‘UGLIES’ Exclusive: Keith Powers And Chase Stokes Open Up About Playing Characters With Vastly Different Upbringings

‘UGLIES’ Star Chase Stokes Says His Character Peris Lacks Self-Awareness

The film stars Joey King, Chase Stokes, Keith Powers, Brianne Tju, and Laverne Cox. Based on Scott Westerfield’s novel of the same name, UGLIES introduces audiences to a futuristic world that imposes a cosmetic surgery at 16. The story centers around a young woman named Tally (Joey King) who is eager for her turn to receive her surgery and join the rest of society. But when a friend runs away, Tally embarks on a journey to save her that upends everything she thought she wanted.

BOSSIP’s Sr. Content Director Janeé Bolden spoke with Keith Powers and Chase Stokes about their vastly different characters David and Peris and how their upbringings made them who they are.

David is the leader of The Smoke, a rebellion formed to fight for people’s right to choose not to undergo surgery. His parents were once part of leadership alongside Dr. Cable, but after discovering the surgeries had harmful effects they fled the city and made it their mission to spread the truth.

“I think David’s upbringing, him being able to be a free thinker and have a choice and get to be like unapologetically himself, helps him to be able to lead a revolution like The Smoke,” Powers told BOSSIP. “I think him being brought up into that grounded society and real society, helps the makeup of David. It helps him, helps how he treats people and just how he views people. Even though it’s a rebellion he doesn’t really even look at it as revenge or even avenging, what people are in general. It’s just more so them just trying to get the message out to as many people as they can, in the most respectful, positive way, but also defending it as well. You see a lot of that in David.”

When we first meet Chase Stokes’ character Peris, he is best friends with Tally and a few months closer to getting his surgery than she is. He’s bought into Dr. Cable’s propaganda and doesn’t have any second thoughts about changing his looks.

“I think Paris is just a kid who wants to follow the rules initially,” Stokes told BOSSIP. “And I think when you’re in that space like he’s in the dorms, they tell you how to walk, they tell you how to talk, you take the pill and you do the next right thing and it creates a level of uncertainty and insecurity and when you follow that line for so long you just do the next right thing. That sense of oneself gets taken from you because of this idea that everything will be better post-procedure and so I think just the big difference to me was really that Paris doesn’t know who he is really. I mean he knows what he likes and he knows who he cares about, but he just hasn’t seen the world. I think that seeing the world and getting out there in the ways that David has gives you the opportunity to expand your mind and see things from different perspectives and he just doesn’t have that and that really influences the way that he moves throughout this film.”

UGLIES is based on the Scott Westerfield YA novel, so we also asked Powers and Stokes about the books that have most influenced them. It turns out that both actors are passionate readers as well.

“I have to be so honest that Harry Potter was the book that made me kind of dream and imagine and think about the idea of everything outside of where I was,” Stokes said. “And maybe that was a little bit of an inkling and getting into this this career of playing pretend for a living, but it’s something about the kid who lived under the stairs and getting to go out into this big beautiful world that he had no idea about really allowed me at a young age to say like, ‘OK I think there’s probably a lot more than just this neighborhood that I’m growing up in.’”

“I think it was a lot for me, but I think one of the earliest books is Where The Red Fern Grows,” Powers said. ” It was one of those ones growing up. I just remember the world I created in my head as a kid, just even how the dog looked and everything to the point where, I don’t even know if they’ve ever done a film or series on it, but if they did, I see why book readers could get so [up in arms] — because you created this whole world in your head, like, ‘No this is mine,’ you know what I’m saying? ‘This is how this looks!’ That was one of the first books and then more recently it was The Four Agreements, it’s one of those ones you literally could just pull out the you know off the bookshelf and just go through the highlighted stuff. That was another one that really helped shape me.”

“I’d say Harold and the Purple Crayon too, you remember that one?” Stokes added.

Have you read any of these books? Which books influenced you most growing up?

UGLIES is streaming now on Netflix.