In “School Spirits,” Kristian Flores performs Simon Elroy, a highschool scholar struggling to come back to phrases with the unexplained demise of his greatest pal, Maddie (Peyton List). For Flores, whose masterful and nuanced efficiency is without doubt one of the present’s highlights, the function was a possibility to make use of among the previous challenges which have peppered his life so as to add layers to his character.
“School Spirits” finds Maddie simply as she discovers that she’s a ghost who’s trapped in highschool ceaselessly. But the present is not merely a teen dramedy or an exploration of the paranormal — it is also a layered story about trauma, friendship, and love that transcends life. In her afterlife, Maddie worries about her alcoholic mom, whom she needed to care for extensively whereas she was alive, whereas Simon worries that he’ll by no means see his pal once more. The present’s advanced themes have been an enormous draw for Flores.
“I misplaced a variety of issues and folks early on,” he tells POPSUGAR. “So once I take a undertaking, I do not wish to dance. I name it dancing — once I learn a script and the character is not actually doing something. I like scripts which have one thing to say . . . I’d say that ‘School Spirits,’ a minimum of, simply cuts proper into the meat. In the primary 5 minutes of the present, you already know it should ask good questions and that the creators are as much as one thing.”
For Flores, embodying a personality like Simon — who shares such a profound bond together with his greatest pal, Maddie, that he is even capable of talk together with her after her demise — was a possibility to discover a type of love he says he is tried to cover from. “Sometimes you get harm a bit bit an excessive amount of to wish to love once more, proper?” Simon, although, is “simply the purest instance of unconditional love, as a result of his complete goal is to seek out the reality within the present,” and Flores says that taking part in the character “type of taught me that you may actually love once more.”
Simon begins out as somebody who’s “form of a critic” and “thinks he is above training,” Flores says, and would not take a lot self-motivated motion. But when Maddie dies, he abruptly finds himself obsessive about fixing the thriller of her homicide. “A trainer advised me that we solely have 5 to eight occasions in our life that change the course [of it] ceaselessly,” he says. “I believe this was crucial for him.” When requested if he can identify any of the 5 to eight occasions in his personal life which have modified its course ceaselessly, Flores thinks earlier than he settles on one. “There’s a call I made that type of modified every little thing, which was I finished watching motion pictures and TV exhibits,” he says. “I seen that it harm my appearing, in a method. Alfred Hitchcock mentioned, ‘The extra virgin our eyes are, the extra now we have to say.’ And that form of clicked in me.”
Though Flores would not watch many TV or motion pictures, he does spend his time engaged with many alternative types of creativity. “When I’m not filming, I’m writing,” he says. “I simply completed my first novel, referred to as ‘The Happy Ghost.'” He’s additionally a poet and is the creator of two collections, “Can I Tell You Something?” and “The Goodbye Song”; the latter gained the 2021 American Fiction Awards in Poetry: Anthologies. He’s such an artwork devotee that, Flores says, if he have been compelled to remain in a single place ceaselessly after he dies, like in “School Spirits,” he’d choose the Louvre. “I must be in that museum ceaselessly, as a result of that takes months — no, I believe it truly takes years to completely take a look at each single portray and sculpture with sufficient time to grasp it,” he says.
But it isn’t solely due to the artwork — it is due to the life-changing experiences the artwork creates for the true individuals who journey to see it, day after day and yr after yr. “How cool [would it be], simply to observe dates, individuals go on dates, and folks cry in entrance of those French work?” he muses.
When it involves serious about what truly occurs within the afterlife, Flores is not sure. “I believe demise is an idea that’s outdoors the realm of our understanding. Still, in contrast to a few of his different “School Spirits” costars, he is open to the potential for ghosts and life after demise. “Within that lack of comprehension, I believe there’s an eternity,” he says. “I do not suppose we actually die. I believe we’re with the celebs.”
For now, although, Flores is totally engaged in making the world a greater place for the dwelling. He additionally spends a variety of his time volunteering by elevating cash for homeless shelters, meals banks, and catastrophe reduction efforts. In 2017, he was awarded President Obama’s Volunteer Service Award for his contributions to UNICEF.
We can anticipate to see him much more on our screens sooner or later, too. Flores has already starred in quite a few motion pictures and TV exhibits, together with Hulu’s “Reboot,” and is fastidiously contemplating his subsequent initiatives, searching for those that may lower by means of all of the noise. “My aim is to seek out individuals within the trade who like the identical factor as I,” he says, including that he is searching for tales about “textured human habits, or any type of layered emotion.” “You do not discover that fairly often within the trade,” he continues. “I believe there’s only a choose group of people that actually wish to make the identical type of motion pictures. That’s on the horizon for me — to seek for individuals who love the identical factor and wish to make vital movies.”
The first 4 episodes of “School Spirits” at the moment are streaming on Paramount+.