NEW YORK — There was no turning back for “No Exit” star Havana Rose Liu once she began reading the freaky thriller’s script.
The NYU Gallatin graduate remembers being captivated by the movie’s many twists and turns from the moment she started the story of a recovering drug addict who finds an abducted child after getting stranded during a blizzard.
“I started reading the script at night, which was a horrible choice,” Liu told the Daily News. “I was actually in bed reading it, and I only planned to read like five minutes of it. I was very tired.
“I found myself gripping onto my sheets for dear life reading this script and ended up staying up very, very late into the night finishing it. I think that’s the experience I still have watching the film. You’re just on the edge of your seat the entire time.”
The movie, out Friday on Hulu, marks the first leading role in a feature film for Liu, who was raised in Brooklyn.
Her character, Darby, leaves a California rehab center in a stolen car to see her mother after she’s hospitalized. The wicked weather forces Darby to spend the night alongside four strangers at a remote rest stop, where she finds a kidnapped little girl in the back of a van in the parking lot.
Darby must determine who she can trust as she tries to figure out who abducted the child and how to get her to safety.
“This movie is jam-packed with surprises that even maybe the most avid thriller-watcher and thrill-seeker would be surprised by,” Liu said.
“This cast is extremely diverse and it’s not even ... a part of what the film is about. It’s inherently people who are complicated and flawed [and have] traits that you really root for.”
The film serves as an adaptation of a 2017 novel by author Taylor Adams, and is directed by Damien Power.
“When I read the book versus the movie, they contain all of the same ingredients, all of the same thrills, but in many ways they bake a slightly different cake,” Liu said. “What I think is exciting about that is that watchers or audience members who did read the book might still be able to be quite excited and surprised by what happens.”
Liu previously appeared in the 2021 action film “Mayday” and in the romantic drama “The Sky Is Everywhere,” which debuted this month.
The actress says it feels “exhilarating” to ramp up her movie career.
“I started off as a multimedia artist and performer in other ways,” she said. “I went into performance art and dance, a little bit of music, essentially the whole hodgepodge, and then I was street-cast for modeling and acting at some point in the past, like, three years. Since then, everything sort of snowballed, and I haven’t even had a moment to process what that means.”
“No Exit” feels particularly relevant in today’s society, Liu said.
“Something about isolation has been on our collective consciousness recently,” she said. “Maybe it has to do with the pandemic — that definitely is part of it — but I think the idea of being isolated and being utterly alone and not knowing who to trust or what to do is something that anyone can relate to.”
———
