Amber Midthunder Talks That ‘Novocaine’ Twist and Her ‘Predator’ Franchise Future

[This story contains spoilers for Novocaine.]

In 2022, Amber Midthunder upstaged one of cinema’s most imposing villains in the Predator franchise prequel, Prey. Her performance as a coming-of-age Comanche warrior named Naru was widely hailed as revelatory, and she’s been so booked and busy since then that she had two theatrical releases debut this past weekend in Novocaine and Opus. The former, which was co-directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen for Paramount, is now the number-one film at the domestic box office.

Midthunder stars opposite Jack Quaid in Berk and Olsen’s action-comedy, something the two actors had been aiming to do for some time now. Prey director Dan Trachtenberg also directed Quaid in the pilot of his hit show, The Boys, so the filmmaker incepted the idea of collaboration into both of his actors’ brains. In Novocaine, Midthunder’s bank teller character, Sherry, initiates a dessert lunch date with Quaid’s Nate Caine, the assistant manager at their San Diego-based credit union. The two co-workers end up hitting it off by revealing sides of themselves that neither anticipated, namely that Nate can’t feel pain and that Sherry feels too much pain.

After a successful first date, Nate and Sherry’s bank is robbed at gunpoint, resulting in Sherry being taken hostage by armed Santa Clauses. So Nate decides to use his congenital insensitivity to pain (ICP) to his advantage and rescue the girl of his dreams. But don’t think Sherry is some damsel in distress, which Midthunder will later elaborate on in the spoiler portion of this interview.

“In movies like this, you don’t always get to see a female love interest with the complexity and the darkness that she has,” Midthunder tells The Hollywood Reporter. “So it’s funny to say that my experience inside of such a big fun action movie was mostly that of vulnerability, but it really was with Sherry.”

As for Midthunder’s future in the Predator franchise, it remains to be seen what’s in store for her character, Naru. After all, Prey’s closing credits illustrated a series of alien ships arriving at the Great Plains just after she defeated a Predator in spectacular fashion. We do know that Trachtenberg has already shot two follow-up films including November’s Predator: Badlands and a secret film that 20th Century president Steve Asbell revealed the existence of to THR last year.

When asked about the mystery movie, Midthunder flashes a cheeky smile and feigns ignorance, “What are you even talking about?” In any event, she would still welcome a reunion with Trachtenberg, adding, “I would love to play Naru again. I love Dan. I love [Prey]. I love that world. I would absolutely love to return.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Midthunder discusses Novocaine’s twists and turns in a delineated spoiler section, before explaining how Mark Anthony Green’s A24 film, Opus, was a homecoming for her.

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The photos of you and Jack Quaid at the Clippers game are hilarious, especially the one where Jack has his cast-covered arms in the air while you’re texting. 

(Laughs.)

Could you tell that some people were confused by what was happening with the two of you?

A hundred percent, yeah. It was also hilarious to see the difference between the people who had an awareness of The Boys and the people who had completely no clue what was going on with us. There were definitely people who were like, “Who are you and why do you look like this?” But it’s so cool to see outlets that I am a fan of talk about it. I’ve never really been on that side of a [marketing] stunt like that. That was also my first courtside game, so I had a great time. I love sports games, but to experience it that way, I will never forget it.

Cherry pie for lunch is quite a choice for a character named Sherry. It serves a greater purpose in the scene, of course, but did you try to rationalize it at all? “Oh, She’s had a rough life and isn’t afraid to indulge once in a while.”

Absolutely not! I honestly had zero questions about this. Sherry is a cherry pie-for-lunch kind of girl. I also affectionately named her Sherry Cherry because she has no last name in the movie, so that became a thing for her. She’s very much the dessert-before-dinner type of person. 

Your directors, Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, and I talked about how this movie doesn’t work without you and Jack making the audience fall for Nate and Sherry in the first act. So much hinges on that initial bond. Did you and Jack feel any pressure given how important those early scenes were to the overall story? 

