‘Death of a Unicorn’: Will Poulter & Alex Scharfman Talk Absurdist Horror, Unicorn Lore, ‘Warfare,’ and an MCU Dream Team-Up [The Discourse Podcast]

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On the latest episode of The Discourse, actor Will Poulter and writer-director Alex Scharfman joined host Mike DeAngelo to discuss their new A24 horror-comedy "Death of a Unicorn," a twisted genre mash-up that brings unicorns into the Spielbergian creature-feature fold. The film also stars Jenna Ortega, Paul Rudd, Téa Leoni, Anthony Carrigan, Richard E. Grant, and Sunita Mani, and tells the story of a tech billionaire's lawyer and his daughter who accidentally hit a unicorn with their car and attempt to cover it up at an elite corporate retreat. Magical madness, death, and more unicorn action ensue!

Poulter, having taken a break from comedy in recent years, said he relished playing Shepard, an Ivy League-bred man-child desperate for approval and woefully out of touch. "It’s really fun to be conscious of the fact that everyone’s going to be laughing at you, and never with you," he said. "You sort of feel like he's never really left the various ivory towers that his family own around the world, but thinks he's superior to everyone around him.”

READ MORE: ‘Death of a Unicorn’ Review: Jenna Ortega and Paul Rudd Make Monster Movie Magic for A24 [SXSW]

Despite his delusions of grandeur, Poulter was careful not to strip Shep of all humanity. "I don’t want to absolve him of wrongdoing, but ultimately what it boils down to is the child-parent relationship," he explained. "What Shep really wants more than anything is approval from his dad, and he wants his mom to be more honest with him than she’s ever been."