ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with The Family Plan stars Zoe Margaret Colletti and Van Crosby about the action comedy movie. The duo spoke about their onscreen dynamic and working with Michelle Monaghan. The Family Plan is set to debut on Apple TV+ on Friday, December 15.
“Dan Morgan (Mark Wahlberg) loves his quiet suburban life as a devoted husband, father of three, and successful car salesman,” reads the movie‘s synopsis. But that’s only half the story. Decades earlier, he was an elite government assassin tasked with eliminating the world’s deadliest threats.”
Tyler Treese: Zoe, I was really impressed by just how much you two felt like siblings, and the whole family had a great energy to it. How was it finding that area where you could really play off each other?
Zoe Margaret Colletti: We became really good friends super, super quickly into the shoot, which I think just made for a really natural vibe. We kind of just pick on each other a lot in general. [Laughs]. So I think that came super naturally to both of us. Also Simon [Cellan Jones] gave us a ton of freedom where he would just roll the camera and have all of us just … he’d just be like, “Talk to fill certain spaces of like this road trip.” I think having that freedom to all interact with each other made a really natural tone come from a lot of those scenes.
Van, I can’t think of a cooler on-screen dad than Mark Wahlberg. You get to see him do comedic, dramatic, and action scenes. You really get to see every facet of his acting range in this movie. What stood out the most about seeing him work and showing his range?
Van Crosby: I think, honestly, just his dedication to everything that he does. He wakes up at four in the morning every day. He goes and works out and then comes to set, and he knows all his lines, and he’s there on time, and it’s so impressive. It’s such a quality that I wish I had, you know? [Laughs]. Maybe I got a little bit of that from osmosis or whatever. But yeah, he’s so, so, so great to work with, and he has such a great range as an actor, and I think that’s just something to admire and aspire to have.
Zoe, you have a really nice speech near the end of the movie. How was it filming that scene? It almost gets emotional, and then it’s a fun little misdirection.
Colletti: Yeah, it was a lot of fun. That was actually one of the scenes I had done in my audition, so I really liked to get to do that in the audition and then actually getting there on the day and being able to bring that to life on set was really, really cool. Obviously, all of us are in that scene, so doing a big ensemble scene like that is always super, super fun. During that day, though, they did decide they wanted an alternate version of that, which ended up not making it in the movie.
But five seconds before we were about to roll, they’re like, “Here’s a new monologue.” [Laughs]. They’re like, “Can you just learn this really quick?” And I was like, “Uh, I guess so.” So luckily, I was able to learn it really fast, and I didn’t even use it. I’m like, “You just wanted to stress me out!” [Laughs]. But it was a lot of fun. It was really, really good and working alongside such great actors makes it a little bit easier.
Van, your character is a streamer, so I was curious if you’re into video games at all?
Crosby: Yeah, that’s a culture that I, personally, am very involved in. I watch a lot of streamers and that’s stuff that I really enjoy consuming online. I definitely play a lot of video games in real life. I play the same game as Kyle — Valorant. I play so many games in real life that it definitely carried over and I had the experience and the jargon that I could use in character.
Zoe, Michelle Monaghan is great in this. What stood out about her as a scene partner?
Colletti: Yeah, 100%. First of all, nothing to do with being a scene partner, but great casting, because I think we really do look like mother and daughter. [Laughs]. And I thought that was super cool. Once I met her in real life, I was like, “Okay, this makes sense.” She’s great. She has such a natural way about her of of presenting the lines. I’m always super impressed with her comedic timing, but the ability to take comedic punchlines and make them feel really realistic — that was something I was super impressed with as well.
She’s got the action genre down pat too, and she’s so cool. I mean, what a cool mom! [Laughs]. She’s girlbossing all the time. She’s the coolest ever and she’s so, so super sweet. She actually has a teenage daughter of her own that she would talk about all the time, so I do think that the dynamic of mother/daughter was really realistic for us to be able to play off of each other. She’s great.
