Robert Kojder chats with C.O.G. star Piper Curda…
Having quite the year between director Tommy Savas’ tech horror-satire C.O.G. (from a screenplay by his partner Angie Simms) and Disney Pixar’s Hoppers, former Disney Channel alum star Piper Curda is having quite the year appearing in movies that, while they couldn’t be any more different in tone, content, and presentation, both have strong messages about the world we are living in. Here, that is an overreliance on technology and the increasing, dooming rise of AI, which has only gotten worse in the two years since this film was shot.
Playing Kaya, a disgraced coder and tech addict given a second chance at life working for tech-bro CEO Ethan (Noel Fisher), the character gradually finds out that maybe James Cameron’s Terminator 2 had a point. Her boss is fully prepared to take a new AI program online without properly testing safety guardrails to meet a financially lucrative deadline. As such, she and the team of coders (an amusing ensemble of supporting players also in on the pulpy punchline that people are far too comfortable with technology nowadays) are stuck pulling an all-nighter to finish the programming. It also turns out that the AI, known as CognAItive, has become sentient, operating off the office servers, determined to go to any manipulative and blackmailing lengths to get one of these characters to bring it fully online. That said, as Kaya resourcefully pushes back, Piper Curda becomes a vicarious and cathartic stand-in for what many of us wish we could do to AI in this clever horror-comedy that functions as a slasher, which is one of many reasons it was a pleasure to talk to her for the film.
Incredibly generous with her time, this conversation spans a number of topics beyond this smaller indie that certainly deserves box office support (it is in theaters September 4th and on digital September 25th, so check your nearby theaters or pre-order from Apple here), ranging from auditioning for Hoppers during this shoot, the whiplash of both of these movies coming out in the same year, working with Todd Haynes, Natalie Portman, and Julianne Moore on May December, how AI continues to become more worrisome since shooting, in turn making this film more relevant, and more. She regularly refers to this as a fun movie and something big studios don’t always make anymore, and I fully agree. It’s a horror concept with real fears and thought that isn’t afraid to get goofy and self-aware, culminating in a showdown with AI that, again, is cathartic. Enjoy the interview below:
Before getting into the movie, I just want to say I’m fascinated by the trajectory of your career, starting out on the Disney Channel, appearing in movies here and there, working with Todd Haynes, and now this year you have a return to your Disney roots with Hoppers and C.O.G., which might give tonal whiplash going between a tech-thriller like this and animation. Do you have any thoughts on making those movies, I’m assuming within a recent span of one another?
Yeah, that’s a great point. It’s not something I think you would necessarily put together, primarily because they will hopefully have very different audiences. It’s been really fun to get to do such different things. I think a trap that some performers can fall into, especially people who started on the Disney Channel, is that they sort of get pigeonholed or put into this one box. That has just very much not been the case for me in my career. So I’ve been very lucky in that sense. I actually auditioned for Hoppers while shooting C.O.G. in 2024. It’s a funny little thing that it’s all starting to kind of come to fruition this year. It’s been a minute, but we’re here now.
Did you do any research on coding or hacking to get better in the mindset of your character?
PC: Not necessarily research, but I did want to make sure that it looked like I knew what I was doing because I find that to be really bothersome when you’re watching a movie or a show and the character is supposed to be an expert on something, and anybody who is actually an expert on it can super duper tell that they’re not. So I definitely wanted to make sure. I asked them and made sure that all of the, I guess, code language on the screens we were typing on was real. And I mimicked pretending to type what was on the screen. I’m a pretty fast typer, so I do think that lent itself to the whole thing. But yeah, I definitely wanted to make sure there was some element of authenticity to that. That’s always somewhat important to me.
I also like that this movie has a sense of humor, especially in regard to your character starting out relying on technology. That’s, of course, turned upside down in the final scene, which is funny. I can assume you’re not that reliant on technology or AI in real life. So did you enjoy sort of poking fun at yourself as your character going on this arc?
Oh my gosh, totally! You’re right. I definitely am not. I would classify myself as tech-savvy, but I am quite anti-AI; I will say that straight out. And I do think we are approaching dangerous territory with reliance on technology, for sure. It’s always so much fun to get to play a character that is different from you. For a lot of actors, that’s why we do it. We’re trying to escape whatever the hell our real life is. Getting to do something that’s so wildly different from it is always really fun.
I’m glad to hear you say you’re anti-AI because… watching the end of this movie, you get to completely destroy an AI server. That’s something many of us want to do right now. So can you talk about shooting that scene and finding catharsis in it?
