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.

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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.”