The number of young A-listers tapped to helm blockbusters may be dwindling, but that doesn’t mean the cohort is lacking in star power. Just look at 29-year-old Suzanna Son, who broke onto the scene as a rosy-cheeked donut shop girl in 2021’s Red Rocket, or her friend Mark Eydelshteyn, the 23-year-old who vaped and somersaulted his way into our hearts as a Russian oligarch’s renegade son in last year’s Oscar-winner Anora. Both actors, brought to the mainstream by director Sean Baker’s sharp eye for talent, are part of a new paradigm of young Hollywood stars: Adored by the A24 set, they prefer offbeat stories to anonymous studio IP.
Son will be following her recent scream queen turn in Fear Street: Prom Night with another darkly-tinged Netflix series, Monster: The Ed Gein Story, alongside Charlie Hunnam and Vicky Krieps. She’s also fresh off the release of two singles from her forthcoming debut album: the sultry and moody “Pockets Full of Posey” and soul-baring ballad “Coraline.”
As Son prepared for the dual launch of her new tracks and Netflix show, she sat down with Eydelshteyn (who got a preview of the series in a set visit earlier this year) to talk nightmares, onscreen kisses, and online intimacy.
Mark Eydelshteyn: I will try to start with a small disclaimer, Suzy, for you. You have to know that I will ask you very stupid questions, and I will sound silly. It’s a very awkward situation for me because the first time I saw you onscreen was when I watched Red Rocket. After, of course, we met many times and we had amazing conversations, but I talked with you just like [a] friend. Now I’m talking with a professional actress and an amazing and talented person. It’s very hard to communicate with a person who you met for the first time on the screen.
Suzanna Son: That’s funny. I feel the same way about you, so I hope that makes you feel a little better because we are on the same nervous level.
Eydelshteyn: Maybe. First question: how do you sleep? When you are sleeping, do you see dreams?
Son: Yeah, I have really scary dreams, but I like them. Usually [I’m] in my grandma’s house, talking to my dead grandmother and explaining to her that she’s dead. It’s the only time I get to see her now, so I like them, but they are very deeply scary. Sometimes I write songs about them.
Eydelshteyn: Three days ago I saw the trailer of Monster and after that I had a nightmare too. How was it to be on the set? I have never had the chance to be on the set of such a terrifying story.
Son: Working with Charlie Hunnam, who played Eddie Gein, really helped because he stayed in character around 80 percent of the time. I’ve never been around someone like that. I’ve always been very social on set, but Charlie really helped build the world around me. I didn’t lose my energy by being social like you do sometimes. It makes me wanna do that kind of work forever.
Eydelshteyn: Like method acting?
Son: Maybe he was just trying to keep his accent, but he was definitely mysterious and impressive. He was walking around with his mother’s face on. It was crazy.
Eydelshteyn: And what about you? How did you behave on the set?
Son: I brought my film camera, and I took pictures every day.
Eydelshteyn: Do you remember the day when I came to the set?
Son: You caught me on probably the most stressful day of the shoot. I made a huge mistake, where I misread which scenes we were doing, and I didn’t learn my dialogue the night before. It was a freaking massive monologue. But I really love how the scene turned out.
Eydelshteyn: Do you feel that this is not you? This is a character?
Son: Yeah, it feels completely removed from myself. When I’m doing music performances, when I did my music videos, I wanted to look in the mirror and see how I looked. I felt self-conscious. But when I’m acting, it’s like I’m a different person. I don’t watch playback, not because I don’t like myself, but just because I don’t feel the need to. I don’t wanna see what it looks like and look at Suzanna at all. I just want to be whoever the character is.
Eydelshteyn: Are you trying to find some truth in the character that you have inside you? I know that some actors are just playing the character [and don’t look for similarities]. They just feel the vibe of this character, and they are going through their heart. But I cannot do it. I always have to go through my mind to my heart. I know a story about one actor who ignored the script and didn’t read it before shooting to just avoid his mind during the craft. He did it as an exercise to understand, can he go just through his heart? Can you imagine that one day you will ignore the script for such an experiment?
Son: That would stress me out.
Eydelshteyn: I think so too. It’s interesting to do experiments on yourself and try something. So I listened to your album today, all 32 minutes, and all these 32 minutes were like drowning in tenderness and sincerity. Like you are falling down with every new track. How can I describe it? I had no idea that you have such a voice. It’s amazing. Is it your emotions? Is it your experience and your drama and your questions, or is it a little bit more about building somebody else and trying to be somebody else in the other musical dimension?
