Michael Pearce on Octavia Spencer's role in Encounter on Amazon Prime Video

Octavia Spencer is a phenomenal actress known for her versatile acting skills and ability to ace every role that she stars in.  Her on point dialogue delivery, apt expressions between the lines and uncommon roles that she chooses for herself are appreciated by people all over the world. She is coming back with another movie, Encounter, which is a science-fiction tale about a decorated Marine who goes on a rescue mission to save his two young sons from a mysterious threat. As their journey takes them in increasingly dangerous directions, the boys will need to leave their childhoods behind.

Talking about writing a role with Octavia in mind, the director of the movie Micheal Pearce said, “When I was coming up with her dialogue, I couldn’t not think of Octavia Spencer,” Pearce says. “So, when it was time to cast the role, I wrote her a letter to say I’d been thinking about her while writing this character. And luckily, she got back to us after reading the script and said she would love to do it. A week or so later, we were on the phone talking about the character and themes of the film. Casting can be a very fraught process, but in this case it was surprisingly easy.” Spencer was aware that Riz Ahmed had been cast in Encounter when she received the script, and his involvement immediately caught her attention. 

But it was the quality of the writing that truly enamored her to the project. “The script was exciting, entertaining and illuminating in a lot of ways,” says Spencer. “If I can’t figure out where a story is going, it really draws me in, and that’s what the Encounter script was like. It was an alien invasion story about a veteran on a mission to save his boys, but it was also a chase thriller. And while reading it, I felt like I was on the journey with those characters.”
 

The actress singles out Ahmed’s performance as one of Encounter’s biggest strengths. “Riz is an incredibly versatile performer,” she says. “He’s like an artist, and he paints Malik with so many different colors and shades. We only had a couple of scene rehearsals together, and yet I just knew he was going to do something very special with this character. He makes Malik someone who you just can’t help but root for.”

Written and directed by Micheal Pearce, the movie has an ensemble cast starring Octavia Spencer, Rory Cochrane, Lucian-River Chauhan and Aditya Geddada in pivotal roles. Encounter is streaming on  Amazon Prime Video.