Posted in: Horror, Interview, Lionsgate, Movies | Tagged: A Breed Apart, Riele Downs

A Breed Apart Star Riele Downs on Lionsgate Horror Remake, Cast & More

Riele Downs (Bel-Air) spoke to Bleeding Cool about her latest Lionsgate action horror film "A Breed Apart", working with Fursts, cast & more.

Riele Downs has an impressive filmography with a career that spanned over two decades, starring in memorable roles like Paramount's Four Brothers (2005), Universal's The Best Man Holiday (2013), and her five-season run on Nickelodeon's Henry Danger. Her more recent standout performances include Hulu's Darby and the Dead (2022) and Peacock's Bel-Air. Her latest is Lionsgate's A Breed Apart, a remake of the 2006 film The Breed, that follows Violet (Grace Caroline Currey), who accepts an invitation to a private island with some of the world's most famous social influencers. She expects a weekend of unrivaled viral opportunity. She soon becomes part of her own horrific reality show when the guests are pitted against each other to capture the island's legendary man-eating dogs before they become victims of the monstrous canines. Downs, who plays one of the influencers, "Killer Queen," spoke to Bleeding Cool about doing more action, working with the writer-director sibling duo Griff and Nathan Furst, bonding with her co-stars, and more.

A Breed Apart Star Riele Downs on the Fursts' Welcoming Set, Stunts, Horror & More

Bleeding Cool: What intrigued you about 'A Breed Apart?'

Good question. When they sent it to me and I read the script, my first thought was that this is a crazy ride and unlike anything I've ever done and seen. I was excited to do something new, and action films in particular always intrigued me. They're always fun, and I'm an adrenaline seeker myself, so I'm excited about filming something like this.

Did you see the original 'The Breed?'

I did, yeah, and seeing all those actors in their earlier days and all the stunts they got to do. I'm a big stunt person, like a do-your-own-stunts type of girl, so seeing that, I was like, "All right, this is going to be cool and this is with dogs, too." It's crazy.

What's it like working with Griff and Nathan as creatives?

It was awesome. They worked perfectly together as a team; for example, someone was always behind doing the technical stuff, and then the other was always in front, talking with us and getting us grounded. They made a wonderful team, and every day was easy, like they're super easygoing, which is important when it comes to a movie like this. We felt free enough to have fun, riff, and do certain things that added to the project. When directors are more rigid, and you know you can get stressed out, it doesn't help the project, but they were super chill, easygoing, supportive, and it made it easy.

This isn't typically like most horror films, whereas we see the core mostly intact for the bulk of the film. What was it like working with Virginia [Gardner], Grace, Page [Kennedy], Troy [Gentile], and Zak [Steiner]?

It was truly amazing, like I didn't expect to get along with everyone as much as I did. Going into any project, you're like, "I don't know." You don't necessarily expect friends for life, especially since we're all very different ages and come from like totally different places in our careers and our lives. It was a surprise to all of us how much we bonded.

We would have dinner together every night, talk about, and debrief the day. We still text in our group chat all the time, so I'm happy I made friends for life, not to mention they're phenomenal actors, I respect beyond professionally. Working with them was a real treat, especially Grace, Jenny, and me. We were very close and had our dynamics. Page and I had our "Word of the day" that we would do every single day, and try to learn new words. We all had our thing, and it was so much fun.

What was the biggest challenge during production for you?

I would have to say some of the stunts. As you can see in this movie, it is so jam-packed with action, and it never slows down. Every day was like a new, "All right, how are we going to do this?" Also, the directors were super creative with how they wanted to edit things and took their liberties. They didn't do things super uniform, which I love, so figuring out on a day-to-day, "All right, how are we going to this cool shot? How are we going to do this thing, setting up for all of that, and working with the dogs in general?" They were great, having to do stunts with them. Finding the balance to make sure that they're good and we're good could be tricky sometimes.

Some of the stuff in the film was so wild. I'm sure that's the advantage of mixing the CG and the practical effects. How did you feel working in that environment?

Yeah, it was something we all adjusted to, but it became easier over time. There are obvious scenes there where the dog's climbing the tower, where it's like, "Okay, we're not going to have them do that" [laughs]. There are certain times when it was obvious we were going to use CG. I have a vivid imagination, so it wasn't too difficult to picture myself in that situation, imagine that a dog was coming at me, and attacking me. A lot of times, if you see me getting attacked by a dog, it is like a green screen bundle that the director was pushing onto me, which was fun in and of itself. With the entire environment, I'm afraid of bugs, like that's like my thing. There were so many bugs on that island, so I was in a state of fear. The things we were doing were crazy, like shooting on a boat for multiple days. And the circumstances we were in were already having us at these heightened places. It wasn't too far from a jump to get what we needed emotionally.

How do you feel your social media habits are compared to those of your character, Queen, to the others around there?

Good question. I don't use social media anymore. I used to go in it a lot more as a teen, so I feel like I was pulling from those days, where like I would watch DIY channels like the one Killer Queen was on, where I was on Instagram all the time. I understand that hustle, but I'm falling back, personally. I'm staying off, I've been isolated now, so I'm in a different world at the moment.

A Breed Apart, which also stars Joey Bragg and Hayden Panettiere, is available in theaters, digital, and on-demand.

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