Austin Abrams wasn’t intimidated when he found out his role in “Wolfs” would require him to wear only underwear and crew socks for the first half of the film. After all, he had previously stripped down to gold spandex shorts for a memorable homoerotic dance number on the HBO hit “Euphoria.”
“I didn’t really care,” he tells Variety of the minimal costume. “I was kind of ready to do whatever I needed to do to be able to work with those guys.”
The guys in question? George Clooney and Brad Pitt. In the Jon Watts film, out today in a limited theatrical run and hitting Apple TV+ on Sept. 27, Clooney and Pitt play professional fixers who operate only as lone wolves. Everything changes when they find themselves forced to cover up the (presumed) death of Abrams’ character, who’s only referred to as “Kid.”
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Abrams says the first day on set with the A-listers was both terrifying and exciting, but the duo put him at ease by being “super welcoming, as if I was an old friend or something like that. Really gracious.”
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Even though the fixers first find Kid carrying four bricks of heroin, he’s not exactly a criminal kingpin, but a naive teen who got mixed up with the wrong folks. Much to their chagrin, he’s prone to rambling, words tumbling from his lips before he knows where his next sentence is going.
That presented an interesting challenge for Abrams, who managed to find varying levels within his minutes-long, roundabout monologues (often delivered under duress).
“You want everything to be as specific as possible,” he says. “I think the character is also trying to keep them engaged to some degree, trying to make sure that they’re following along with what he’s saying, because it depends on if he lives or dies or not.”
While he doesn’t know anything for sure just yet, Abrams is hopeful that he’ll return for the previously-announced “Wolfs” sequel. “What I’ve heard from George and Brad when they talk about the story that they want to do, it does sound like that.”
Abrams is similarly unsure about his future on “Euphoria.” Production on the endlessly delayed third season, has been pushed to January — and if it actually happens, will feature a time jump when the main cast returns to film. “I have no idea. I don’t know if they’re filming it, if they’re planning on filming it even, or what is going on,” he says with a shrug. “There were plans last year or something, they were gonna go and do that, and that didn’t happen. So, yeah, at this point, I’m not sure.”
Still, he’d jump at the chance to work with showrunner Sam Levinson again. “I love Sam, and I love everyone on the cast. It was really a privilege being able to work with him, because there’s so much creativity that he has, and the whole process feels very open and creative and always moving. As a person being able to work on it, you just feel so so filled with that creative energy that he brings to it. So to be able to work with him again in any capacity would be a really be an honor.”
One thing is for sure: he’s next set to appear in “Barbarian” director Zach Cregger’s horror epic “Weapons” alongside Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich and Julia Garner. While the film’s plot remains shrouded in secrecy, Abrams promises it’s got a stellar script to match its stacked cast.
He’s not counting his chickens before they hatch regarding any of his upcoming projects, though. “At this point, I try to just stay as best I can in the present of what’s happening in front of me.”
