See all the hot and stormy photos from EW's “Twisters” cover shoot
Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, and Anthony Ramos preview their blustery new blockbuster with a photoshoot by Beau Grealy.
It's probably the first time in Entertainment Weekly's 34-year history that our photo director has been hoping for rain.
As stars Anthony Ramos, Glen Powell, and Daisy Edgar-Jones make their way across the Universal lot in Universal City, Calif. for their Twisters cover shoot, the forecast was to call for a rare Southern California April shower — but there doesn't seem to be a cloud in the sky.
Then, as Edgar-Jones begins her solo shots, the first few drizzles start to fall. As the drizzle turns into a steady mist of rain, much of the crew runs for tents or umbrellas. But Edgar-Jones is unfazed after months spent in the elements filming her upcoming blockbuster — a "standalone sequel" to the 1996 blockbuster Twister.
Check out our full Twisters cover story for all the details of how the "next chapter" of Twister came together — and enjoy the photoshoot below.
Twisted trio
In the new film (which exists in the world of Twister but has no continuing storyline or characters from the 1996 hit), Powell, Edgar-Jones, and Ramos play modern-day storm chasers hoping to improve tornado warning systems.
Chasing storms
Edgar-Jones stars as Kate, a former storm chaser who gave up her pursuits after a fatal “wrong call” while studying at Muskogee State University (the alma mater of Hunt and Paxton’s Twister characters, though neither is referenced in the new film).
Chasing fame
Powell is featured in the role of Tyler, a former rodeo star who has amassed a large social media following as a “tornado wrangler."
Chasing fortune
Ramos is Javi, Kate’s former classmate who persuades her back into the field to help his company, which is developing technology to help predict tornado strikes.
Something in the air
Director Lee Isaac Chung assigned Powell and Edgar-Jones to watch Fire of Love — the Oscar-nominated documentary about a volcanologist couple — to inspire Kate and Tyler’s flirtation dynamic.
Friends in need
“It really felt like a story just about Kate and Tyler, and Javi was kind of like the segue,” Ramos says of the first script draft he read. “But now, it truly feels like he's in the center of that. We feel the connection between him and Kate throughout the film. We really worked to develop Javi in a way where it felt like, ‘Oh yeah, no, we need this guy.’”
Lifelong fan
“Growing up in Texas, Twister was one of the most iconic movies of all time,” Top Gun: Maverick and Anyone but You star Powell tells EW. “You grow up in Tornado Alley, and that’s the monster that exists in your own backyard.”
Getting direct
“Sometimes when these big movies come around, maybe the script doesn't feel like it's all the way there. Or it feels like they pick a director who can just get bossed around by the studio. But when I saw Isaac was directing this, I was like, ‘Nah, this feels different," Ramos says of working with Chung, whom most refer to by his middle name. "I know that this guy's going to do this film in a way where we really care about the people, and we really want them to survive, and we really want them to win.’”
Returning home
In the film, Javi travels to New York to convince Kate to return home to Oklahoma and the profession she left behind. “What jumped off the page to me was that this character had sort of PTSD, really,” Edgar-Jones says of Kate. “But she’s trying what she can to move past it in order to help other people. I found it very interesting that throughout the script, there’s this idea of taming a tornado. Storms can be such a great metaphor for inner turmoil, and I think Kate is trying to tame both.”
Behind the camera
Enchanted by a retro Super 8 camera being used to capture behind-the-scenes footage, Powell asked to take the reins, grabbing shots of his costars.
The tornado wrangler
“I understand that when my function within the movie is fun, I get to be a wild, rowdy cowboy,” says Powell. “While everyone else is driving as quickly away from a tornado as they possibly can, I'm the guy driving directly into it. It was just a blast to play. Tyler is who everyone wants to be, the guy that's hollering and screaming and laughing when the chaos is happening.”
In the spotlight
“Some days, the rain was genuinely steaming off of us. Every time they doused us with water, they had to keep doing it because we dried so quickly,” says Edgar-Jones. “Nothing can prepare you for a shoot like this, being pelted with rain and chunks of ice and wind. I can imagine what being tumble-dried feels like. I think I slept so well after every day of work.”
