Remember “The Shawshank Redemption”?
What drew Cameron Monaghan to the Paradise Highway project?
It’s a huge undertaking, both as a topic and an acting performance.
What initially drew you to the project?
I found it [to be] very impressive.
Obviously, a subject matter like human trafficking and child sexual slavery is immensely difficult and heavy.
I saw that there was this character, Agent Finley Sterling, who I thought I was right for.
I talked to these producers and I asked, “Is this a possibility?”
They said, “Maybe.”
They talked to her and she wasn’t familiar with my work.
She hadn’t seen the stuff that I had done before and she was unsure.
I found that I understood where he was coming from or some part of him.
It ended up working out.
That certainly did not hurt as well.
What challenges did you face when you started to embody this character?
Well, Finley’s background is very different than mine.
He comes from wealth; he is an Ivy League graduate.
He is a law enforcement agent.
All of these things are things that are not particularly familiar to me.
It was important to me to still find something that was relatable or human about this guy.
What was that experience like?
What did he teach you on-camera [or] off-camera?
It’s a wild thing.
These characters are in this car together on the road for pretty much the entirety of the story.
There’s a very special kind of Deep South heat that is pretty wild.
You’re getting eaten alive by insects and all of that good stuff.
I’m in this car with Mr. Freeman for a month.
That was a very interesting and pretty incredible opportunity.
He is a really warm and intelligent person.
Our characters are slightly antagonistic to each other at the start of the story.
His character is a seasoned veteran; I’m the new kid on the block.
He would rib me between scenes.
There is something that is magical about how he’s able to communicate with his eyes.
It’s hard to describe.
No one does it better than him.
I felt very lucky to be able to experience that and to learn from it.
It’s not just about plot.
It’s about characters that are existing from one moment to the next.
So much of their lives are unsure.
They don’t necessarily have grand plans.
They’re trying to live from moment to moment.
That’s a very difficult thing to cap off.
I’m glad that we were able to …
I can’t speak too much on what that might be.
There’s a couple things, but I will say that I’ve been enjoying … To make the necessary lifestyle changes and life changes and decisions and to explore has been really nice.
With COVID, it forced all of us to slow down a little bit and ask the bigger questions.
I spend a lot of time by myself and I like …
I’m an extroverted introvert, or maybe vice versa.
I was very thankful for that.
I want to learn and grow and be able to do that while I can.
That’s where I am at the moment.
“Paradise Highway” will be available in select theaters and on digital and On Demand on July 29.
This interview was edited for clarity.
