Andrew Bowser & Olivia Taylor Dudley On Onyx The Fortuitous' Big Screen Debut [Sundance] (2024)

Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls may have had its world premiere at this year's Sundance Film Festival, but it was the result of over a decade of character-building and viral videos. Creator Andrew Bowser, who portrays Onyx (known to his mother as Marcus J. Trillbury), has perfected the character and his insecure satanic impulses through various meme-worthy projects before crafting a feature-length narrative around his story. A celebration of weirdness, Talisman of Souls follows Onyx into the mansion of Bartok the Great and an epic adventure that offers him something he's never had before: friends.

Bowser's real-life friend and creative partner Olivia Taylor Dudley (best known to sci-fi and fantasy enthusiasts as Alice from The Magicians) stars as Farrah, who serves as Onyx's foil and potential frenemy. As Bartok's assistant, she helped gather an eclectic group of true believers with special abilities, but her motivations (along with her master's) are very much in question. Though part comedy and part 80s horror classic, Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls is all heart.

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Screen Rant spoke to Bowser and Dudley about the original inception of Onyx the Fortuitous as a character, the creation of Talisman of Souls, and the next steps in Bowser's career as an actor and filmmaker.

Andrew Bowser & Olivia Taylor Dudley on Onyx The Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls

Screen Rant: Onyx the Fortuitous has been around for about a decade now. What was the very initial inspiration?

Andrew Bowser: I was taking improv classes at UCB in LA, and we were doing a lot of character work; trying to explore new characters to play and sketches, etc. I don't know what came over me while stepping out of the shower, but I remember having the idea to do a character that was so insecure and so in his head that after any statement, even if it was a statement that he knew was true, he would say, "I don't know!" Like, "What's your favorite horror movie?" "Gremlins? I don't know."

I just wanted him to say, "I don't know," immediately after any statement. It felt like that was a window into the most insecure person on the planet, and I'm kind of channeling my own insecurities by performing Onyx. I started with that catchphrase, which is what I guess you'd call it now, and I built his whole personality around that backpedaling and second-guessing behavior. It's a character that's just kind of locked up in their head.

And Satan is the only one that can bring him out of himself.

Andrew Bowser: [Laughs] The Satanism thing came about purely because one of the viral videos that I placed him in was a newscast from a Satanic Temple in Detroit. I was like, "Well, I have interest in that world of dark things and the supernatural, so maybe I can blend that into Onyx."

That video had the "Notice me, Senpai" bit, which made it into the movie. Just listening to that clip, your voice has evolved so much from the original iteration of the character. What was the process of getting him to where he is now?

Andrew Bowser: Honestly, it just felt like a process of making him talk faster and faster. I don't know why; maybe I just got more comfortable with the rhythm of the dialogue and the musicality of how Onyx talks. I felt like the faster I could get it, and the more intense I could make it, that was getting closer to who I think he is.

There's some people on the internet that are that are like, "He talks too fast. He doesn't sound like Onyx anymore." But for me, the quicker he gets, the more he sounds like himself. I watched those old videos, and I think, "That's not even the guy yet." I was finding him as I made the video, so there was no workshopping the character, and there was no live show. I think I've done him live twice, but I was making the videos that evolved him. So, you're gonna see that on screen and in those videos.

How did you bring this stellar cast together, and specifically come up with this role for Olivia Taylor Dudley?

Andrew Bowser: To be honest, one of the first characters that I started writing in the script was the foil for Onyx, which is the character of Farrah that my best friend Olivia plays. We have worked together for about 10 years, developing projects and writing together. We're creative partners, so if I set my mind on writing something, I'm immediately thinking, "Where does our dynamic fit in this?" It seemed fun to me to have someone who's my friend play the straight person Onyx's zaniness.

Olivia Taylor Dudley: And I wanted to play a villain because I enjoy playing the villain.

What were some of the biggest inspirations, in terms of the tropes that you pulled from for Talisman of Souls?

Andrew Bowser: The movies that I keep naming are Fright Night, Gremlins, and Ghostbusters. I was realizing the other night that there is some big-time Beetlejuice. It's a melting pot of 80s horror comedy that's in my head, like Night of the Creeps and Monster Squad. There was definitely that vibe of people coming together to go on this adventure.

But it's specifically through a modern lens. When you watch a lot of those movies, there's things that our 13-year-old self might have laughed at, but now you're like, "Oh, dear." We wanted to make sure it had the spirit of those films, the tone and the fun worldbuilding, but with a different perspective.

I love how everyone had a very specific cadence to how they were speaking. Were you very bossy about finding people's voices, or did everyone just come in following your lead?

Olivia Taylor Dudley: Andrew writes very rhythmically. There's a rhythm to the dialogue, especially in the Onyx stuff. All the actors came in and got into the rhythm of the way he wrote each character. It really is how he wrote it, which is really cool. Everyone found their own voice in it, but he does write in a very rhythmic way.

Andrew Bowser: Yeah, and I can get a bit bossy about that aspect of i. There's just certain words that I like the way they sound, sometimes an actor might think, "That's a synonym. I can swap it out for this." But I don't like the way that one sounds as much, so I'll have to pop in. And I know I'm no Aaron Sorkin, but I just try to talk about the rhythm of it. "This is the rhythm I'm looking for, not to give a line reading."

A lot of times people hear it then, and they're like, "I get why you wanted me to say 'ravenous salamanders deriding my virility.'" We actually cut that line, but there was a whole chunk that had all of those descriptors. And there's a joke early in the movie where a character's ordering food, and he wants it cooled down for his baby mouth.

