Currently available to stream on Hulu, The Mill opens on a disoriented businessman who wakes up in an outdoor prison. Joe is greeted by a daunting computer system, courtesy of his employer, that informs him of a change in his job description. Unsure of how he arrived at the mysterious location, Joe finds himself forced to push the massive grist mill located in the middle of his prison cell in order to ensure the survival of himself and his family.

The Mill is written by Jeffrey David Thomas with Sean King O'Grady serving as the director. O'Grady has directed the films Our American Family and We Need to Do Something. He has also produced projects such as I Love My Dad, Users, and Living Undocumented. The Mill stars Lil Rel Howery and features performances from Pat Healy, Karen Obilom, Patrick Fischler, and Getchie Argetsinger.

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Sean King O'Grady chats exclusively with Screen Rant about the mechanics behind building the grist mill and collaborating with star Lil Rel Howery. Note: This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, and the film covered here would not exist without the labor of the actors in the union.

Sean King O'Grady Talks The Mill

Screen Rant: What stood out to you about The Mill and made you want to get involved?

Sean King O'Grady: It was just an incredible script. It's funny—I was specifically looking for something that took place in one location, that was a dystopian science fiction thriller, and that had all of these elements. Josh Feldman, my producing partner, dropped this script in my lap that he had read years earlier, and Jeff's script was just crazy good.

It was this fever dream of a script that said so many things that I had wanted to say about the world that we live in, all told through this one guy's experience that was just extremely cinematic. For me, when you're reading scripts, it's kind of funny, because sometimes you're looking for ways that you can kind of mold them and make them your own, and they're not quite perfect. This was one where I couldn't sleep when I read it because I knew I absolutely had to make this movie next.

When you’re in a limited setting, it can put more pressure on other aspects of the film. Were there any difficulties that came from working in this confined space?

Sean King O'Grady: I love working in these kinds of confined spaces as long as all the elements that you're working with are good. There's really no room for any weak links. First and foremost, you're really relying on your actors to be great. In this case, we have one actor on screen for the majority of the movie, and this movie really would have sunk if it weren't for how great Rel was. So you have to put a lot of faith in that actor, you have to cast the right person, and they have to be willing to really go to a pretty wild place with you.

I was blown away by Lil Rel’s performance. He’s been in horror-thrillers before, but how was getting the chance to work with him given the parameters of this film and the limited cast?

Sean King O'Grady: It was incredible. He was my absolute first choice for the role. I got really lucky that he was into it as much as I was into the idea of him doing it. It's funny because we prepped for four months and talked about the themes of the movie and the way we were going to shoot it. We were really methodical in how we had those conversations, and it felt like we knew exactly what we were getting into going into photography. Something interesting happened the day that we were about to start shooting.

The set has to be great when you're working in one space. The set, which we actually built, was 18 feet tall and 15,000 pounds of concrete. I asked Rel if he wanted to see the set before we started shooting. He took a minute, thought about it, and said, "No, I don't want to. Actually, I want to be blindfolded, and I want to wake up and see it for the first time the way that Joe wakes up and sees it for the first time."

We actually blindfolded Rel, walked in from outside of the stage through this like dark catwalk, it was, like, 30 feet, it was horribly dangerous, and walked him onto the set, laid him down on the ground on his back, and had that blindfold on him. We didn't take the blindfold off until we yelled "Action." And so the first take in the movie, when you actually see Joe wake up, that's this moment where Rel became Joe, and you're seeing Rel/Joe really experience this place for the very first time. From that moment on, Rel was Joe until we wrapped photography.

I'm curious about the mill itself. Was there enough weight behind it for Rel to truly struggle and achieve that authenticity?

Sean King O'Grady: The team that has built the sets for my last two films, and built this one as well, they don't come from a traditional art department background. Our production designer, Amy Williams does, but Colin, who does the art direction, and his team, build all sorts of real structures. When they build things, they really build them. It makes it all feel real. I think it feels real for the actors. I think it feels real for the crew who's in there. When you're in that cell, and you're seeing that mill, everything is real.

For the majority of the film, Joe is talking to a projector or a vent. When you have an actor who doesn’t have another physical person to play off of, what comes along with that, and have you worked on any projects like this before?

Sean King O'Grady: Not necessarily. The previous film that I directed was all set in one space. It's a family who gets trapped in a bathroom during what they believe is an adverse weather event, but they were in there with each other. They had other actors to talk to, and there's a lot of interplay between those actors. This is very different, but maybe not as different as you think just because the situation was so real for Rel as he became Joe.

We honestly captured it like a documentary. It's all handheld when you're in there in that cell, and we were just following him. We had offscreen actors that were playing Mallard and playing the neighbor at the vent, and he would run back and forth between them and interact with them as if they were really there. The situation seems so extremely real to him that it just felt like we were capturing something that was really happening.

About The Mill

A businessman (Lil Rel Howery) wakes up beside an ancient grist mill situated in the center of an open-air prison cell with no idea how he got there. Forced to work as a beast of burden to stay alive, he must find a way to escape before the birth of his child.

The Mill is currently available to stream on Hulu.

Source: Screen Rant Plus