EVEN THOUGH OWEN PAINTER WANTS TO PUNCH HIMSELF IN THE FACE (AGAIN – IF YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW) AFTER USING THE WORD “PLAYFUL” ONE TOO MANY TIMES TO DESCRIBE BECOMING ISAAC NIGHT OR “SLURP” ON WEDNESDAY, IT JUST FITS LIKE A GLOVE. HE LIKENS WORKING ON SET TO RUNNING AROUND IN THE BACKYARD – ALBEIT THE MOST ELABORATE BACKYARD EVER, EQUIPPED WITH A FUNCTIONING CARNIVAL AND A LOG CABIN THAT EVEN TIM BURTON CALLS “CRAZY”. WITH THE WIDE-OPEN GROAN OF NEVERMORE’S WROUGHT IRON GATES, CROWS ATOP UNLATCH THEIR WINGS LIKE SPINDLY FINGERS, AND OWEN, TOO, LOOSENS HIS GRIP. WE CHAT ABOUT LEARNING TO JUST BE, WITHOUT CURLING UP IN THE FAMILIARITY OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. ACTING PERMITS HIM TO BE UNINHIBITED, WHETHER “DISGUSTING,” SPONTANEOUS, OR…PLAYFUL. HAVING WATCHED ELF MORE TIMES THAN HE CAN COUNT, WORKING ON SEASON TWO OF THE HIT NETFLIX SERIES WAS HIS HEAPING MOUTHFUL OF CANDY SPAGHETTI.

How is your week going?
I'm moving out of my apartment because I'm relocating to New York City!
I'm from Connecticut, from an area closer to Boston. I've been thinking for a while that I want to live closer to home. I've been away from family and friends over there for almost a decade. It's about time. I moved to Dublin for nearly a year to shoot Wednesday, so I reduced a lot of my belongings.

Dublin sounds like a dream location!
It is the best city ever. I miss it all the time. The people are amazing. It's hard to step outside your apartment without having a 45-minute conversation.

Left Full look **Dior Homme**
Right Full look Saint Laurent by Anthony Vacarrello

You sat in the makeup chair for so many hours to become Slurp. Was it hard to keep your mind calm?
Being so different from myself freed me from a lot of self-consciousness. The prosthetics team was such a fun hang, so all of those hours were really just spent shooting the shit. But at first, all I would do when we weren't chatting was read the scripts over and over again. But there's only so many times you can read it. I unclenched my fists a bit. I felt a lot more nervous when we finally took the makeup off, and I showed up as a real person. It felt like the first day of school. I was really socially self-conscious and kind of embarrassed. There was very little pressure to be myself as Slurp, mainly because it was impossible. I couldn’t talk, see, or hear. My head was weighed down because it was so heavy. I looked like Charlie Brown. [Laughs]

Is there anything specific that you feel like you wouldn't have tried if it weren’t for that feeling?
I allowed myself to actually be disgusting in a way that I might have initially self-censored. All of the food is getting stuck in your makeup and rotting all day. You actually stink, and people are spraying your mouth with midnight blue spray, and you're drooling all over. Any sense of comfort was so immediately gone that I felt totally out of my head. My natural disposition is more self-conscious, which is horrible for an actor; it's the main thing I try to get over every day.

Some actors actively try to focus on the sensory experience to get out of their heads. Wednesday is so detailed. How would you describe the sensory experience on set?
The sets were stunning. Hunter [Doohan] and I were staring at an entire log cabin that they had built for five seconds of screen time. We were just laughing at the scale of it. Tim [Burton] walked over, as we are all looking at this unbelievable feat of production design, and just said, "This is crazy.” [Laughs] They built an entire functioning carnival that we could play with. There are some shots where Slurp is walking through the crowd, and all these Irish extras were catcalling us and trying to get us to break.

Left Full look **Dior Homme**
Right Full look **Dior Homme**

[Laughs] Tim Burton’s philosophy is that nothing should be too clean or expected in any way. Did anything about your performance surprise even yourself?
Every day, I came in with a bunch of ideas that were just totally wrong. Then we would wing it. Well, it's not really winging it when it's Tim helping you. Working with him feels like you have the wind at your sails. One of the first things that struck me was that you could stand totally still in one of his frames, and the camera movement, framing of the shot, design, and colours do so much of the storytelling. You don't have to move a muscle. It was a great safety net. I set a goal for myself to do something unexpected every day. Tim runs around with a lens that looks like a Super 8 camera. It’s like you’re making it in someone's backyard. It felt really youthful. I wanted to let myself enjoy it.