It was so fun! It was a cathartic exercise in general. Layering on top of that, my sort of disdain for AI was great. Although I will say, it’s definitely grown significantly in the last two and a half years, both AI and my disdain for it, so now I kind of wish I had another go at it. I would maybe have a little more oomph behind it! That was a scene I was really excited to do, and I did walk away from it with a couple of injuries solely because I went too hard. We had a phenomenal stunt coordinator, Jess Harbeck, who was very good at telling me how best not to hurt myself, and I just sort of didn’t listen to it and really went all in and walked away with quite a few bruises. But I did not regret it one bit. It was very, very fun, and I would love to do something like that again.
Well, I hope you’re better now, haha, and not too injured.
Oh, I was fine!
You said you shot this movie in 2024. As you said, AI has gotten a lot worse. Are there any differences you’ve noticed between shooting this movie and now, with the growth of AI?
The reliance I’ve seen on it, and the uptick in stories about how someone relying on AI has led them astray, caused them not to learn how to read, or carried them through high school or college, and they don’t know how to do math at the end of it. And I’m the first person to say we don’t use all the math we learn in school, but I do think there’s some merit to learning it in the first place. It’s just been kind of scary to see that. And then, especially, the infiltration into art that it has made. For a while there, we maybe thought/hoped that they would leave the art alone because we’ll always have artists. That’s something that people enjoy doing. And yet it has still really overtaken so much of that industry in a really frightening and upsetting way. Not to be bleak, but yeah, it’s just gotten worse and bigger, but at the same time, I feel like I see more stories or more communities of people that are anti-AI, championing a world without it. You just never know how that stuff’s gonna shake out. I’m a little spooked, but it just makes it a more ripe time for our movie, I suppose.
You’re right. Things are bleak, and you must look at your own character in the movie and be like, “Wow, Tommy Savas and Angie Simms [director and screenwriter, respectively] really nailed it.”
Oh, absolutely!
Another thing I like about this movie is that it’s basically a slasher movie by way of AI, and you get to be the final girl. So did you find that aspect clever? And what else drew you to this project?
Oh my gosh, yeah! That was so fun. There are so many campy aspects to it and things that call back to old ’90s sci-fi-type romp movies. Then, in its own sort of way, it is kind of singular. It does put its own twist on things, which I enjoy. So it’s both familiar and not, which is a fun experience when watching a movie. That’s another thing that’s kind of missing from film these days: people are afraid to have fun, mostly because studios are afraid to fund fun, but it’s so cool to get to do something that’s serious, but it’s silly and strikes a lot of chords that I think get left behind in high cinema. I’m excited to be a part of something original.
It strikes a balance between all of those things. Talk about acting opposite Noel Fisher because I’ve seen him in stuff before, but he’s so convincing as this tech-bro Elon Musk-like character that halfway through watching, I just began wondering if he wasn’t an actor and just pulled from that world.
Dude, he’s so good! I was a huge fan of his before we did this movie, so I was super excited when he got cast, and I told him that straight away when I met him. I was like, “Hey, man, I love your episode of Bones.” But you’re absolutely right. He nails this character, and it’s kind of scary because he is such a nice person, incredibly gracious, and giving with his time and energy as an actor. He’s so good. I think every single take he would do something a little different, and every single time I’d be kind of be forgetting I’m in the scene with him and I have to act too because I was just enjoying his performance and the way he can make something… you know, all the things his character says sound like they could have been said by Elon Musk before, but he also somehow sort of adds an edge to it that makes it a little bit different and makes it a little bit null. He’s a phenomenal actor and really shines in this movie.
I love when someone instantly accuses him, “Did you have the AI write that for you?” That got a good laugh out of me.
Yep!
Tommy has a great directorial style here, with moody lighting and solid use of a confined setting. Can you talk about that and what you enjoyed about working with him?
Oh my gosh! Yeah, that was really fun. Tommy is the best. You’re right, he had such a great vision that it was clear that he had it on the day, but you don’t even get the full scope of it until you get to see it on the screen. You’re right, it was such a confined space. I think we did 16 or 17 days in this one office building in LA, and he does so much with the space, making it obviously, feel like you’re still in one place without feeling too constricting. He played around with a lot of creative lighting because of the randomness of the space we were in, and it really lent itself to the eeriness and atmosphere. Tommy did an incredible job, and Angie, his wife, wrote it. They’re just sort of like this crazy power couple, and they’re both hot and funny and cool people. Whatever they were bound to make was gonna be cool, but they are also cool people on top of it. And I’m just stoked I got to be a part of it.