That scene was incredible, with the other two actors barking in the background.

Andrew Bowser: Yeah, and I specifically wanted the character to say, "I don't want it to be too hot for my BABY mouth," emphasis on baby. And the actor, who is a wonderful human, kept putting the emphasis on "mouth." But he knew what I wanted, and he wanted to get it for me. You start to feel ridiculous that you're having somebody say this line over and over again, just to hit "baby" correctly. We were in that fast food hot for 30 minutes before I let anyone move on.

Olivia Taylor Dudley: But that's why it works. Everyone's game, and they really wanted to nail the dialogue and do a good job. Nobody was fighting it.

Andrew Bowser: Right, no one was. Because Onyx speaks so fast and has a certain cadence, I knew we needed to be strategic when it came to everyone else getting close to that in their own way. Everything needed to feel a little quick. When it did slow down, it needed to be very intentional to not feel like we messed up, and all of a sudden there's this lag.

What was the most challenging scene to pin down? "Baby mouth" took 30 minutes, but were there any aspects that were tough from a budgetary standpoint? Because it looked pretty good for what I assume was not a big budget.

Andrew Bowser: Your assumption is correct. It was not that big of a budget. I think the hardest thing in general was that it was an ensemble for a large portion of the film. In those days of long conversations between six characters, there's no way to make that go any faster. You have to get everyone's coverage, and you have to dial in the rhythm between the conversation. Days where five or six of us were taking part in a ritual were hard.

Olivia Taylor Dudley: Working with puppets was also challenging but fun, and it took a little longer than we thought.

Andrew Bowser: The way I've explained it is that the shark never broke. We never had a day where something wasn't working. But when you factor in night shoots in the freezing cold Massachusetts, sometimes in the rain and sometimes in the snow, and five ghoul puppets? They're heavy, and they each have robes and necklaces and feathers and wigs.

Olivia Taylor Dudley: And there's one person holding them in freezing cold, on their knees. It was a lot, and everyone gave their all.

Andrew Bowser: When the puppets did work and everything was in rhythm, then it was magical. And you're like, "This is why we're doing this." Because we love those Jim Henson films.

Olivia Taylor Dudley: There were a lot of moments that weren't working with the puppets. You're watching through the camara, and you're like, "Oh, that looks like a puppet..." But then there are the moments where it clicks, and you're like, "There it is!" That's what you need, the moment where it just feels real; a real puppet.

Andrew Bowser: The personality's coming through, and the puppeteer is moving while the technician is doing the eyes. And then once the sound design is in, you're like, "Oh, it's Gremlins!"

I know you used Adobe Premiere to edit the film together. What was that process like?

Andrew Bowser: The artistic side of the edits did very much involve Adobe, and I couldn't have done it without Premiere. I'm also the editor, and I truly write and shoot to edit. Everything for me comes back to the edit, especially on a film of this size, because you don't have time to explore as much as you would on a bigger set. There's no time to say, "Actually, what if we added a bunch of time here?" or "What if you walked down that hall, even though you're supposed to stay in the kitchen? What's in the other room?"

Being strategic about how we shot it meant that the edit went pretty smoothly. It really did cut together how we planned, and it also went smoothly from a technical side. I was editing on a laptop in Premiere with my proxies, and it went off without a hitch. We were able to sit and make cuts, then review together before farming them out to our producers. I'd stack my take so I could show them options and alternatives, and we would be doing a lot of previs for VFX. There was slugs all over the edit saying, "Here's where the electricity happens on the soul dagger."

Premiere was perfect for the way I cut. I am a messy editor, but Premiere is very intuitive and helps me find the things I need to find when I haven't put them in the right place. My AE delivered the project very organized, and then I promptly kicked everything over and added new bins and called things what they shouldn't be called. But with Premiere, I found my way and never got stuck. I was always able to get these exports done for review and have the film done in under a year from shooting it.

Olivia Taylor Dudley: Yeah, we got that first cut done in two and a half months.

Andrew Bowser: It was rough, but truly, a lot of those scenes are still cut the way they were in that first assembly. We just tightened and tightened.

You've said you wanted to steer more towards being a filmmaker than an actor, which is why Onyx has been tricky. But has this film been a launching pad for you to go into fulltime filmmaking?

Andrew Bowser: I've been directing for as many years, if not more, as I have been performing Onyx. But the worlds have just never blended, and there's still people who think Onyx is a real person. They don't know there's a filmmaker behind him. Everything that I've developed when it comes to narrative doesn't really involve Onyx, so this was really the test of bringing my filmmaker sensibilities into the world of Onyx.

What I hope people take away from it, and I think it's already happening in a couple of reviews that have mentioned the technical side of it, is that it feels like a very competently structured and complete film. Honestly, sometimes that matters more than just saying, "I thought it was funny." I do hope it shows that there's a competency in my directing and the responsibilities that I had there. That is what I have more interest in and more passion for, and hopefully, this is the vehicle to that.

About Onyx The Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls

Amateur occultist Marcus J. Trillbury, aka Onyx the Fortuitous, is struggling. He’s misunderstood at home and work, but his dreams for a new life seem to be answered when he lands a coveted invitation to the mansion of his idol Bartok the Great for a ritual to raise the spirit of an ancient demon. He excitedly joins Bartok and his fellow eclectic group of devotees as they prepare for the ceremony, but pretty quickly it becomes apparent everything is not as it seems. As Onyx and his new friends fight to keep their souls, he must decide what he’s willing to truly sacrifice in order to meet his destiny.

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Onyx The Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival on January 22. The film is 110 minutes long and not yet rated.