Yeah, we definitely understood how important that was. Our most intimate and heaviest Nate and Sherry moments and scenes were our first days of filming for the entire movie. So that was probably the pressure we were feeling because that is an insane day one. Luckily, we got to Cape Town maybe two weeks early for prep, so we had been rehearsing those scenes every single day. But still, there’s nothing like the nerves of showing up on your first day of any job, let alone to have to shoot your most important scenes that really determined whether people buy into the movie or not.

The second viewing of Novocaine will be a different experience than the first. How much did you account for that in your choices?

It was a constant conversation that I was having with Dan [Berk] and Bobby [Olsen]. Even if it was something very small, I’m such an overthinker about things like this. So this movie was a huge exercise in trust between actors and directors, especially for me, in that regard. We would also do different versions of scenes to play with each possibility so that they had those options. And then it was really just trusting them whenever they said, “No, we have it,” or, “That was a great balance,” of whatever we needed it to be. So I just trusted them when they said they had it.

[The next six questions/answers contain major spoilers for Novocaine.]

As soon as she was taken hostage, I said to myself, “Oh no, she’s in on it.” Someone in my theater actually screamed when Sherry confirmed it by addressing her captor by his first name, Simon (Ray Nicholson). 

I love that! That’s great. 

Were you able to have that same experience while reading it for the first time? Or was it spoiled for you already? 

I did not know when I first read it. First of all, I had been trying to work with Jack for so long, and when the project first got sent to me and I saw he was attached, I immediately told my reps, “Yes, I want to do this movie.” And they were like, “Well, have you read the script? I think you should read the script first just to be informed.” (Laughs.) And I was like, “You’re right. I should read the script.” So I read the script, and then I had that same aha moment. But that was what I loved about Sherry. In movies like this, you don’t always get to see a female love interest with the complexity and the darkness that she has. She’s guarded and edgy as much as she is quirky, fun and charming, and those are actually the things that people seem to love about her. So it’s funny to say that my experience inside of such a big fun action movie was mostly that of vulnerability, but it really was with Sherry. [Writer’s Note: Midthunder’s Prey director, Dan Trachtenberg, also directed Quaid in The Boys’ pilot, so he recommended that they work together someday.]

In hindsight, Nate’s line about Sherry being a very good actor was a hint at what was coming. Were you bummed at first that she wasn’t operating in good faith?

Dan and Bobby and I had a lot of conversations about where her shift in thinking was and whether or not she had been looking to change for a while. Was this the straw that broke the camel’s back? Did she have intentions to follow through with her plan until everything changed with Nate? So [the latter] was what we ended up deciding, but a part of that still broke my heart a little bit. Sherry has a line in the movie: “We’re all hiding something; we’re just looking for someone we can show it to.” And that’s really the center point of Sherry and Nate’s relationship because neither of them were planning to encounter the other person. The way that he catches her off guard [with his tattoos] is what is so impactful, and she’s never known real safety with somebody. She’s never known actually being seen. The metaphor of showing her scars to him is a very literal metaphor, but she’s never felt the real love that comes from somebody truly seeing you. So I think that’s something powerful we can all identify with, and for somebody like Sherry who has never been caught off guard, [seeing Nate’s true self] is the biggest thing that could catch her off guard.

In other words, despite the false pretenses, Sherry still felt something genuine when they showed each other the marks on their bodies? 

A hundred percent, yeah. To me, and in our conversations, that was all very real. She was supposed to just shake it off and keep moving, but it’s the kind of thing that she could never shake off.

Nate tattoos his body because he can’t feel pain, but Sherry likely marks her body to substitute her emotional pain with physical pain. Thus, I theorized that Simon has had Sherry run this con on at least a couple other people, and the accumulated guilt that’s come from it all has caused her to cut herself. How do you see it?

She’s somebody who is very sensitive and is really invested in some version of morality. It’s more that she just doesn’t know anything else and has always had something to grapple with in life. She’s also in a therapy group. Even the scene in the bar [where she defends Nate], there’s no reason for that to be part of any plan. So I think Sherry is just somebody who naturally cares about people, and her relationship with Simon was forced from not really knowing anything else.

Post-twist, you were able to get the audience back on Sherry’s side so that there could still be some form of a happy ending for this couple. How worried were you about redeeming her to the audience?

