Exclusive Interview: Actor, Erik Hoover (Tucker from An Awful Thing Has Gone and Happened)

How did you get attached to An Awful Thing Has Gone and Happened ?
I met Deborah in film school in the mid-2000s where I happened to be auditing an acting class and she was helping the instructor film scenes. I worked on a couple student films with her and she contacted me out of the blue all these years later to see if I’d be interested in reading for a couple roles. Tucker seemed like a great fit to everyone and the stars aligned.

Tell us a little bit about your character?
Tucker’s definitely not the smartest guy, but he’s definitely smarter than he lets on. He loves to talk and to hear himself talk. He uses those two things to avoid suspicion to great effect.

How was it working with the director?
Deb and Chris gave me a lot of freedom to play with Tucker and as a character guy, that’s really important to me.

What was your favorite scene?
Obviously the scene in Tucker’s office with Birdie. It’s wonderful for me as an actor to have such great language to play with and the space to inhabit Tucker and I’m so glad that the whole scene made it into the film.

An Awful Thing Has Gone and Happened / Amazon

What was the most difficult aspect to making this film?
I would have to say not actually breaking Levi’s arm –he’s the guy under the sheet– during the morgue scene. He really showed a lot of trust there. Respect.

What makes this film stand out?
Chris and Deb really nailed the characters both from a writing and a cinematographic standpoint –which is not easy to do with comedic moments.

Do you have any favorite horror films?
As a huge sci-fi fan, Nope and Event Horizon are definitely among my favs.

What made you want to get into acting?
I’ve always loved getting immersed in stories so it’s kind of a natural fit I guess.

Who inspires your creativity?
Hard to narrow it to a person –humanity, I guess.

What’s next for you?
I’m workshopping Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape this summer that will run later this fall in Minneapolis. It rarely gets staged but it’s a pretty stinging indictment of the kind of grievance politics and populism we’re embroiled in today.