The Slumber Party Director Veronica Rodriguez reveals that the cast really ate onions and did their own stunts in this exclusive interview.
The Slumber Party Director Veronica Rodriguez Talks Onions & Stunts
The Slumber Party is the latest Disney Channel Original Movie. It is a coming of age story that features a strong teenage female friendship. Four girls have a sleepover and after being hypnotized, they wake up not being able to recall what they did they night before. The worst part? They are missing one of the four.
The film follows them as they relive the events of the previous evening in order to find their friend.
In this interview with The Slumber Party Director Veronica Rodriguez, she discusses the incredible cast, the onion eating scene, and the stunts.
ALEX COOPER COHEN, EMMY LIU-WANG, DARBY CAMP, DALLAS LIU
An Incredible Cast
The Slumber Party works so well because of the amazing cast. They feel like they are friends in real life.
Veronica Rodriguez: Totally. When you make a movie, it is like the stars aligning. Everything that’s meant to be is meant to be, that’s how I look at it. These young people were all meant to be together in this movie. It was so beautiful watching them be friends on screen, and then also just seamlessly become like best friends in real life. They did everything together. When we would be done shooting, I literally had to tell them, you guys, you can’t go out and go to the movies every day after filming. You got to go back and film the next day. I know you want to hang out with each other all the time. But that’s also what made it I think, frankly, making a film is hard, of course, but it was kind of easy because they just were themselves. They didn’t have to really try to like each other and be friends. And I think you can see that on screen. There’s an organic chemistry that comes out.
Eating Onions
In the movie there is an onion eating contest. Surely these actors aren’t REALLY eating raw onions.. are they?
Veronica Rodriguez: They’re eating onions. We had a complete backup plan of like, apples when peeled can look a lot like onions if you’re not super close up on them. So we had a whole plan because like who wants to take a bite out of a raw onion. And literally every extra in the scene, everyone who you are watching eat an onion, actually ate onions. All of the girls were such troopers and they did it because I’m like, Guys, we’re getting close up in there. You gotta at least take one bite. And they were so down for it. I mean, the fact that everyone in the competition basically went method acting, and they’re like, we’re gonna eat as many onions as we can. I’m not gonna lie, like some people had to be eaten Gogurt in between takes because of all the acid from the onions. But we told them guys, you can stop at any point, but they’re like, No, we’re going for it. Which… total respect.
Doing Their Own Stunts
There are some pretty crazy stunts in The Slumber Party. Did the girls do them all? Did Darby really fly through the air to get that shot?
Veronica Rodriguez: That girl did her own stunts. She went on that huge contraption machine thing. Thank you to Jennifer Badger, who was the greatest stunt coordinator ever. Because obviously, having young people do these adventurous wild things is very complicated. So to have an amazing stunt coordinator was so clutch and also making them feel comfortable, and you never want to pressure them into doing this stuff. But like Darby was game. She was like, you want to make me fly, let’s fly. And the girls actually rode the hedgehog. We did have, I mean, there was up to a certain speed that we could go. So certain things, they couldn’t do for safety reasons. But everything that these girls could possibly do. They did. And that was just so cool.
Darby’s Shaved Eyebrow
One of the things that Darby’s character wakes up with is a shaved eyebrow. Did she really shave her eyebrow?
Veronica Rodriguez: She didn’t. There was a discussion at first, where people were like, Oh, she’s just gonna shave her eyebrow, right? This was before Darby had shown up to prep and everything. And I was like, You guys, this is a 15 year old girl who has to go into the summer time after this. She has to continue her life after this movie. I don’t think we should just assume that she’s going to want to completely shave off her eyebrow in real life. So she did not. We had an amazing makeup artist do a prosthetic. But that was also a commitment. She had to spend hours in the chair every day just getting that eyebrow done. But it looks great. Honestly, she’s probably the only person in the history of the world that can seamlessly pull off just one eyebrow, like no eyebrows is fine. But like there’s something very unique about just one. And like, for some reason, she just looks gorgeous.
Full Veronica Rodriguez Interview
Be sure to check out the full interview with The Slumber Party Director Veronica Rodriguez where she reveals more behind the scenes stories, including how difficult it was working with ducklings!
About Veronica Rodriguez
VERONICA RODRIGUEZ is a Mexican-American multi-hyphenate who hails from the Bay area. She completed her second feature THE SLUMBER PARTY for Disney, which premieres on Thursday July 27th on Disney Channel, and the next day on Disney+.
Her first taste of the industry came as an assistant at Funny or Die after graduating from USC’s Peter Stark Producing program. At FoD, she would work her way up to being a Producer and Director for their digital content, including the unforgettable “How To Become Legally Recognized As A F*ckboi”.
Veronica has been selected to participate in the Sundance New Voices Lab, was the 2019 Sundance Institute’s Latinx Fellow, and participated in the Viacom ViewFinder and Refinery 29’s Shatterbox director programs. Her first feature, LET’S GET MERRIED for VH1 / MTV Studios earned her an NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Director.
She has also staffed on Netflix’s FREERIDGE, a spin-off of ON MY BLOCK, HBO’s BETTY, and Disney’s GABBY DURAN & THE UNSITTABLES, which led to her first episodic directing credits.
About The Slumber Party
“The Slumber Party” depicts the hilarious aftermath of a sleepover birthday party hypnotism gone wrong as best friends Megan and Paige, along with soon-to-be step-sister Veronica, wake up with absolutely no memory of the night before. Now they must retrace their steps to find missing birthday girl Anna Maria…and explain why there’s a flock of baby ducks in the bathtub, what happened to Megan’s left eyebrow, and why she’s wearing unattainable hottie Jake Ramirez’s signature black hoodie.
The Slumber Party premieres July 27 on Disney Channel, streaming July 28 on Disney+.
Tessa Smith is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved Film and TV Critic. She is also a Freelance Writer. Tessa has been in the Entertainment writing business for ten years and is a member of several Critics Associations including the Critics Choice Association and the Greater Western New York Film Critics Association.