What Will Poulter discovered playing a ‘full-blown idiot’ in Death of a Unicorn

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‘It’s giving spring-summer asshole from the waist down, and then autumn-winter asshole from the waist up’ – this is Will Poulter describing his character in new film Death of a Unicorn.

The 32-year-old Brit stars alongside Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Téa Leoni and Richard E. Grant in the entertainingly gory and silly horror-comedy from A24, which has drawn comparisons with Jurassic Park: namely, foolish humans discover an extinct (or in this case, mythological) creature, get drunk on the possibilities of its power and it all ends very badly – and bloodily – indeed.

Poulter plays one of the greedy humans, Shepard, son to cancer-stricken pharmaceutical magnate Odell Leopold (Grant) and his very expensive wife Belinda (Leoni), who welcome Odell’s employee Elliot Kintner (Rudd) and his distant daughter Ridley (Ortega) to their retreat in the middle of a donated nature reserve.

But on the way, Elliot accidentally hits a unicorn foal with his car, panics and hides it in the boot. When a hoof later smashes through the window and a horn pierces the roof, it’s too late for him to hide the truth anymore, especially when the animal’s incredible therapeutic properties are subsequently revealed.

While Ridley worries over the morality of what’s happening when a research team descends on the property to further probe at the unicorn, and Elliot is desperate to go along with things to keep his employer happy, the Leopolds are united in their goal: exploiting this find for maximum profit.

Poulter appears to have the most fun of all as Shepard, a man who wears chino shorts paired with polo-necks, talks about his ‘diversified portfolio of entrepreneurial activities’ and takes to sniffing powdered unicorn horn – we all know someone like him.

Will Poulter shines in gory horror-comedy Death of a Unicorn as the vacuous Shepard, a ‘full-blown idiot’ (Picture: Balazs Goldi/A24)

‘It’s one of the funniest scripts I’ve ever read. Alex [Scharfman, writer-director] created so many brilliant characters, and I just sort of adored what an idiot Shep was,’ Poulter says.

‘It was really fun to play a character who is totally lacking in self-awareness, both when it comes to getting dressed in the morning, and also with virtually everything that comes out of his mouth. He’s a full-blown idiot.’

I ask if he perhaps had any specific inspirations for the part, but the Midsommar actor doesn’t name any names, suggesting that ‘no one’s actually that much of an idiot, I don’t think’.

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‘He’s an amalgam of lots of different people – and I suppose anytime I’ve met someone obnoxious, lacking in self-awareness and hyper-privileged, I’ve been keeping a mental notebook.’

Obviously, a big draw of Death of a Unicorn, the debut feature from Scharfman, is its star-studded cast, whose characters bounce off each other in the Leopolds’ lavish home, building to an excited frenzy as they become more and more intoxicated by the bountiful opportunities this baby unicorn represents.

The film’s star-studded cast embraced improvisation on set, especially Paul Rudd (3rd from R) (Picture: A24)

‘I loved the one shot that we did in the living room, where we’re all making plans to sort of harness the power of the unicorn,’ Poulter recalls of his best memories on set. ‘A lot of the scenes are a lot longer than what you see on screen because there was so much improvisation and fun stuff added.’

Rudd was the main culprit here – ‘just little silly things, like saying “danke” to me kind of caught me by surprise in the hot tub scene’.

He continues: ‘There are multiple Paul moments throughout the film, [such as] when we’re getting that projector demonstration from Stephen Park’s character [scientist Dr Song], and Paul is there sort of justifying his question before he asks it, about being the guy who made the discovery – it was just so, so funny. And every time he did it, he added a new bit; it was hard to get through the scene sometimes.’

Poulter is also a fan of what is likely to be one of the movie’s most oft-quoted lines, where a flustered Belinda comments on the ‘girthsome’ nature of the unicorn’s horn during a dining scene.

‘She [Leoni] ate like an entire hedgerow of blackberries as well, doing it, and figs – and she was eating throughout that whole scene. It was very impressive.’

