The film, The Shift, which was recently released in theaters, is a modern-day retelling of the story of Job. The sci-fi thriller stars Kristoffer Polaha as Kevin Garner, who takes a journey across dimensions to reunite with his true love, his wife, Molly (Elizabeth Tabish). While on his search in a dystopian alternate dimension, Kevin must avoid the Benefactor (Neal McDonough)’s temptations of wealth and power as well as keep his faith to make it back to his beloved. Sean Astin also stars as Gabriel, who helps Kevin along the way.

Polaha and Astin recently spoke with SciFi Vision about working on the film, including what they hope people take away from it, connecting with their characters, and more, as well as the actors' strike.

Watch the interview or read the full transcript below, and be sure to check out The Shift, now in theaters.


SCIFI VISION:   I absolutely loved the film. I probably cried too much, but I loved it. I cry easy. Can you just start by talking about what you want people to take away from the film? Whoever wants to go first. 

KRISTOFFER POLAHA:   What do you want people to take away from the film? 

SEAN ASTIN:   Well, it's an emotional journey. Like you were saying, I really appreciate your saying that you are emotional watching it. I'm an easy crier, myself, wife and three kids. The film has space to breathe. Literally in the frame, the different frames, like it wants you to see the whole [thing], all the street, you know, it wants you to see the whole lake. So, I feel like that's an invitation for people to lean in and have that emotional journey. And I guess what I love is for people to see it in the theater, and for them at the end of it to feel kind of like, “Wow, that was an experience.” There's something that's heavy on it, and what I have pretty high faith about is that people will continue to think about the ideas in the film long after [they] see it. And if you've felt something, if you've tired from the experience or kind of I don't know, exhilarated and tired, if the weight of the experience of the movie is on you, it's going to make reflecting on some of the ideas of the movie that each choice you make in life can send you in a completely different direction. You know, and who are we and what has the accumulation of our choices brought us to today? I think that could be a nice little lesson. 

KRISTOFFER POLAHA:   Yeah, it's interesting. There's a ratification right now. Sean was a huge player in the strike and part of the negotiating team. So, he crushed it, he and the team crushed it for all of the actors, SAG and AFRTA, over the course of the last seven months. And right now there's a contract that's being [ratified], like we're talking about ratifying a contract. The vote is back in the members’ hands. And apparently, people have a choice to vote yes, and then one thing is going to happen, or to vote no, and then we're gonna go back to striking. It's a really interesting [thing], where our choices matter. We live in a world where we see things with AI and with TikTok and with all of these distractions of like, social media. Like, is it really a lie if I'm projecting a reality that I want, but it's not really mine? Versus like, your character eats food, it's very, very, very temporal and real and in the body stuff; my character runs. He's just constantly being physically challenged. There's something about the story that is supposed to remind us of our humanity. It's supposed to remind us about relationships and who we're in relationship with. It is a story - there's a faith element. It's the book of Job from the Old Testament, sort of told in a multiverse sci-fi wrapping. The idea is who - like Bob Dylan had this amazing song, You “Gotta Serve Somebody,” it's the Lord or the devil, but you gotta serve somebody. And this idea is, who are you in relationship with? Do you want to accept the devil's offer and be in relationship with him? Or do you want to accept God's offer, which doesn't feel like an offer? It's just this love that comes at you, but you don't see it…until through being tested and tried in endurance and faith and hope; you realize that your life is this incredible story being told. 

SEAN ASTIN:   You've got me comparing it now with the union stuff, you know, that we spent eight months, like the cosmology of the union is, you know, fifty people in a room for eight months. And now the decisions are being made by individual people, and each individual person may or may not realize how important their decision is, but it does it affect them in their life; it affects all of their colleagues. It affects the whole the whole industry. So, I feel like your character Kevin is one of those people who could just be one of a trillion different people, but you are distinguished by, for some reason, your commitment to make a choice. 

KRISTOFFER POLAHA:   To stand for something or refuse something, to refuse it - 

SEAN ASTIN:   to say no. 

 [crosstalk] 

SCIFI VISION:   Going back to the characters, what was the hardest part you both had connecting with your character? Is there any part of it that you had a hard time just kind of connecting with? For either of you. 

KRISTOFFER POLAHA:   My answer’s a quick “no.” I read - Brock Heasley, the creator, the writer and the director of the film, he spent eight years crafting the story, and it came, you know, his father, and this isn't me speaking at a school. He almost lost his father to gun violence when he was thirteen years old. And then he did lose his father to gun violence when he was seventeen. So, he's a boy, which, you know, I know that girls have teenage years too, and it's very different for boys. It's a really wild time, and to lose [his] father in that moment, set him on a course that really needed a lot of course correction. This story is the way that he processed his grief, and it's the way that he dealt with his trauma, and it was born out of so much trial and tribulation. So, for me to read that, it was so [beautiful]. The architecture of the story was so beautifully composed, that I didn't have a lot of conflicts. There weren't a lot of bumps for me, because, I had a lot of runway too though. Like, Kevin, there was a lot for me to work with. So, it wasn't like I was like, “Wait, hold on. I have to do this and why?” 

SEAN ASTIN:   We had a scene together where I sort of spirit him away from this crowd, and then we're kind of crouched down hiding. There was a moment where I'm supposed to be upset, because he's trying to describe God, or he's [like], “What do you believe in?” And he kind of makes me interested in the idea, but I don't get there. There was just a moment there where I was supposed to be really upset about the fact that I couldn't find God, and I'm sort of angry with him, but pleading with him or whatever. And it's only kind of fleetingly in the moment, but when we were doing it, I just remember thinking like, “That's not enough. We’ve got to do it again. That idea is more important than however we just did it. So, can we do it again? Can we do it again? Can we do it again?” And then finally, it was like a tuning fork. When you hit a certain thing with a tuning fork and you listen to it, you're like, “Okay, this level of emotion honors that concept.” 

KRISTOFFER POLAHA:   I gotta be honest with you. You know, you've been doing this for years. It’s your life; it's your legacy, and forty years of doing this. I've been doing it for twenty. That scene where we're up against the wall crouched was one of my favorite scenes to ever work on, actor to actor. It was like, it suddenly became sacred for the purpose of trying to find the right frequency, and just connecting and breathing and really being honest. It's such a treat to watch you work. It was a really cool moment. 

SEAN ASTIN:   The thing that was hard about it - you asked what was hard - the thing that was hard was when you know the importance of a concept, and then there's like a gap between how you're feeling, because you're tired or whatever. Brock knew what he wanted with every frame of the movie. He had thought through everything. So, as an actor, you can kind of drop into that and just be there. But then at a certain moment, you're kind of tested. It kind of tested like, are you like, really here? Do you care about what you're doing? And the answer always has to be yes, but it doesn't make it any easier. There's just a moment where we just actor to actor, we kind of were like, “Okay let's not leave this moment without honoring this moment. Whether it’s in the movie or barely in the movie or whatever [laughs], I was pretty proud of it. It was a breakthrough. 

KRISTOFFER POLAHA:   It was cool.

SEAN ASTIN:   Yeah.