Cast bonding
While on location all last summer, the cast enjoyed nights of line dancing, fried chicken, and even a screening of Twister at a theater in Oklahoma City. One evening, they braved a torrential downpour and windstorm as they left a bar. “We were running through the streets totally covered in rain,” says Edgar-Jones. “Stuff like that really bonds you.”
Set life
“If you were a prima donna or high maintenance, this was not the set for you,” says Powell. “This was a set where you were going to get dusty; you were going to get hit in the face with hay and dirt and ice cubes and rocks and furniture. And if you were not patient and if you were not down to believe in [the team’s] vision, it could have been a pretty torturous process. But we really had a great team. We had a really great cast. Everybody had a great attitude and was down for the cause, so it made getting hit in the face with things quite fun.”
Cool as ice
When the cast gathered to finish filming in December after the Screen Actors Guild strike ended, “It was just absolutely freezing, and I was in shorts,” laments Edgar-Jones. It was so cold the actors could see their breath, which didn’t work for selling Oklahoma in the summertime. Production “was like, ‘Can you suck on these ice cubes so we can stop the [condensation] from coming out when you guys speak?’” Ramos recalls. “That was brutal. But we survived.”
Like minds
“The idea of seeing someone like Isaac — who's so incredibly good at crafting relationships and stories and character — take on this huge scale of a project was so exciting,” says Edgar-Jones, who wrote a letter to Chung detailing how she felt she was on a similar career trajectory, ready to graduate from smaller projects like Normal People (which garnered her a 2021 Golden Globe nomination).
Group effort
“This is an incredible ensemble, so many amazing actors who have been the lead of their own movies,” Powell says of the cast, which includes Brandon Perea, Sasha Lane, Tunde Adebimpe, David Corenswet, Katy O'Brian, Maura Tierney, Kiernan Shipka, Daryl McCormack, and Nik Dodani. “I wouldn't say that this movie's like a normal movie in the way that you know who's going to end up in a tornado and who's going to end up on the ground because everybody's a star in their own right. The fact that Lee Isaac Chung was able to bring this group of people together, I think, is really going to keep the audience on the edge of their seat to see who makes it to the end."
Okies
“It made a big difference being on set in Oklahoma,” says Ramos. “I'm talking in the middle of small, small towns in Oklahoma. In spots where they're like, ‘Yo, there's a tornado that just hit 30 minutes away.’ And you're like, ‘Oh s---.’ They're like, ‘We got to stop filming,’ or, ‘We got to go to the trailers [for safety].”
On alert
After experiencing her first dangerous weather alert while in New Orleans recently, “I had an idea that when we were in the rodeo [scene], what if everybody in the audience's phone goes off and that's what alerts them first. And [Isaac] was like, ‘Yeah, cool, it's in the film,’” Edgar-Jones says of what became a prominent moment in the film’s second trailer. “Issac was so flexible and relaxed and really open to ideas like that the entire time.”
Blown away
“There was a [scene] where this farmers' market is supposed to get blown down the street,” says Powell. “And right before we were going to start shooting, getting blown down the street by jet engines, a real windstorm — it was 80 miles an hour, or something like that — just took the entire market. And so we were just chilling inside while they had to rebuild a farmers' market so we could destroy it again.”
Flexing his muscle
Ramos pulled from his own experiences with severe weather for his role, thinking back to the two days he spent sheltering in place after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and when he traveled to Puerto Rico and helped clear out an elderly man’s home in the wake of Hurricane Maria in 2017. “It really just gives you a different perspective on life,” Ramos says of witnessing the destruction as well as the perseverance.
Running toward danger
Immediately following EW's photoshoot, Powell and Edgar-Jones headed to the airport to fly to Oklahoma to go on an experience that evaded them last summer during filming due to insurance concerns: a ride-along with the storm chasers who served as consultants on the movie.
Cover stars
Read our full cover story ahead of Twisters' debut in theaters on July 19.
Please consider assisting the American Red Cross in helping people affected by disasters like tornadoes, fires, and countless other crises by making a gift to American Red Cross Disaster Relief.
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.