Is there any particular scene that you feel most closely matched to that childlike feeling?
I’m thinking of when Slurp is trapped in the shed with Pugsley and Eugene. He's eating honey and vomiting. They hooked me up with a vomit cannon that I was too blind to aim, so we kept missing, and only one of them would get obliterated. [Laughs] We were messing around, which makes it sound frivolous, but getting back in touch with that feeling is something Tim does really well.

Do you have a vivid memory from your childhood when you felt that same way?
No, actually. I think that's why I look for it so intently. I was really introverted and incredibly self-conscious as a kid. I didn't let myself be that much. I'm starting to realise that that's why I like doing this job, because it gives me a permission structure to be myself. I'm able to just stand there more easily without curling up.

You have said that your first scene with Frances [O’Connor] lit up the character for you. What moment made you feel that way?
Yes, before we drove off in the Prius, she improvised, asking us to put on our seatbelts in a very motherly way. That level of… Sorry, I keep saying the annoying word “playfulness” over and over. [Laughs] The relationship was so intense on the page – “I need to save her.” Then she came in looking for the humour, which opened things up.

I love the stop motion animation of Isaac’s mythology. Do you have any mythology from your hometown?
I’m not sure if there’s any mythology, but I am realising that I am very much an American New Englander. I tried to go across the country to be as far from where I grew up as possible. I felt like a real individual, whatever that means. I'm now realising the trademark characteristics of people I grew up with. I believe in work as a fulfilling tool of life. I am naturally more reticent socially. It's really comforting to feel like there is a sense of home out there, but it's also a lot of the traits that I was running from.

What is your most signature New Englander trait?
My love of Dunkin' Donuts. [Laughs]

That’s the one! I have a Dunkin' Donuts drink next to me right now.
I am so jealous. I can't wait to be back in the land of five of them per square mile. [Laughs] I have bad periods when I'm getting two large ices in a day; otherwise, my heart will explode! Go ahead, drink yours. I want to see the label! [Laughs]

Left Full look **Giorgio Armani**
Right Full look **Dior Homme**

Here it is! We are addicted. [Laughs] Anyway, I know that Jenna Ortega offered you some advice on set. What advice do you think you’d give a peer based on your experience?
I was always picking Jenna’s brain because I admire her so deeply. I am becoming a believer that you can't fast-track the important lessons of life. So, I would just say some version of, “It's all gonna be okay.” I ended up talking with Noah [B. Taylor] and Georgie [Farmer] a lot about what we were self-conscious about. Every one of us had a million stories about a time that we fucked up, but it was totally fine. My friend realised that there is some of the meanest self-talk in all of his buddies' journals. He's been going around compiling funny first entries. One of them is like, “Well…it's all gone to shit again.” [Laughs] There were so many days I came home from set feeling like a moron. You just have to get over yourself and be a little braver about life. I hope I can be a little further down that journey for anybody who cares to pay attention.

Full look Saint Laurent by Anthony Vacarrello

Left Full look **Dior Homme**
Right Full look **Giorgio Armani**

Community really lends perspective, because I think it’s rare for people to think, “Wow, I did that perfectly.” How important a role does community play in your life?
It’s pretty fundamental to everything. I don't know how much I've really found it. I felt it right away in Dublin. I went through customs with Hunter, and we pulled up the same document about our shooting permit at the same time. That night, I went out with him and Joy [Sunday] to a pub, and we were constantly hanging out. I'm always looking for that. I was just on the phone with Jenna and Hunter. I have seen Noah multiple times. But it is that feeling of graduating from high school, and you all scatter. It was so fun for me in Dublin that in the back of my mind, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I thought, “Oh, this will just be temporary,” but it hasn't been.

What media do you vividly remember watching growing up?
I found tremendous comfort in films growing up. I weirdly have great memories associated with Les Misérables – it just engrossed me. I remember sitting forward the whole time and my dad saying, “I don't think I've ever seen you pay attention to something like that in your life.” [Laughs] One of my earliest memories is of the Tarzan movie and the Phil Collins soundtrack. You know how toddlers always stand right in front of the TV in diapers? Also, every year, my family watches Elf. If there's one human in this world who has given me more comfort than anyone else, it's probably Will Ferrell. I can’t tell you how many times I've watched it. He gets me. I used to dream of being an adult and making my own candy spaghetti for dinner.

Interview by Tessa Swantek

Photography by Ryan Pfluger

Fashion by Adrian Jose Ramos Diaz

Grooming by Bailee Wolfson

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