As far as I know, she did the voice of the AI, right?
She did, yeah. When we were on set shooting it, she was always there to read the lines. For a while there, they liked the idea of maybe getting a 90s screen queen to do the voiceover. I was not part of any of those conversations, obviously, but I was really happy they kept her voice in there because, first of all, she does a great job. She has this really great balance of human and an uncanny creepy and sweet. I love that she gets to be a part of the movie in that way too.
You said you were auditioning for Hoppers at this time, so did you have any conversations with her about voice acting to help you prepare for those?
Oh my gosh, no! I was under a lock-and-key NDA when I was auditioning for Hoppers, and when I was recording it, at least until they announced it.
That sounds like Disney, all right.
Yeah, I think it was August the year later. So, for about a year and a half, I couldn’t tell anyone what that was about. Honestly, I had signed NDAs for projects before, and I just told people, because I was like, “I don’t care, whatever.” But this was Disney Pixar, and it just felt way too big, and I felt like I was gonna get sniped from the bushes if I actually told somebody. So yeah, I didn’t tell anybody what was happening. For one of the auditions, they flew me up to Emeryville, and so we had to coordinate with the scheduling for the movie and be like, “Hey, can I be gone this day? Does this work?” The people were casually like, “Well, what’s it for?” And I was like, “I’m so sorry. I can’t say, and I hate being that guy, but I genuinely can’t say.” But yeah, very weird juxtaposition, those two projects, but very fun.
Going backward into your career for a minute, I think it’s incredible you got to work with Todd Haynes. I have to imagine that’s a set where you might grow as an actor or learn something. So what did you take away from your time on that set?
That was a really cool set for me because prior to that film, I had experiences or interactions or whatever with different, varying levels of public figures or famous people, whatever you want to call them, and some of the very famous ones that I had met were quite unpleasant, not great people to be around. It was disheartening and made me feel like, oh, “do you maybe have to be kind of a shitty person to get to the top? That’s kind of what you hear going through, whatever. And far and away, Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore are the most talented and famous people I’ve ever worked with and been in a scene with. They were some of the kindest, coolest, and most down-to-earth people I’ve ever met. It gave me so much hope because they have accomplished more than most anyone I’ve worked with, and they are kinder than a lot of them, and, and obviously, their lives aren’t normal, but their attitude is very normal, their vibe is very normal, and I loved that, and it made me feel like you could survive and succeed and stay a good person. That was definitely the biggest thing I took away from that. And also figuring out how to stay in a scene when you’re acting opposite Natalie Portman. I mean, gosh, it’s so hard to not just sit there and enjoy and have to be like, “Oh, God, time to react.” That was a wild experience. I’m very grateful for that one.
I’m glad you found some nice ones out there in the industry. That’s nice to hear, although it sucks that there were unpleasant experiences.
Oh, that’s okay. I think everybody will experience those, no matter what industry you’re in, right? There’ll be the right and bad people, and you’ll just have to make do with what you get.
Terminator 2 is one of my favorite movies, so I’m happy it gets name-dropped and played around as a joke here. Do you have any preferences or go-to movies for cautionary tales about AI?
Ooh, that’s a good question. It was quite recently, either last year or the year before, that I finally watched Ex Machina…
I love that movie.
So good! I had no idea that was how it ended, and I was quite thrilled and pleased in a weird sort of way. I was like, “Oh, okay. I kinda like that,” while at the same time being sort of like, “Hey, you guys, let’s watch out, and this could be our future.” I would definitely say that’s the first one that comes to mind, after C.O.G. But yeah, Terminator and also Alien, which is not AI necessarily, were both heavily referenced throughout the making of this movie.
Those are all good choices. About Ex Machina, I will tell you that when I first saw it, right before I was a critic, we had a power outage in the AMC halfway through the movie. So I had to come back the next day just to see the ending.
PC: Oh my goodness! That’ll keep you on the edge of your seat, huh?
Well, thank you so much for doing this. It was so cool talking to you.
PC: Yeah, absolutely! We would also love for people to pre-order the movie on Apple TV.
You can watch C.O.G. at the link above, and the film is currently in theaters, so look around for it!
Many thanks to Piper Curda for taking the time for this interview.
Robert Kojder
