Wildflower: Dash Mihok on Ensemble Cast & Giving Organic Performance

Dash Mihok is a natural when it comes to intense roles and crime dramas from his time on the Showtime series Ray Donovan, NBC’s Law & Order: Organized Crime, and HBO Max series Gossip Girl. The Momentum Films & eOne’s dramedy Wildflower allowed the actor an attempt at something a little more lighthearted. It’s a coming-of-age film about growing up too fast and slowing down just enough to recognize one’s good fortune, along with celebrating the big-hearted family in all its variety. Mihok, who plays Derek, spoke to Bleeding Cool about working with director Matt Smukler and how the film resonated with him and the ensemble cast.

How Wildflower Connected with Dash Mihok on Several Levels

Bleeding Cool: What interested you about ‘Wallflower?’
Mihok: I wasn’t hyper-curious to play this part until I read the whole script. It had the thing that made you feel good, and it was funny at the right points, and Jana [Savage] wrote a good script. They got good people for nothing because it’s rare that you find one like that these days. We’ve been doing it for a long time, and I hadn’t seen the documentary [the film was based on] and had no idea about what it was about. It’s a shot in the dark for me, and it was nice to know what Matt saw, like my tape. He said, “Oh my God, you’re the guy, and I was taking a stab at it. When I saw him, I said, “Okay, there’s a pretty good screen version.”

How do you describe the set that Matt ran?
It was great. He knew what he was doing when he got it. I’m a director too. I get it. There are some things we had to chop up and move on from. That’s the nature of the beast, all-in-all, he gave great notes, and it wasn’t like, “I made this documentary, and I wanted to be that.” He wanted it to be its own thing, and I enjoyed it.

This is a departure from your more intense fair; how does it feel to do something like this?
I love to do comedy, but this was both [comedy and drama]. It posed a challenge for me to bring both together. I thought earlier about what dramedy is, and there are so many facets. The hard part was not making this guy cliche and being natural. I was happy to get back to letting loose and having some comedy there, but there was always an undertone of “this guy’s taking care of his family, and he’s for real about it. For any villain I play, I’m always trying to find some vulnerability into why they are who they are. I’m not very method-y, but the more layered it is, the better. This is one of those things where you could be so layered underneath in hiding it all that; hopefully, the little things were there. It was fun. I wasn’t sure at first, but then I read the script as a whole and went, “I bet everybody is going to want to do this.”

Given the nature of the ensemble cast, can you tell me a little bit about the talent you had to work with?
First and foremost, Samantha Hyde, [Wildflower] is her first big film, and she brought the energy of a kid wanting to know everything, which I missed. Tough on a short schedule, but not really. Kiernan [Shipka], I felt kindred with her. We both knew how to navigate this. I have this love for Brad Garrett, and I wish I could work with him more. Jean [Smart] is stellar, and I’ve worked with Jacki [Weaver] before, and she’s game for anything. I couldn’t ask for more. Matt was lucky that he could work this out with all these people with little funding, but they made it out. That’s because of Jana’s script. When everyone read it, they all thought, “This could be a really sweet, darling movie that I want to be a part of.” It doesn’t matter if I’m in the honey wagon.

Was there anyone in your life or something else external that helped drive your performance in ‘Wildflower’ as Derek?
Truthfully, the way I work, I use my imagination to think of what it would be like. I do have Tourette’s Syndrome, and it’s helped me be empathic and study people more to be interested in people and care. That’s helped me in my work, but at the end of the day, like with something like ‘Ray Donovan,’ it’s hard to imagine being raped by a priest or pulling from that. That’s how I work, but I’m not a method actor. My main thing was I just wanted not to make him an adult. I wanted him to be fun and be the guy who lives in the moment—life’s short. Why not have some joy? I’m gonna screw up, but that’s okay too. Let it go as my kids do.

Wildflower, which also stars Charlie Plummer, Alexandra Daddario, Reid Scott, and Erika Alexander, is available in theaters, digital, and on demand.