Hunter Schafer has had a busy career lately with the recent instalment of the ‘The Hunger Games’ franchise and Yorgos Lanthimos’ ‘Kinds of Kindness.’ She now finds herself in Tilman Singer’s upcoming ‘Cuckoo,’ about a 17-year-old Gretchen (Schafer), who is forced to leave her American home to live with her father in a resort in the German Alps with his new wife and family [horror movie].

Filming took place in just 35 days and was shot entirely on 35mm film, and premiered at the 74th Berlin Film Festival earlier this year.

“I think film versus digital always sort of changes the structure of filming,” Hunter Schafer said. “I’m thankful that we shot pretty much the entire second season of ‘Euphoria’ on film, so I had some experience working on film before. But I really enjoyed that rehearsal becomes much more integral to the process with film, because you do have to be more precious with the actual material of film and how much you use. You really have to be more intentional about rehearsing and I fucking love rehearsal. I’ll take it whenever I can get it.”

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Schafer also commented on her stance with critic and audience reviews:

“Honestly, it’s kind of nice that I’ve had this much distance from it now. I don’t know, I only do projects like that I really believe in,” she said. “You have to be careful sometimes reading critiques and reviews and whatever. I don’t really care what anybody thinks at the end of the day, too, because I had such an amazing time making this movie, and I love the movie. That’s my experience with it, and it doesn’t matter. Of course, I hope it does well at everything and that people do find meaning and do have a good time watching it, but at the end of the day, I got what I wanted out of it.”

For the film, Schafer learned how to use a butterfly knife, sign language, and bass guitar — while singing on screen for the first time.

“That was no improv,” the actor said. “I learned bass guitar for this role. Simon Waskow wrote the music and the song for the movie, and I got lots of time to rehearse it, practice it, and whatever. It’s also kind of nice, because Gretchen is supposed to be like an amateur musician,” she continues. “It’s not supposed to be like a Grammy-winning, teenage girl messing around on a guitar. That kind of lifted some of the pressure off as someone who’s not really a musician. I had fun with it and then we ended up recording the song in our hotel bathroom at the end of this year.”

A few months ago, Schafer spoke to GQ about not wanting to be identified solely by her transition story. “[I’ve] gotten offered tons of trans roles, and I just don’t want to do it. I don’t want to talk about it. It’s a privilege, but it’s been very intentional.”

IndieWire caught up with the actor and asked if her stance remained the same: “I mean, that article got a lot of pick-up, so I think the message was sent to a degree,” Schafer said. “I look back on it, and I definitely meant what I said, but also, just right now, this, like, ebbs and flows for me all the time. I want to make stuff about trans people someday, [but] hopefully, the next time I do a role or something like that, it will be for something that I’m a part of making.”

‘Cuckoo’ hits theaters on August 9, 2024.