ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Next Exit star Rahul Kohli about the science fiction comedy drama movie, which is out today on DVD and on demand. The actor discussed balancing tragedy with comedy, alongside his love for Ghostbusters.
“After humanity confirms the existence of an afterlife, a research scientist launches a study in which volunteers commit painless suicide,” reads the film’s synopsis. “Travelling from New York to San Francisco, two strangers share a rental car as they go to end their lives.”
Tyler Treese: I really liked Next Exit and it’s such an intriguing and dark twist on what you would consider a traditional road trip movie. What were your thoughts when you first saw the script and saw all the heavy themes that it was handling?
Rahul Kohli: I focused on something entirely different. My first impression when I was reading the script was just how funny it was, and that’s what I was kind of looking for. Funny enough, I was shooting Midnight Mass at the time and I was looking for something lighter, thematically. Something with a little more levity to it from playing Sheriff Hassan and Teddy spoke to me and I saw an opportunity there.
I know that there’s a lot of heavy themes that set up the show and set up our universe, but at its core, it was a buddy road trip movie. The destination is, to a certain degree, irrelevant. It kind of changes from road trip movie to road trip movie. The meat of that burger is really two people setting out on a journey and how, ultimately, that changes them and how their relationship blossoms. That’s what struck me and what I wanted to play with.
How rewarding is it as an actor when you really get a bit of everything throughout this movie? It has very emotional moments, but as you said, there are some really great laughs shared.
I’ve been fortunate enough to have jobs where that’s been kind of what I’ve been asked to do, which is flipping between tragedy and comedy in the same role. My first real big break, my first job was iZombie, and that was sort of similar in that respect too, where at one minute we’re making jokes and mucking around in the morgue, and then the next minute we’re dealing with some real-world apocalypse-type stuff.
Then the next minute we’re dealing with our arch-nemesis villain. So that’s kind of how I cut my teeth on it, on a show like that, where almost every day required a different tool. Same with [The Haunting of] Bly Manor, you know? There was that same idea where we’re dealing with very heavy themes and orphans and abuse and unrequited love.
Owen was required to be charming and charismatic and drop a few jokes and then obviously we’d still have the darker side of stuff. So Teddy kind of just fit into that. It’s something that I’ve grown accustomed to and is becoming part of my brand, I guess, which is to try and make you laugh one minute and then make you cry the next. I, personally, find that super fun. I have a very poor attention span. I can get bored quite quickly of playing the same thing and showing up every day doing the same kind of joke or whatever. I need a lot more flavors to stay engaged and that’s what I found with Teddy.
We get so much time with both you and Katie Parker because so much of the movie is just you two on that trip and it’s very pivotal for you two to play off of each other. If there wasn’t chemistry there, then the whole film just wouldn’t work. So when you’re sharing so many scenes with one partner like this, how rewarding of an experience is that?
It’s super rewarding. I don’t know. I tend to not … the job’s always going to get done, one way or another, for me. Whether I get along with my co-star or not, whether we have instant chemistry or it has to be manufactured on camera, the job gets done regardless. But with Parker, it was one of those ones where it was effortless.
We already sort of knew each other through mutual friends. I guess for the rewarding part of our relationship was that we’re very friendly towards one another, very platonic, and more so mirrored a relationship of siblings, in terms of teasing. that was our relationship, really. The rewarding aspect was being able to deliver on more of the romantic side of things …being able to convincingly fall for one another and portray that relationship when, off camera, it was fart jokes and mucking around. So that side of it … I was never worried about the banter side.
We already kind of had that. Mali [Elfman, writer and director] already knew that that was in the can anyway. We knew that we would both get on like that because we have done in the past. That was the other bit, was, “Would it be weird? Will these two be able to look like they have chemistry in that respect? ” But if we didn’t, again, like I said, we would’ve just made it work, because that’s the job. You can’t leave things to chance. It’s fake it ’till you make it, really. So it’s either real or it’s manufactured. Either way, it has to have the same end result.
This film is such an impressive directorial debut by Mali Elfman, and I thought she shot the film so confidently. What stood out about working with her? She seems like a vet with how the finished product came out.
Yeah, absolutely. Mali never once felt like someone who was directing their first feature. Mali was a producer, so she already kind of knew how to do the things that really stump other directors sometimes, which is like time management and moving with pace and making our days. I think Mali was already accustomed to that. But on the creative side, Mali had that perfect balance of knowing what she wanted and having a very clear sense of what she wanted and where the characters were at. At the same time, [she] was also super open to changing on the fly or allowing for moments of improv and flourishes of Parker and I. Even things that, usually, a lot of directors can be quite standoffish about.
