Exclusive Q&A with Matt Walsh & Jeremy Sumpter for Steven Quale's Into the Storm

Twister thriller Into the Storm from Final Destination 5 director is out very soon and we have an exclusive Q&A with two of the stars from the film Matt Walsh (Veep, The Hangover) and Jeremy Sumpter (Friday Night Lights).

Much like Twister the story follows a group of storm chasers, those crazy people who track tornados.

Hobbit star Richard Armitage is in the lead, supported by Sarah Wayne Callies, Matt Walsh, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Arlen Escarpeta, Max Deacon, Nathan Kress, Jeremy Sumpter, Kyle Davis, Jon Reep, and Scott Lawrence.

Into the Storm is out in Ireland on August 20th.

In the span of just a few hours, the city of Silverton is ravaged by an unprecedented onslaught of the most furious twisters they’ve ever seen.  The entire town is at the mercy of the erratic and deadly cyclones, even as storm trackers predict the worst is yet to come.  Most people seek shelter, while others run toward the vortex, testing how far a storm chaser will go for that once-in-a-lifetime shot.  Told through the eyes and lenses of professional storm chasers, thrill-seeking amateurs, and courageous townspeople, “Into the Storm” throws you directly into the eye of the storm to experience Mother Nature at her most extreme.

Question Are you fans of disaster films or reality TV shows about disasters?
Jeremy Sumpter Yeah, my whole life, man. I watched Storm Chasers. I’ve been watching that since it started. And beyond that I’ve watched—Twister was my favorite movie growing up as a kid. So to be part of a—To be a storm chaser like them—It was awesome. I got to do what they do and film tornadoes. I’ve been a fan of the weather my whole life.
Matt Walsh Sure. Yeah. There used to be a show on called When Havoc Struck, that was here in the States. Do you remember that? It was always like crazy earthquakes, crazy tidal waves, crazy tornadoes. I remember watching that as a kid with my mom. So there’s something compelling about natural forces of nature, obviously.
JS There’s also a show called I Survived.
MW I’ve never seen that.
JS Yeah, there was another show called I Survived. They do a lot of natural disaster stuff. Who survived them.
MW Cool.
Question Why do you think your character, Peter, is a documentarian?
MW I think Pete’s serving his ego a bit, but he is a scientist. I think he cares about getting information about the tornadoes, as well as the footage. I think his big money shot, if you will, is to get that shot of the eye of the storm. And so he spent his whole life– And even building that vehicle. So he is bit of a, I think he wants to be a star in the meteorology world so he is driven by ego, a lot of him. But there’s some betterment of man behind it, too.
Question Is Peter reckless, desperate, or both?
MW All three. He’s both, and he’s reckless, and he’s desperate. So I’m going to say he’s all three.
JS Sounds about right.
MW Yeah.
JS Jacob had to take the full force of that a lot.
MW Yeah.
JS Yeah, he bullies me a little bit.
MW But he does have a vehicle that should survive it, so he’s not totally reckless.
JS Yeah, that’s true.
Question What was it like to work with the Titus?
MW It would be cool to have one. I got to drive it, and it was really fun to knock around and drive up hills and stuff.
JS Right, yeah.They took a big Dodge truck and turned it into a tank that fights tornadoes.
Question Is there anything similar to the Titus in reality?
MW I think there is. People do have armor plating on their vehicles and they have bulletproof glass and they have the barometric measurement machines and the potentiometers on their machines. So it’s based in truth, but I don’t know if the anchoring-down mechanisms have been tested in the real tornado-chasing world.
Question What do you think of the film being shot in found-footage style?
JS When you look up YouTube videos of these tornadoes and stuff, everything’s shot with all phones and personal stuff. iPods or whatever. So you know when you watch the movie, you get the sense of that.
MW And everybody has a camera in their phone.
Question What was it like to have to act with the intense simulated weather?
MW The most intense, for me, was when we were in the tunnel and there was a wind machine at this end, blowing through 140-mile-an-hour winds. And it’s basically in a sewer, and it’s wet and you’re cold and it took a couple of weeks, and it’s dirty and loud. So you had to shout all your lines. You couldn’t just whisper. You couldn’t hear anything. But it was a blast at the same time because people were taking care of you and it was safe. But it was pretty intense.
JS For me, it was that whole fire tornado sequence. It was pretty awesome. They drove me across the ground about 25 feet and they sucked me up in the air about 40 feet. You have all the wind machines around, and the rain and the fire. Big balls of fire behind me. It was sick. It was a lot of fun. And there were days when there was sunshine. I’d never seen this before, but they had these big, giant sun blockers that would block out the sun when it was sunny and we needed to film and there were no clouds. They would just block out– And they put three of them there and it actually added up to about the size of a football field that was on these cranes. So we had– It just completely shaded us from the days. I’d never seen that before. So they worked it out, the sunshine when we needed storms.
MW Yep.
Question Is the goal for your characters to be in the eye of the storm?
MW That’s Pete’s goal, yeah. His crew is to capture that never-before-seen, face-of-God moment where a storm– You’re inside it. And he has that turret on top, so he can shoot it, no problem. And he has the vehicle that can have a storm pass over it.
JS Just getting in there.
MW Getting in there, no one has ever done that. So that’s his goal, to be inside the storm.
Question Why is there friction between your characters?
JS I’m the new guy. I just came on board to shoot some tornadoes. Here I’m thinking we’re going to shoot from far away, or something. I don’t realize that we’re going to be right up in this thing. Right up next to it. And it’s just way more than I bargained for. And he don’t care.
MW No. Yeah. I’m not understanding, because he’s a liability and we need to have a military chain of command because we’ve got to move quickly, and there’s too much at stake.
JS Yeah. He goes, “I don’t care how scared you are. Get the shot.”
MW Yeah.
Question How do you feel about the debate between data vs. instinct?
MW I think that it’s still an inexact science, quite frankly, to predict the path and the actual appearance. Because it’s weather, it’s very mercurial. But, yeah, Allison and my debate is like “I’ve seen enough, I can predict them.” And she’s like, “Well, I have science.” I’m like, “Well, science hasn’t given us a tornado in three effing months so how’s that going for you?”
Question Is there an environmental message in this film?
MW I don’t think it’s a ham-fisted message but I think you can’t argue against the fact that with recent climate change and ocean levels rising and shelves in England melting in the– Excuse me, Greenland, melting into the sea that we are affecting the planet. And the fact that these things are more common or they’re travelling further north or their more ext– or the season is longer. You can’t deny that we have to do something. I would say it’s an alarm to what’s happening.