The Daily Texan took to the red carpet to interview the cast of Jake Johnson’s feature directorial debut “Self Reliance,” which follows a man who accepts an invitation to participate in a dark web reality TV show where participants will hunt and attempt to kill him. Read the Texan’s review of the film here.

The Daily Texan: What was your favorite part of working on “Self Reliance?”

Hans Tester: The script popped off the page. It’s such a crazy character that I play, I mean, an Icelandic dark web game show host? How often do you get to play that? It also combines comedy, drama (and) thriller. It’s all those things in one, which is fantastic.

DT: What was it like to work with Jake Johnson?

Daryl Johnson: Jake is one of the most incredible people to work with. This was my first time working with him, and we had such an instant chemistry when we just did a Zoom chat, (so) I knew this was going to be a fun project, and it was.

DT: This is your first time having almost complete creative control over a film as the writer, director, producer and star. What about this experience was different from the other projects you’ve worked on?

Jake Johnson: There were more people involved (in this movie). It was a bigger budget (and) we had more people who spent money on it. (Compared to) the indies I’ve done in the past, it’s been a smaller group.

DT: What was the biggest obstacle you had to overcome while making this movie?

JJ: I found it more tricky to direct myself than I thought. I thought I was going to be able to blow past that and not think about it. I ended up leaning on the (director of photography) Adam Silver, Anna Borden, Joe Hardesty and Ali Bell. It became a directing by committee where they would go like, “Perhaps you want to think of this,” and I would say, “Oh, thank you.”