Like, there were certain times where the crew already meet up and they have decided that this is what’s going to happen and this is where we’re going to set up and these are where the actors are going to pretty much stand. Then with Mali, we would come in maybe an hour later and if it didn’t feel right and if there was a real good reason why, she was more than happy to restructure it and cater to what we felt were our needs, to a certain degree.
I saw that you got announced to be a DLC card in Like a Dragon: Ishin. How crazy was it when your team told you that Sega wanted to put you in the game? I know you already became a fan of the series.
Oh yeah, it was wild. Most video game stuff that my team messages me about, 90% of the time it’s to voice a character. Then the other 9% of the time, it’s to promote or like, “Can we send you a free gift bag because XYZ’s coming out?” Then this is the 1% where they’re like, “Actually, can we just use your likeness and your name and you be in the game as a reference?” And I’d never experienced that before. So it kind of stands separate to everything else I’ve ever done, because in a way it’s more personal.
My entire career, I’ve played other people’s characters, been on camera as someone else to a certain degree. This is the first time me, my name, my family name — we’re up there front and center in a pop culture reference. I can’t wait. It hasn’t sunk in yet and I don’t think it’ll feel real until I play it, to be honest. I’ve seen the clips and they were sending it to me a while back, but it’s not until I have my card and equip it and it’s on the screen there and stuff … then it’ll really kind of sink in.
They do such a great job of scanning the faces and getting the likeness down. How was it actually doing the scan and stuff?
Well, no, I’m not scanned. The trooper cards, they’re basically power-up cards. You decide what ones you want from a collection and they’re present on your screen. Then during combat, you activate in it and give you a defense buff or it can give you a special move. My card is a big fiery explosive special move. So it was artists, they had an artist. I’m not sure what their name is, but one of their artists just drew me from a photo into that image.
What’s really great about Yakuza is that they’re fully earnest. They’re able to tell these very dramatic and deep storylines, but they also have the most absurd, hilarious sub-story moments of comedy. It seems like the two types would just clash, but somehow, because they just fully go for it, it works. I got the same vibe when I watched RRR this year. Do you think films can learn anything from that willingness to just go all out like Yakuza does?
Yeah, I mean, you have to obviously be a bit more subtle with certain mediums. Some mediums lend themselves to being a little bit more surreal or doing huge 180s. People are slightly different with live-action stuff. They tend to be a bit more … it depends what you’re signing up for. In terms of the combination of tragedy and comedy, I mean, that’s the same thing we were talking about earlier. I do think that they exist in media and there’s nothing quite like Yakuza, in my opinion.
My favorite film of last year, Everything Everywhere All At Once was almost like that to a certain degree, in terms of I’m crying one minute and it’s dealing with some of the most tragic, heart-wrenching stuff — not achieving your full potential, what could I have done in my older life and I’m not getting on with my daughter — and at the same time, they’ve got dildos, you know what I mean? That crazy wackiness and sausage fingers and things like that. Seeing that that’s got nominated for Best Picture and seeing the love that it’s got, maybe people’s palettes are ready for something a little bit unconventional.
You had such a fun voice role in Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed. How wild was getting to be a part of that franchise and taking part in that?
Yeah, again, it’s the same thing as like Like a Dragon. People that I’m fans of or that I have a very deep connection to keep coming back and involving me in some way. I have to almost repeat my answer constantly, which is like, “Well, it’s a dream come true.” I mean, Ghostbusters was my first real love of an I.P. and obsession as a kid. There was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and He-Man and I loved them as well, and Star Wars came in when I was a little bit older.
Ghostbusters was the first real feverish, “Oh, he’s obsessed,” you know? Every Christmas and birthday revolved around something Ghostbusters. [I] dressed up as the characters, had the fire station. So I’m definitely a big, big Ghostbusters fan. Then when Illfonic reached out and were like … as it always is, you’re either told immediately upfront all the details or you find it out as it trickles over as you sign NDAs. They had asked me if I was interested in voicing something in Spirits Unleashed and I just assumed it would probably be maybe an NPC or at best it might be one of the voices for the create-a-character or something.
Then after I signed NDAs and we had a meeting, they were like, “No, no, no, we want you to voice Tobin,” which just blew my mind knowing that that’s one of the earliest references in the ’84 movie. Aside from, I think, a graphic novel from IDW or a comic book, Tobin’s not really been voiced before or this is one of his first real fleshed out appearances, so to speak. And I got to lay down, get in there first and be like, he sounds like this.
