Tina Kakadelis
The state of Florida is often a point of fascination. The myths of the “Florida Man” transcend the boundaries of the state to capture the attention of people around the world. If it’s a weird story, it probably happened in Florida. Mermaid, while not based in fact, is one of those weird stories about a down on his luck Florida Man (Johnny Pemberton) who happens to save a beastly mermaid. What happens next is a story of Floridian proportions. After the world premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival, Fallout’s Johnny Pemberton sat down Film Obsessive News Editor Tina Kakadelis to talk being an honorary Florida Man, men’s mental health, and working alongside a gnarly mermaid.
Film Obsessive: I’m just gonna start very simple. What drew you to the project, and what made you want to produce as well?
Johnny Pemberton: I met Tyler [Cornack] because I was a fan of his movie. I just messaged him saying I loved your movie and then we became friends. He told me about how this project would be great for me. He told me about it a long time ago, probably three-and-a-half years ago, when we first met.
The producing aspect of it was just wanting to be as involved in the film as possible. I loved the script so much that I learned to be involved as much as possible, which meant producing.
Did you get to shoot in Florida?
Oh, yeah!
What was your Florida experience like?
I went to Florida State, so I’m a partial Florida man, I guess you could say. Have some Florida man me. We shot in Saint Pete Beach in Saint Petersburg, Florida, which is just outside of Tampa, but it’s definitely not Tampa. It’s very different from Tampa. It was a great experience.
People say it all the time, but Florida is a character in the film. It’s a big part of it. We’re not shooting Toronto for New York or something like that. Saint Pete Beach is Saint Pete Beach.
I think you’d absolutely be able to tell if you tried to fake an LA beach for a Florida one.
Yeah, absolutely. I think the Gulf Coast beaches in general are very distinctive, and those are my favorite places to go.
Your character and Florida are seen as a bit of a thing to laugh at, but then also, something deeply tragic. Did you feel that connection between the two of them?
Definitely. I mean, Florida is a very…it’s everything. That’s why I think we all love it. A lot of people hate it for the same reasons that I think a lot of people love it. I don’t love it so much as I’m fascinated by it.
It’s what James Morris says at the end of the movie, why he keeps coming back to Florida. It’s not the exact line in the film, but he says he comes back because Florida always keeps him on his toes. That’s how I kind of feel about it. There’s everything there.
I mean, if you just look at biodiversity alone, Florida is very significant. You have so much going on, and the people who represent it as well. Something about this place creates an endless amount of fascination.
I love that the film started off with “this is a love letter for Florida.” I feel torn about that place. I love it because of the experiences it gave me, but then parts of it I’m like, I never want to go back.
I mean, I will say that when we were finished with the film, I stayed around a little too long. My friends were like, we need to get you out of here.
It does feel like it traps you, kind of like being trapped in molasses. Your character exists in that molasses, where it’s so impossible to break out of it.
That’s a good observation, yeah, molasses-y, I like that.
Your character, like Florida, exists in this balance where you feel sorry for him and yet laugh at him. How did you and Tyler decide which scenes to play more for comedic effect and which scenes to play more straight?
Some of it’s on the page, it’s really obvious. Some stuff is just – this is dramatic, but there wasn’t really a decision so much as it was just the character. Doug being Doug. It was more about nailing the script and really making Doug impactful and having his essence come across.
During the screen last night, there was a moment I’ve never laughed at that people laughed at. It was a very, very serious moment. I was like, that’s incredible. That, to me, is the essence of filmmaking. I mean, we can extrapolate pretty far out, but I think that’s the duality of all people and all things. I think it was definitely represented inside Doug in that sense.
Definitely. We don’t talk about mental health enough in society, certainly don’t talk about it enough with men…
Cause they’re all fine. We’re all just fine. We’re all just fully fine. (laughs)
Do you feel like the more fantastical elements of the film open the dialogue for talking about Doug’s mental health and how he’s not okay?
Gosh, I don’t know. I didn’t even think about that. He’s talking to a fish and so that’s really not normal. Maybe not the best way to go about things. That’s his way of processing things. We see him realize that through the film. His transformation is realizing that he’s on this path, trying to solve his problems with a fish, when that’s not his real problem. He’s his own problem, but he has to do some things to take care of that.
