The Big Picture

Joey King stars and executive produces Netflix’s Uglies alongside scream queen and friend, Brianne Tju.
‘Uglies,’ based on Scott Westerfeld’s novel, explores a dystopian society enforcing surgery for physical beauty.
King dreamt of playing Tally Youngblood since childhood and finds the role fulfilling.

Winning over audiences as a child in favorites like White House Down and Crazy Stupid Love, Joey King earned top-billing status on the massively successful Kissing Booth series for Netflix. Since then, she’s been nominated for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her star-making turn in The Act. Now she’s back with Netflix as both superstar lead and executive producer on Uglies. King stars alongside newly-coronated scream queen Brianne Tju, known for her monster performances in 47 Meters Down: Uncaged and both the Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer TV series.

Directed by McG and based on the novel by Scott Westerfeld, Uglies centers around a future post-apocalyptic dystopian society in which a compulsory operation wipes out physical differences and makes everyone pretty. King stars as clever Tally Youngblood alongside Tju as Tally’s best friend Shay. In addition, the movie co-stars Laverne Cox as Dr. Cable, Chase Stokes as Peris, Keith Powers as David, and more.

Collider’s Steve Weintraub had the chance to sit down and chat with executive producer and star King and co-lead Tju about the Uglies novel series, potential sequels, hoverboards, and having peas spit in your face. You can watch their conversation in the video above read the transcript below.

‘Uglies’ Isn’t Condemning Anything – It’s About Choice
“It’s not trying to condemn surgery, and it’s not trying to glamorize it.”

COLLIDER: I’m gonna start with the most important question up front. Which of you took the hoverboard home?

JOEY KING: It was kind of just a really flimsy piece of foam, to be honest with you. I hate to spoil…

BRIANNE TJU: Well, there were two. There was a light one that was made of foam and then there was one that was a little bit heftier, but I mean, it doesn’t actually fly, so it’s like, what are you gonna do with it?

KING: So, we didn’t take that home.

TJU: [Laughs] No, we didn’t.

I’m obsessed with “borrowing” things from set with every intention of bringing it back.

TJU: I get all my socks from set. I’ve never bought socks.

KING: Huh? That’s so funny!

TJU: Well, okay, not in recent years.

This is the stuff that I would probably do. I would have a problem.

Image via Netflix

One of the things after I watched the movie that I thought about was the fact that even if people knew this was what happened after getting the surgery, a scary amount of people would actually still sign up for it just because of the way we become obsessed with beauty and everything else. Do you agree?

KING: I actually do think you’re correct.

TJU: But I also think, what the movie is about, it’s not trying to condemn surgery, and it’s not trying to glamorize it. Yes, obviously there is a major side effect, I guess you could say, from the surgery, but at the end of the day, it’s about choice and if that’s someone’s choice and they’re fully aware of what comes with it, the good and bad, and they still want to do it, then it’s your life.

KING: Boom. Yes.

TJU: Mic drop.

KING: Okay, Brianne.

TJU: I read the talking points. [Laughs]

Playing ‘Uglies’ Tally Youngblood Was Joey King’s Dream
Image via Netflix.

Joey, you are an executive producer on this, and you’ve been working on this for a while. What is it about this material that said, “I wanna be a part of this and I want to put my name on this?”

KING: I first read the Uglies book series when I was 11, and I had these huge dreams to one day be able to be old enough to play Tally Youngblood, if that could ever be possible one day. I loved these books so much, and they meant so much to me. Cut to years and years later, not only am I old enough, but I’m actually playing Tally, who’s like 16 when I was 22. It was so crazy. These books have meant so much to me ever since I was a kid, and so being able to see it through all the way up to now? It’s such an amazing feeling to be able to see something that I had always wanted to do when I was younger and to be able to really nod to my childhood self and say, “You did that. You got to play Tally Youngblood.”

Brianne Tju Was Jarred By Her Transformation In ‘Uglies’
Image via Netflix

So you see the shooting schedule in front of you. What’s the day you have circled in terms of, “I cannot wait to film this,” and is there any day circled in terms of, “How the F are we gonna film this?”

KING: Yes, to both.

TJU: Yes to both. One that was kind of scary for me and just with all the anticipation gave me a lot of nerves was when Shay gets the surgery against her will, and she becomes Pretty. The majority of the movie Shay is kind of a little more rugged, a little bit more tomboyish and natural, and so to make that shift, and we did a lot to make that transformation very apparent in terms of physically and makeup, all that stuff, I was just a little nervous about that. Also, for me, as Brianne and not as Shay, to look in the mirror at that transformed version of myself was very jarring.

KING: I remember, that was wild.

TJU: I was like, “Oh my god, what am I doing?” Obviously, I was supported, we got through it, and I think it turned out great, but that was scary.

KING: For me, something I was really excited to film was usually anything we got to do together. We had so much fun together. So literally every time I would look at the call sheet and it was a scene with Brianne and I, I’d be like, “Oh, thank god! I’m so excited. Thank goodness.” But anything that I was nervous to film, there was a number of things where I was like, “How are we gonna do that?” Some of the stuff that I was curious about how we were gonna pull off was like Tally’s journey to the Smoke. But, I think it all turned out pretty good.

Joey King and Brianne Tju On ‘Uglies’ Sequels
“They should call it Pretties.”
Image via Netflix

As you said, this is based on a very popular book series. Have you guys talked at all about what could be a sequel or where this could all go?

TJU: There’s more than one book? [Laughs]

KING: I had no idea!

TJU: They should call it Pretties.

KING: Do you want to read it together? Let’s just have a book club. We’ve never read it. To answer your question, I think we’re just really excited to see how this one resonates with people, how it does, and how the world receives it and we’ll see what happens.

What Had Joey King Nerve-Wracked on ‘Ramona and Beezus’?
“It’s gonna hurt, or it’s gonna surprise me!”

Sure. You’ve both done other projects, what shot or sequence in your career was the toughest to pull off, whether because of dialogue, a camera move, whatever it may be? Is there one that really stands out for you?

KING: There are a couple that come to my mind, but one that really comes to the forefront of my mind — because when you’re a kid everything’s such a big deal because you’re a kid and you haven’t had a ton of life experience — was when I filmed Ramona and Beezus. There was a scene that I was so nervous for where my baby sister, I was feeding her and she spit peas back into my face. I remember I was so nervous to film it because they used an air compressor to blow these peas in my face, and I was so scared of it for some reason. I was like, “It’s gonna hurt, or it’s gonna surprise me!” I don’t know, I just was so nervous about that. The anticipation was so high that the director did it first to show me that it was okay. And I did it, and I was so proud of it that I almost cried. It was so scary, but now I’m looking back, and I’m like, “That’s so funny.”

TJU: How old were you?

KING: I was nine. It felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. [Laughs]

TJU: By the way, Ramona and Beezus — legendary movie. Pure cinema, truly.

KING: Thank you!

TJU: When I played Margot in I Know What You Did Last Summer, she was an influencer, so she would just sit in front of the camera and talk and sometimes rant. There was one rant in particular that was just so long, and I’m just there talking into the camera, just saying the whole thing, and it was very it was hard because obviously I wanted to remember all my lines, but no one’s feeding back to you. You’re kind of, like, psychotically… Well, to be fair, she was a crazy character, but she would just stare into the camera and talk, talk, talk. It was a little scary but fun.

Uglies embarks on Netflix September 13, 2024

Watch on Netflix