Son: It’s definitely me, but sometimes I think about my wife, Ana, when I’m writing. I wrote this song called “Family,” and I was thinking about her family. I wonder about the saddest stuff. When I’m writing music, I’ll wonder, Which one of us will become the widow? It’s gonna be either Ana or me. Then I’ll think about that and cry. It’s messed up.
Eydelshteyn: Do you believe in destiny?
Son: Not really. I think things are just random and lucky and people get lucky: right place, right time, hard work.
Eydelshteyn: What is the percentage between luck and hard work? What’s more important?
Son: I don’t know if you can have one without the other. I know if I didn’t have luck, I wouldn’t be here today. And if I didn’t work hard, I wouldn’t be here today. So maybe 50-50.
Eydelshteyn: I just thought about what you said about messing up on set accidentally. I thought, It can be only destiny. And the fact that you do not believe in it means that you have to work hard. All the responsibility is on you.
Son: I like that. I like the control.
Eydelshteyn: I think that it’s 51 percent luck and 49 percent hard work. In Monster, you played a a teenager, way back when. I played a Gen Z person in Anora. There’s this discussion that Gen Z people are sexless people.
Son: I thought that was interesting. There’s some data that Gen Z is having less sex, and while that could be true, I don’t think that means they’re having less intimacy. They’re just getting it from other places than sex. Probably online.
Eydelshteyn: Wow. I have never thought about that. Very curious perspective. Can you think about examples of it? Because online intimacy sounds like a philosophical concept. Let’s try to analyze our lives and understand where we can get intimacy online. If we’re talking not about like webcam or something.
Son: Just talking to people, having followers for years and years that feel like friends or just feeling close to creators online, parasocial relationships. That does create an intimacy that’s really fulfilling for people.
Eydelshteyn: But can it be even more intimate than, for example, touch or something? I agree, frankly. Good comments can be even more important for you than touching or kissing. Do you remember your first kiss in cinema?
Son: It was in Red Rocket. He had a diamond in his tooth. I just remember that feeling really awkward.
Eydelshteyn: Is it easier now to do a kiss onscreen, or is it still awkward?
Son: It’s still awkward because there’s a lot of people watching. I hate it.
Eydelshteyn: I love kissing. You can kiss a person without any responsibility, without any promises. And you have an agreement that you are actor and she’s an actress too, and you can do it. These people who are watching, they help me do it because I know that it’s not serious. I remember my first kiss was in a movie called First Snow. It was a kiss then a sex scene. And then in the same scene, I did a jazz solo on the saxophone. I practiced for, I don’t know, two months to do this. The solo on saxophone was much more terrifying for me than the first kiss. Do you remember your first time in New York?
Son: I got yelled at for smoking weed on a curb. I remember my first award show in New York. That was exciting. I was 23. It was my first award up for anything. I totally lost and then I had to leave immediately to make it to work. You can never go into anything wanting to win, otherwise you’d be crushed.
Eydelshteyn: Can I ask you what movies you watched when you were a kid? You watch movies and everything is happening in New York.
Son: My mom didn’t really [let me] watch a lot of movies or TV. She just thought it was lazy and bad if you watched stuff. I watched Jane Fonda workout videos and her horse training videos. I saw my first good movie when I was 20.
Eydelshteyn: You have a great taste in music too. I just wanna ask you what tracks in the world make you think someone has taste.
Son: Maybe something by Donnie Hathaway. Old music or stuff that isn’t super popular. It would make me think that they’re listening to things because they like it, not because they’re supposed to.
Eydelshteyn: Are you into old music?
Son: I love old music. It’s really sad. Right now I’m listening to the Annie soundtrack and playing it on piano.
Eydelshteyn: And your your playlists in your phone, is it mostly sad?
Son: Sad and twerking. It goes between the two.
Eydelshteyn: Mine too. I just read an interview of Paul Thomas Anderson and Leonardo DiCaprio, and Paul asked an amazing question. He asked how old do you feel right now?
Son: Like 17? Is that fucked up?
Eydelshteyn: No. Just interesting.
Son: How old do you feel?
Eydelshteyn: Forty-one. I have no idea why. Maybe because I wanna be older than I am. And you’re the opposite. I loved that period when I was 16 or 17 and when I’m talking with you, I feel it.
in your life?
