Photo via Andy Pruss on Instagram
We were joined on the Popternative show by Andy Pruss who can be seeing portraying Roy Harley in the survival thriller Society of the Snow. The film premiered on Netflix January 4th and is based on the book of the same title by Pablo Vierci. Netflix announced that it has amassed 51 million views and has been the #1 non-English film on the platform for 2 weeks straight.
Society of the Snow tells the true story of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 chartered to fly a rugby team to Chile in 1972 that crashes on a glacier in the heart of the Andes Mountains. Only 29 of its 45 passengers survived the accident, leaving them trapped in one of the most hostile and inaccessible environments on the planet, resulting in having to resort to extreme measures to stay alive. Directed by J.A. Bayona (The Impossible, The Orphanage), Society of the Snow is Spain’s official selection for best international feature at the 2024 Oscars and received a 2024 Golden Globes nomination for best non-English language film.
Andy describes the process of filming the movie as a creative one: “We knew this wasn’t going to be an easy task. [J.A. Bayona] told us that he wanted to [create almost like] a documentary of what these kids felt and experienced. It was like an experiment for us to see how those feelings could be portrayed.”
In order to create as real as a feeling as possible, the cast went through a journey themselves:
“Most of the things felt real. The snow was real. We got [covered in] the snow. […] It was demanding, physically, emotionally. We also had a diet to go through. We had to first gain some weight and then [by the start of production] we had to begin losing weight. By the end, there were 140 days of production, we had to lose almost 20 kilos or so. It was real, we were really hungry, we were fatigued, we had an immersive experience.”
Watch the full conversation with Andy Pruss below.
Society of the Snow is streaming on Netflix.
Follow Andy Pruss: Instagram