It was interesting to watch Mermaid and then Deepfaking Sam Altman back-to-back. A very similar theme emerged between them. The director of Deepfaking Sam Altman was talking to the AI they created of Sam and he formed a bond with it pretty immediately.
The AI was reflecting what the director wanted to hear back at him, which is a very similar relationship your character has with the mermaid, but it’s fish versus tech. It was a very interesting connection that I didn’t expect.
It’s probably the same thing, you know? Fish are probably some sort of ancient nanobot that was created by some sort of a living AI, probably. Look at giant schools of fish or weird fish that make no sense. This just might as well be a computer, like a water computer.
Your scene partner for the film is the mermaid, but she only really communicates in angry snarls. What’s it like working opposite a scene partner and having a dialogue with an actor who isn’t speaking your language?
It’s great. Avery is the actress who portrayed the mermaid in the suit. Her ability to physicalize her performance is incredible. She’s a dancer, so this comes naturally to her. That was never an issue, but I think also what it does is it allows whatever Doug says to the mermaid to be reflected back. It’s just hanging there. He’s essentially talking to himself, but it sort of allows him to have a dialogue because it’s almost like therapy. Yeah, you’re technically talking to someone, but I think it’s not so much what the therapist says, but it’s the fact that you say something out loud. In saying something out loud, you contextualize what you mean.
I think a lot of what Doug is saying to the mermaid is something that maybe he was thinking, but when he says it out loud, it’s like, oh yeah, this is who I am. I think that’s maybe how the mermaid helps Doug in that sense.
Do you think the mermaid understands him?
Not really. Maybe glimmers of stuff, but understanding, no. I don’t think there’s any comprehension. Maybe some sort of a primitive communication, but not comprehension.
The movie takes quite a few wild turns that I won’t spoil, but how do you feel these twists add to the film’s exploration of loneliness?
Every turn is Doug running into roadblocks, problems, and things that reinforce his feeling about himself. He’s just down and out and it keeps getting…what’s that saying about, you can’t hit rock bottom because there’s always something lower? Until you die, there’s no rock bottom. So for Doug, it’s like the shit keeps getting thicker.
The film is a bit of a twist on The Little Mermaid myth, you could say, but obviously that mermaid is never gonna be in a Disney movie. Did you talk with Tyler about why he chose that look for the mermaid, as opposed to what we would traditionally think of?
That’s something he was probably thinking about for a long time. When we first talked about the movie, he told me this was a creature movie. That also kind of answers the question you asked the beginning about what drew me to it. I think that’s kind of what it was. This idea of having some spinoff of something that we all know and then just going the full opposite direction of those mermaids.
I think he did that probably for that exact reason. To show that this captivating folklore thing could probably be a beast and is dangerous. I mean, some could argue that the original sirens that are in…is that the Iliad or the Odyssey? It’s from, you know, the thing that Homer wrote (laughs). Aren’t the sirens dangerous? They lure sailors to their death.
I’ve also heard people say that manatees are mermaids.
That’s what I’ve heard, too, because the sailors were so desperate that they see this thing and they’re, well, I’ll do something to that. That’s just more telling of how sailors are, you know?
It’s very possible the mermaids really are that way, and the whole siren song that captivates a person to be attracted to a thing that will kill it. That’s the thing that will kill it, so maybe their song makes you think that, oh, this is a beautiful, beautiful woman, and actually it’s this beast that will kill you. Maybe this is the true mermaid.
Do you think Doug would have saved the mermaid if she looked like Ariel?
I think he would have been scared of her. I think he would have saved her, but I think something really bad would probably happen then.
A lot of bad things already happen. (laughs)
Yeah, but some special kind of bad. He’d probably get shot.
You’ve been to SXSW before as a comedian, but is this your first time in this capacity?
I was here a couple years ago for a different movie, but yeah, I guess it is. For something like this, it’s my first time here. It’s very different. It’s weird to be running around everywhere for one thing or another and having no time to party at all. It’s such a party town.
It’s a nice change, but also I feel like I could be anywhere. I’m not really in Austin right now because I just haven’t had a chance to soak up the things that I like to soak up here.
How was the premiere of the film?
It was incredible! It was so much fun. Really couldn’t have asked for a better place to do it. Austin is such a film town. It really is. People don’t realize that, but this is one of the few places in America that really loves movies. It’s just the best atmosphere.
