Amber Coney Talks ‘Dead of Summer’ and Collaborating With James Franco [Exclusive Interview]

Amber Coney has a big month ahead of her.

The USC School of Dramatic Arts grad is making waves in Hollywood, between her upcoming series regular role as Carolina “Cricket” Diaz on Dead of Summer, Freeform’s highly anticipated new series from the minds of Lost and Once Upon a Time scribes Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, and penning the screenplay for James Franco’s remake of the Lifetime Movie classic Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?.

Each of these projects is debuting later in June, marking an exciting time for the talented young actress and screenwriter.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Coney about her experience on the Dead of Summer set, lesbian vampires, and what it’s like to collaborate with James Franco.

Tell-Tale TV: So, to start, I would love to chat a little bit about how you wound up becoming involved in Freeform’s Dead of Summer.

Amber Coney: Well, it was at the beginning of pilot season, so it was actually one of the first pilots that I got to read. I was sent the script by my agent/manager and I took a look at it. Immediately, I was like “Yes! This is definitely a project that I would love to be a part of.”

I’m not naturally drawn to horror — I’m very wimpy! [laughs] It’s hard for me to watch scary things. Even though I do, if it’s a good cinematic piece or TV show — then I feel like it’s worthwhile to convince myself to watch through the fear I experience.

But I was really drawn to [Dead of Summer] and how they constructed the elements of horror in a way that really complimented and strengthened the story and the really full-fledged characters and the relationship dynamics, so I was very impressed by the script, which, y’know, after meeting Adam and Eddie — it’s no surprise! They’re masters at this point of their craft, so obviously anything they touch kind of turns to gold. It was super exciting!

I went in to audition, I auditioned and got called back the same day, and then a few days later I got set up to test for the network, and Adam and Eddie were there. I got to meet them, and they gave me direction. I felt really good vibes from the room, and when I was leaving I was super excited — I had a feeling, I was like, “I have to be this person!”

I just knew. It was really weird. I had never had that intuitive sense so strongly before, and I was dancing in my car just super stoked not even having booked the role yet. It was really good, because I wasn’t wrong! [laughs]

I went out and shot the pilot in April, which was an incredible experience — Adam and Eddie were both there, at the helm of it — and they were super awesome in guiding us, being privy to the whole series and the entirety of the arcs of all of our characters, they were able to give us a lot of information that was helpful in establishing our characters in that first episode.

Being around that kind of creative energy was really inspiring. And also the cast and I get along so well. Everybody’s really talented and hardworking, which is awesome because everyone’s pulling their weight. It’s an ensemble piece. Each character has their own episode where we flash back and we see their backstory, where they came from. And there are so many group scenes, so everyone really is featured in a significant way. It’s awesome that they cast really great actors.

Tell-Tale TV: What would you say is your character Cricket’s role within the group?

Coney: I come in, and my character off the bat is very warm and snarky, kind of giving these one-liners. But at the same time, she has this lovable sensibility. We all knew each other as campers in the past — almost all of us had gone to the summer camp as kids — so we’re coming in with this past and this history of who we were and then meeting each other for the first time as who we are now, as older adolescents/young adults, which is really interesting.

Basically, I really struggle with insecurity, and I have my entire life. And so the way I combat that is seeking approval and validation, whether that means kind of being jokey, or being neutral in the dynamic, or trying to get attention by not being neutral, or seeking the acceptance of a guy.

So that’s where my part comes into play. It’s really interesting to deal with that, what’s going on internally with my character while also kind of maintaining a facade of, “Oh, everything’s alright, I’m just at summer camp.”

Tell-Tale TV: The show is set in the 1980s. How do you think that having it set in that particular time period sets the tone or style of the show?

Coney: The ’80s is such a cool era. Aesthetically, obviously, in the wardrobe, it’s very clear, those ’80s influences. It’s interesting to see how quirky it was! [laughs] And also what carried over into present day and seeing the roots of style and fashion in our show.

And the same thing goes with the musical influences. The cast had a shared experience by talking about what kind of music from that era that we liked, personally, and our directors shared with us mix-tapes specifically for our characters, which was really cool. You get a flavor of what your character would be listening to.

I was so happy that they did that, because I love, as I’m getting ready to go to set, listening to music to get into it. Other than that, it’s cool because you really see how, in terms of the relationships and what these individuals are struggling with — you see how that’s timeless and how it doesn’t matter what era it’s set in. The root of the human aspect of it is the same.

Tell-Tale TV: Switching gears a little bit, I’d love to talk about the James Franco remake you’ve written of Lifetime’s Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? You’ve collaborated quite a bit already with James Franco in the past, is that right?

Coney: Yes! He got me to start screenwriting seriously, which is amazing. Before, I had been acting in a few of his projects and obviously doing my own acting. He suggested this book and we were both reading it — it was a Nick Cave novel, and he was like, “You should adapt this, do you want to write a script for it?” And I was like, “Yeah, sure!” [laughs]

I took a few weeks, and I did my first full-length screenplay, which was an adaptation of a novel that was really challenging, especially because it’s a Southern Gothic novel, and the language is just different. But at the same time, it taught me really thoroughly how to write, because I was literally translating the images from the book and curating that, which is what you do with your imagination when you write a screenplay even if it’s not an adaptation, putting all that visually onto the page. Through that process, I really solidified my skills.

From that point, I’ve written just a bunch of independent projects for James. Basically, we have this system where I finish a script and he sends me a new story, a new outline, and it could be — I mean, I’ve written off of a one-page outline to, like, a twelve page outline, so it really ranges in terms of what he’ll send me! [laughs] It’s crazy because I’ll have a lot of creative freedom depending on how involved the outline is, but it’s kind of how our system stands.

The reason why he goes to me is because I can write freakishly quickly. I wrote Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? in a few days, in like four days. It was insane. I literally just didn’t move and then I edited it on the fifth day and they ended up really liking it and I was like, “Wow!” And I’ve found if I have that kind of focus, I don’t need a month, or months, to write.

Tell-Tale TV: Had you been familiar with the original version of Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? when James Franco approached you?

Coney: No, I hadn’t, actually. He called me, and he told me that he was going to do a remake kind of how the Will Ferrell remake was done. I had never seen [the original Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?] before. He briefly described the plot, but he was like, “But I’m changing it and putting lesbian vampires in it!” [laughs] “Oh, okay great, I’m totally in if that’s your plan!”

So they sent me a file of the movie, and I watched that, and I read the outline. And I was like, wow, this is really different, but I think it will be a really cool reinvention. It’ll be fun to see how we can keep certain character dynamics and how we can put little homages in the new film to the original. It was cool in that way.

Structurally, it was similar, but we didn’t have to stick closely to the original at all so there was a lot of creative freedom in that. We just definitely kept the essence and the edge that the original brought and put new elements, new really fun elements, which was awesome for me as a writer to explore because when else do you get to write about lesbian vampires? [laughs]

Catch Mother, May I Sleep with Danger? when it airs on Lifetime on June 18th at 8/7c and Freeform’s Dead of Summer when it premieres on June 28th at 9/8c.

Photo credit: Lesley Bryce