Michael Angarano (Sky High) plays the trombone and contemplates the intricate world of relationships as Arthur and Olivia Thirlby (Juno) stars as his irresistible classmate Lila in Snow Angels, based on the novel by Stewart O'Nan. Adapted and directed by David Gordon Green, Snow Angels focuses on three couples at different stages in their relationships. Working mother Annie (Kate Beckinsale) is raising her young daughter while dealing with a disturbed ex (Sam Rockwell). Arthur’s budding relationship with Lila is explored as is his parents’ deteriorating marriage. The story takes a darker turn as one shocking event changes all three relationships forever.
Michael Angarano was initially attracted to the project because of Green’s involvement. “I really had wanted to work with David. I knew people who worked with him and I knew what kind of experience it would have been like, and I had met him once before, oddly enough. He came to visit a set I was on, but I read the script,” said Angarano. “I sent a tape into David, I think, and met with him and read with another actress who is playing Kate’s part, but it was just a friend of David’s. It was a very casual kind of [thing] just, you know, so I’d have somebody to react off of, basically. And so after that little session and after we had basically auditioned together in New York, it was pretty certain that it was going to happen and that we were going to be the people and I was very excited.”
“I’ve been told that actually I was the only person that ever auditioned for the role and that after we read together in New York that is was just kind of—it worked. It worked completely and it was right and I think that Arthur and Lila just sort of happened that day,” added Thirlby.
Throughout the rehearsal process Angarano and Thirlby helped one another find their characters in Snow Angels. Playing a couple of high school students still learning the ropes when it comes to relationships was easier when they had each other to bounce ideas off of. “It’s when you have somebody else giving you so much there’s no choice but to, you know, change what you’re doing a little bit. Even if it was what you had in mind, there’s something to it that when you bring it to life it changes you. You can never be so sure about anything. You’re going to make mistakes and you’re going to fix them,” said Angarano on how his take on certain scenes changed as he worked through them with Thirlby. “If it’s right, you’re just reacting as your character and you’re not even thinking about it. So whatever you’re going to give me, I’m going to react. If it was not my initial thought when I was reading the script then well, good.”
“Especially when you’re playing one-half of a relationship, acting is listening and reacting and if somebody different had been playing Arthur I’m sure that my Lila would not have been the same. And, conversely, if someone else had been playing Lila, I’m sure his Arthur would not have been the same,” offered Thirlby.
As Snow Angels progresses, their relationship comes into its own. “It becomes its own character,” said Angarano. “It becomes its own being, you know what I mean?”
Thirlby agrees with her co-star’s assessment of the relationship. “I think that their relationship kind of is the third member of their little world. It’s the two of them, but it’s also what their relationship forms into.”
“Right,” said Angarano. “Especially these two because there is Arthur and Lila, but it soon just becomes Arthur and Lila. It just becomes their story. It’s not even so much Arthur’s story or Lila’s story, but it’s very much their own story.”
It’s always difficult to portray intimacy onscreen, and shooting the bedroom scene in Snow Angels was, according to Angarano, just as awkward as you’d expect it to have been. But the fact it was awkward actually fit well within the story as their characters are just teens and not experienced in sexual encounters. “I think that these scenes are special because they’re sexual scenes, but the kind of sexiness has been completely stripped away which is important,” explained Thirlby about actually filming of the scene. “It’s the kind of thing where there’s a lot more fear in the anticipation of it, and then you’re doing it and you’re kind of you know stripping each other naked, but you’re in a kind of crammed room that has about eight other men just kind of standing around and, you know, doing various things. There is no intimacy which is where the acting comes in. You have to kind of pretend.”
Plus, it helped that writer/director David Gordon Green kept the mood relaxed on the set. “He’d come into the room, ‘All right, you guys ready to get naked?’ You know, he’ll lighten you up a little bit,” recalled Angarano.
But even with Green joking around, it was still a bit nerve-wracking for both actors, neither of whom had done a sex scene before Snow Angels. “That was my first experience with intimacy on camera but, again, it’s the kind of thing where you know you’re very just weirded out by the fact that you’re going to be doing this,” said Thirlby. “You’re nervous, but then suddenly it’s happening and it doesn’t feel intimate. And then it’s over and you look back on it and you’re like, ‘Oh, well that was just another day’s work.’ It was just another day at work. It was like acting out any other scene.”
Snow Angels also marks the first time Angarano’s had to play a trombone. But Angarano believes knowing his character was a trombonist in the high school’s marching band helped him really get a feel for the part. “I don’t think Arthur is a great trombonist. I don’t think that it’s something that he really wanted to do. It’s probably something his parents forced upon him, or something to have some kind of extracurricular activity because he’s definitely not playing sports of any kind or anything. So the trombone is, oddly enough, perfect for Arthur. So getting acquainted with it and getting to learn how to play it, it’s awkward at first because you have to spit into it and you can’t puff out your cheeks, so it was fun to do,” explained Angarano.
