David Ayer's Bright Is About 'Acceptance and Love'

Lucy Fry is an Australian actress, who has slowly begun to build an acting resume interlaced with various fantasy genre projects. She first got her start in an uncredited role on H2O: Just Add Water, but is most known for her role of Zoey on Lightning Point, Lyla in Mako: Island of Secrets and Vasilisa Dragomir in Vampire Academy. Now she is taking on the role of Tikka in Netflix’s Bright, which comes out on December 22, 2017.

Screen Rant got a chance to chat with Lucy Fry on press day, where we discussed what her initial thoughts were when she first read the script for Bright, her obscene obsessive love for elves, and what it was like to work with director David Ayer and bringing the film to life onscreen.

SR: This movie is brilliant. I really loved it. I like that the infusion of like this fantastical world that so gritty and real. When you first read the script what were your initial thoughts?

Lucy Fry: Like WOW!. (Laughs) Yeah. I think I've always wanted to be an elf. Like ten years old, which is so weird and random, but even like when I met my agents for the first time, they were like, so what's your dream role? I was like, it's an elf. They thought I was completely nuts but then I read the script and I was like, this is it! This is the role that I've always wanted to play. like She's mysterious and dangerous, and cheeky. I was reading it I was seeing Will Smith and Joel Edgerton as this two cops and just imagining how funny they would be together. The originality of the world and the depth of the message that this action is kind of taking you through and instantly I was just like this is an extraordinary film and it would be a dream to be on it.

SR: Was this particular kind of ELF the elf you imagine want to play?

Lucy Fry: I didn't have a reference. I had only seen Lord of the Rings and read all the books and like all the Lord of the Rings. Like everything about Lord of the Rings, so those were like the elves that I had in my head, but then I read this and this is even cooler because it's like in the real world. It's gritty and it's dark, but I can bring that light. Tthe reason I love elves is that they have just this glowing with this love. Their connection to the earth and their, Caledonian their athletism, and I just... I'm obsessed with Elves. When I read Tikka, I was like this is one badass elf and the reality of the world that she's in this would be an extraordinary story to tell.

SR: There's so much about him being an elf in her whole backstory is there anything that you knew about the character that we didn't see onscreen?

Lucy Fry: There was a lot. (Laughs) I mean, I just went all in. I knew that I had to believe it hundred percent if the audience was going to believe it. I talked to Noomi a lot about like the Infurni cult that he could run away from and thinking about like why did she run away from the cult. The Infurni, they worship the Dark Lord and they're a lead kind of like the Illuminati and power hungry. Tikka has woken up and realized that this it's not right and that she wants to fight for a world that's equal and that's good, you know, to learn what good it is, and so she's run away from there and she's, kind of like when you meet her, she's stripped away everything that she's known and she's like this sort of role, empathic, desperate, dangerous, livewire. Yeah, and I don't know I feel like I strayed away from the question. (Laughs)

SR: No. No. No. I mean, I was just talking about because of elves and orgs and fairies, they have huge mythological backstories.

Lucy Fry: Right. Yeah.

SR: I was wondering if you had created your own backstory or if there was a backstory that was already there that we just didn't see on screen yet?

Lucy Fry: No. I mean, we all kind of work together. David (Ayer) created what it was to be an elf. He said like you know you can communicate with telepathy and you can sense things that humans can sense. Like a couch might start talking to you while you're having a conversation. You can check in with how the couch is feeling. Or like what the curtains feeling and Tikka, she's a very intuitive, emotional creatures, so has all these little invisible senses like something out of her all the time, that's like feeling into everything. That was so much fun to play and so David was very clear about what it is to be an elf. In terms of the back story, that was that was quite clear too. He talked to me, and Noomi about that and about what it was to be Infurni and then what it meant to run away from that run away from this family and away from your sister, and how completely lost, and ripped open Tikka is because of making that decision.

SR: I grew up in South Los Angeles so this world visually look like the world I live in with the exception of Orcs and Elves and stuff like that but working with David, he's such a grounded director. How was it collaborating with him?

Lucy Fry: It was amazing! He's exceptional. I can't even believe how lucky I am to have worked with David Ayer. From from the very first rehearsal he was just about making it real and bringing this world into present-day Los Angeles, grounding it, and making it all relatable and then making each story personal as well. We all told David about our lives and where we come from and what our, I guess traumatic experiences are so that he can help us to use those to fight for empowerment. Whatever it is that we're fighting for in the scenes, he used to makes us use our own experiences so that it's real. There's a scene where Tikka has to make a big decision and before I go into the scene, David would take me aside and talk to me about this thing that happened to me in my past, and be like, okay, now you've got to go fight for that fight to change that. And then I'm going to the scene and it's real for me. He just he took me on Tikka's journey as though it was my personal story. My personal journey and it really it transformed me, and my life because I came out of it feeling like so much more empowered, and stronger. Physically and emotionally.

SR: Talk to me about the training process that you guys did it in Echo Park. I guess all that of you guys trained together?

Lucy Fry: I love it! I still go there. I love it so much it's. It's so good. If I could change anything about my teenagerhood, the only thing I would change would be like to have learned karate at like fourteen. (Laughs)

SR: You've worked with Hollywood legends already and you're still so young. Eddie Murphy. Will Smith. What is your take away and learn from those legendary actors and apply that to your own craft?

Lucy Fry: That would be my dream to be able to integrate what they do into my work, because Will Smith is such a legend. Every day on set like he would come on and into the room and lift everyone up, and connect to everybody, and make you feel like this is extraordinary. We're making artwork together and he's such a team player. I was so in awe of him and yet he would make me feel really safe, and supported, and free, and open so I guess, like I learned how to bring that connection into your work. Hoping to have his attitude. He's just got the best work. His skills as well, to be able to go from that like, connecting to a room into a heartbreaking scene in a second, you know? If I just could take even like one drop of his magical energy, I would be so happy.

SR: This is interesting to me because this is a huge blockbuster film but it's on Netflix. It's this new form of media right. How do you feel about that and where do you see cinema going from this point forward? Because there's no there's no opening. You don't have to worry about opening day, right?

Lucy Fry: I guess it's quite liberating for David as a filmmaker. He had complete creative control because Netflix, they don't have to worry about fitting into a market that you know, like the rules of like, what does well on an opening day, and that kind of financial constraints to worry about. So David could tell the story that he wanted to tell and I think that has created something that's really creative, important, and action-packed and scary, very dark, very gritty, and you couldn't do that on a big screen. It's way too violent for a big screen. I feel so lucky that Netflix allowed us to tell this super dark and like a fascinating story. I think that it's really cool that everyone around the world can watch it on the same day, at the same time. It's like a global experience and I mean, I'm just stoked because my family's in Austrlia and like I have cousins all around the world, and so the fact that everyone can see it at the same time, it's it feels very unifying. I think the film has these messages about unity and acceptance, and the fact that this film is going around the world, all at once, it's just like consolidating the messages of the movie.

SR: What do you want people to take away from the experience Bright?