs, but Sophia didn't open her legs, so Hannah just slid on the dirty floor. It was really dirty.

LILLIS: That was really funny.

CERA: That killed me.

LILLIS: It was a really good choice.

GROSS: And that’s on the cutting room floor.

Hopefully, we'll get it in a deleted scene. I feel like I really need that in my life.

The Adults is now in theaters.