I was mostly just focused on her journey. As the person who was playing her, I really felt her pain more than anything. So I was not thinking about whether audiences will feel this way or that way. I left that to Dan and Bobby to think about. We would talk about it, obviously, but not a lot. There was already so much that she’s struggling with and grappling with during this huge decision in her life. So I focused more on the internal struggle that she was going through at the time.

[Novocaine spoiler talk has now concluded.]

I didn’t realize you were royalty in the New Mexico casting world.

(Laughs.)

Just out of curiosity, have you ever gone out for Vince Gilligan’s Albuquerque-set shows?

I’m sure that I have. When you grow up in the New Mexico market, especially before I had moved to L.A. [at 17], there’s only so much that shoots there. So, yeah, I feel like I probably auditioned for Better Call Saul or Breaking Bad at some point.

Opus’ casting director, Angelique Midthunder, who also happens to be your mom, showed you the script. Does she pick her spots nowadays for anything in New Mexico?

Yeah, we have a mutual joke that she can never afford me, and I always say that she’s the casting director that will pitch me the least. Both of those things are true, I think. (Laughs.) But I’m such a huge fan of A24. I love every single thing that they do, and Mark Anthony Green is such an incredible person, artist and filmmaker. So it was really easy for me to want to be a part of it, and it was very funny when [my mom] asked me to work on that. It was during the strike and she was like, “I know you’re not doing anything. You would have to work locally. It’s a very stunt heavy role, and I kind of need you.” And I was like, “Call my agent.” Just kidding. No, I was just like, “Yeah, of course. This is so cool.” So I was very glad that she finally wanted to hire me for something. Normally, she really puts me through the wringer. I feel like every time I’ve ever auditioned for her and a director wants to hire me, she’s like, “No, I think that you should bring her in a couple times more.” So she really wants to make me earn it extra when she’s casting something, which I appreciate. It makes sense.

Were there lots of familiar faces on this Santa Fe-area set?

Yeah, anytime I’ve worked in New Mexico, it’s just so sweet and so comfortable. I grew up there, and those film crews raised me. So, in front of the camera and behind, I love working in New Mexico.

You’re known for being pursued by a Predator, but in the case of Opus, Belle is very much the predator to Ayo Edebiri’s character’s prey. Did you enjoy being on the opposite side of that dynamic?

Opus was just so cool for me to be able to see all these incredible actors up close. Even just having a small role in a movie like that is amazing. I got to witness John Malkovich and Juliette Lewis and Ayo and Murray Bartlett, who are all just titans of acting, come to life in each of their respective ways. It was so, so special.

I loved the shadow jogging scene between you and Ayo.

Yeah, for as much action as I have done, I do not love to run.

When people ask you about the secret Predator film that Dan Trachtenberg has already shot in addition to Predator: Badlands, what’s been your go-to response? 

(Midthunder smiles.) What are you even talking about? 

Let’s try it this way. Are you optimistic you’ll play Naru again? 

I would love to play Naru again. I love Dan. I love [Prey]. I love that world. I would absolutely love to return.

Prey is one of the most successful streaming releases, and for every streaming film that strikes a chord, there’s at least a handful of others that go unnoticed. So it must’ve been quite rewarding to know that the quality of your film still rose to the top. [Writer’s Note: Disney opted for a Hulu release because the post-theatrical streaming rights belonged to HBO Max, now Max, per existing deals with 20th Century.]

Yeah, it was a great feeling. Making anything is a risk. Nobody has a crystal ball to say how it’s ever going to go, but especially knowing that it was streaming was scary in ways. The movie still made an impact with Predator fans and the Indigenous community and lots of other people. We worked so hard on it so everyone could feel that, and for people to reflect it back was a feeling I cannot describe.

Is Monarch: Legacy of Monsters up next for you? 

Yeah, we just finished filming the second season of Monarch.

First a Predator, and now Godzilla, this town is really putting you through it.

(Laughs.) I just can’t stop hanging out with monsters.

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Novocaine and Opus are now playing in movie theaters.