Shepard (Poulter) is the son of a wealthy family (led by Téa Leoni and Richard E. Grant) looking to get richer from the discovery of unicorns’ healing powers (Picture: A24)

The Maze Runner actor calls himself ‘a bit of a scaredy cat’ when it comes to horror films – ‘I like acting in them, I just don’t like watching them much’ – but he has seen the final cut of Death of a Unicorn in all its gruesome glory (there’s a lot of impalements) and coped.

‘As gory as it is, I think the laughs prove to be a good antidote to any of that scary stuff. It’s the spoonful of sugar along with the medicine,’ he suggests. And when I describe an especially grisly bit of the film that had me laughing in shock, Poulter is encouraging.

‘Don’t judge yourself. Be a Leopold about it!’ he says, recommending audiences embrace the approach of his entertaining, if grotesque, onscreen family – and that includes looking out for any inspired group costumes based on the Leopolds come Halloween. (A tip for would-be Sheps: ‘If he’s not in shorts, he’s in a bathrobe: the shins are always out.’)

Poulter has already starred opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in The Revenant, done Marvel with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 as Adam Warlock and had his early breakthroughs with 2008’s Son of Rambow and, later, The Chronicles of Narnia.

Poulter, not a natural horror fan, sees Death of a Unicorn’s comedy as the ‘spoonful of sugar’ to help with the film’s more violent and scary parts (Picture: Balazs Goldi/A24)

Oh yes, and he kissed Jennifer Aniston in 2013 black comedy We’re the Millers (still the thing he’s most recognised from, Poulter confirms).

However, it feels like 2025 is another major moment for him thanks to the close releases of this film, his other A24 project – Iraq drama Warfare (alongside Kit Connor, Joseph Quinn and Riverdale’s Charles Melton) – and his return to Charlie Brooker’s groundbreaking TV anthology Black Mirror for Netflix.

As he stands at this juncture at his career, what’s the lesson he’ll file away as having learned from Death of a Unicorn? What did he discover?

‘I think it was the fact that you can have fun, have a real laugh and enjoy yourself and let yourself go and be free, and the results still be funny,’ he puts forward.

‘There’s this slightly old-hat idea that if it’s funny on set and you’re having fun doing it, it’s probably not going to be funny in reality. It’s just not true – and that was debunked by Paul Rudd himself and then further by the experience.’

The Marvel star is also in A24 Iraq drama Warfare and the return of Black Mirror on Netflix this month (Picture: Getty)

I take a moment to praise Poulter for his openness when it comes to talking about mental health; he’s just recently opened up on his experience with OCD.

He’s thankful to friends and family offering him support and the chance to talk about it regularly, ‘so I’ve naturally been less affected by the stigmatisation of the subject’.

In terms of how he’d like to see things change in this regard in order to support young actors when entering an industry often perceived as toxic, as he did, he’s keen that we continue to ‘address it as a subject matter and make projects about it’.

‘The only way to challenge stigmatisation is to destigmatise it and talk about it and try and help folks feel less alone. So if I can do that for my work, I’d love it.’

With co-stars Richard E. Grant, Stephen Park, Anthony Carrigan, Sunita Mani, writer-director Alex Scharfman, Jenna Ortega and Tea Leoni (Picture: Getty)

Poulter has already made a name for himself by switching between broad comedies and more serious fare and I ask if he navigates between these decisions – between light and dark – with his mental health as a determining factor as well?

‘I definitely try and explore a range, if I can. That keeps it interesting for me, and I hope it keeps it interesting for audiences. But yes, I think I try and just do the healthiest mix I possibly can manage,’ he responds.

To lighten the mood a little at the end, I ask a few more quick-fire questions before I’m ejected.

Although he does briefly ponder over an unnamed celebrity he saw in the lifts at the hotel that morning – a regular junket venue – Poulter has no comeback for the last time he was starstruck.

‘I make an idiot of myself so regularly that I try not to get starstruck too much,’ he gamely offers.