Austin Abrams and Skyler Gisondo spent years assuming the other actor was taking the job they wanted. In a new A24 conversation, the friends discovered that their childhood audition rivalry ran in both directions. Abrams remembers entering a room, seeing Gisondo and thinking, “God damn it, not getting this one.” Gisondo says he felt exactly the same way.
The funny part is that neither actor knew. They were not trading insults or fighting in waiting rooms. They were young performers silently turning the other person into an unbeatable rival. Gisondo started with commercials at six. Abrams began auditioning in his early teens and moved from Florida to Los Angeles at about 17. Each one thought the other seemed to book everything.
Rivalry turned into real friendship
The competition faded once they actually became friends. Their conversation now sounds less like two actors comparing résumés and more like two people who are genuinely excited when the other takes a risk. Abrams praises Gisondo’s darker work in Primetime. Gisondo returns the favor by describing a secret early screening of Resident Evil.
He went into the screening alone and chose the front row. Eight minutes later, the movie had scared him enough to move to the back, where he could keep the wall behind him. The fear did not stop the pride. Gisondo told Abrams, “I was beaming like a maniac watching you.”
That reaction fits the role Abrams takes in Resident Evil. Bryan is a medical courier caught inside a nightmare, not an experienced action hero who knows exactly where to aim. The part lets Abrams be frightened, funny and physically overwhelmed while carrying a major studio horror movie.
They are both chasing the unexpected role
Gisondo describes Primetime as the most important professional experience of his life. He initially worried that director Lance Oppenheim had the wrong actor because the character was darker and stranger than the parts people usually offered him. Abrams immediately pushes back on the doubt and tells his friend the performance works.
Their careers have crossed the point where the old rivalry makes sense. Abrams has Resident Evil in theaters, while Gisondo is stretching beyond the lighter roles that made audiences recognize him. Neither seems interested in becoming predictable simply because one kind of performance worked before.
The A24 conversation ends up being about more than childhood auditions. It is about the relief of learning that the person you feared was just as nervous, and the pleasure of watching that former rival take what Gisondo calls a big, weird swing. This time, both of them are in the audience for the other.
