Emrhys Cooper, Writer/Director/Actor/Producer: I actually am grateful for the bullying and all
that stuff because that actually spurned me on to be really good, to prove them wrong, to get
out of Devon where I was from a very small town and prove that I could do something in my life.
Film Courage: “Don't be afraid to be different.” What does that mean?
Emrhys: Don't be afraid to be different. I think we often
feel we have to conform to what society wants us to be or family wants us to be
but being yourself (everyone else has taken) so being yourself is it sounds so easy but
it's actually not because I think we we have all these different masks based on trauma or based on
things that we've been told aren't great but I think the more we can take them off,
the more we can celebrate our true self and I think a lot of healing comes from
sharing that. You're as dirty as your secrets. So I think if you can be brave, to be bold and
daring, you'll be rewarded for it and it will feel better. I think we sometimes create a box that we
have to put ourselves in and that's ourselves putting ourselves in so I think if we can
dare to be different, I think it's important in any profession.
Film Courage: You talked about being bullied when you were younger and I think that's
maybe a common thing that people who are creative go through because they do have a
different way in which they look at the world and maybe
it's threatening to other people. I don't know what the reasons are but
how long did it take you to feel okay that I don't have to fit in? I can if I want I choose to be me.
Emrhys: Goodness, I've only recently in the last probably a couple of years
realized that I'm actually okay being me. I think I started getting bullied when I
was about eight years old and I didn't even know really why it was happening it wasn't
I just thought I was different there was something wrong with me it was probably because I was more
effeminate and maybe a little I don't know maybe I was a bit over the top I don't know
exactly why but I was just different and a lot of the kids couldn't quite understand me
and then it got kind of worse as I got into my teenage years there was violence punched for
no reason just kind of and I then had to kind of hide and that's when I started to create a
masculine kind of tough persona to kind of protect myself and then I started to believe that persona
to the point of I became this kind of arrogant guy that wasn't really me but it was just a I kept my
guard up so I wouldn't the the violence and the kind of abuse wouldn't continue and then yeah
people just started to see it as being disingenuous and I think certain people around
me started seeing seeing the real me and were like what is this thing you're presenting it's not you
there's something much more beautiful inside of you and gradually the crack started to happen
and yeah but it was only I'm now 36 so I'd say it's taking me a long time to get comfortable
with who I am it's taken a really long time and I did this interesting thing called Bufo last year
which is 5-MeO-DMT a little bit like ayahuasca and it's great for anxiety depression trauma ptsd
and it really set me free of the pain and the trauma I encountered and it made me understand
all the years of the abuse I've been giving myself and I finally let go of it it was just
an incredible incredible relief to actually know I'm okay there's nothing wrong with me
because for so many years I actually thought there was something really wrong with me and I was a bad
guy I was a bad kid I was the gay side of me was just awful I was less than I was inferior
and just living with that on a day-to-day basis I didn't really
think it was affecting me but it must have been affecting me in a really significant way
my behavior was acting out numbing myself with alcohol drugs toxic relationships and
it feels really great to not be in that place in my life anymore I'm just really relieved
and it's taken a long time but anyone that's struggling with anything like that just know
it's not your fault it's really not your fault and you can get better and you can get over
it just takes time to be patient with yourself you have to be kind to yourself
trust yourself and know that you're an amazing human being but you also had success because
you were a dancer at and you you were a dancer for madonna at one time so you had
a life that was working it sounds like you were able to perform and you were in demand
yeah that said all that stuff I was doing I did have a really great ride as being a dancer and I
think thank god I was thank god I really committed to the discipline of becoming a good dancer I was
very ambitious I loved it and if I hadn't have been a good dancer and if I hadn't have had that
success I don't know what I've been doing the dancing really got me out of a dark place and it
gave me so many opportunities so many adventures I met so many wonderful people and it's a really
euphoric feeling being a dancer it's the best feeling in the world I mean it really is once
you're on stage there's nothing better than that so I'm really grateful that despite even and I
think I actually am grateful for the bullying and all that stuff because that actually spurned me on
to be really good to prove them wrong to get out of Devon [UK] where I was from a very small town
and prove that I could do something in my life so despite the way I look at it is those situations
were part of my fuel and I was just so determined to succeed at something
that yeah I made it I made it a priority that I would reach a certain level
and The Shuroo Process parallels some of this and you talked about the the was I'm not sure
the substance that you were able to use to kind of but was she using ayahuasca there
was something that in in the film that she has these epiphanies or she's able to transcend
so yeah in The Shuroo process they they do masculine and it's a similar thing then it's
I have never tried it but I've heard it's very good for letting go yeah and a lot of these
retreats in different places they use psychedelics to help with trauma ptsd repression so it's it's
quite common use right and sorry I didn't mean to give spoilers away so if we can take it out but
I know it sounds like there was a similar journey in the shrew process and I think that there's some
it sounds like there's parallels maybe to why you wrote it or no the sure process is a very
personal story to me as growing up my parents encountered some charlatan gurus and some quack
doctors my mother was falsely diagnosed with ovarian cancer and given some quite unorthodox
techniques to heal her and then we found out she didn't have ovarian cancer the doctor actually
was not your doctor he ended up going to jail for sexual abuse and he's still in jail and growing
up they encountered other people that were I come from a very new age town and so I didn't feel safe
a lot of the time there were people coming in my parents are very trusting very loving people and
they were taken advantage of a lot of times they actually wound up in a cult they didn't even know
about and I think it was a very uncertain and unstable kind of lifestyle and I just
growing up with that I wanted to kind of highlight the dangers but also show the positive
effects of self-development it's not that I'm shading on self-development it's more be careful
of false prophets and who you put your trust in because a lot of them don't have the psychology
psychological training to take people to that vulnerable place and if you see the movie you can
see the dangers but you can also see the positive effects too so we were interested in highlighting
the duality of those characters that want to take advantage of you but also want to help you
right yeah I grew up in the bay area and there were groups we won't name them but
where you wouldn't be able to leave to go to the bathroom for several hours and it was
all to sort of strengthen you and different things like that so yeah that sounds uncomfortable yeah
I'd hate to see the line for the bathroom after it yeah you were told you could go but yeah so
I realized there's a because you want to believe there's a you can be seduced by individuals like
that they they kind of tell you what you want to hear they're very intuitive but yeah you can
definitely fall prey as we're seeing with different documentaries and things
yeah we're now being commoditized on social media so they can actually find out how to target you so
it's a whole new wave and especially coming out of covid with people looking for help there's a lot
of unfortunately dangerous predators in that field that don't really have the skills they present
and I feel and I don't want to give away too much here so maybe
I’ll tone it down but your character has an arc once she starts to sense that something's wrong
and that it's not necessarily her so it seems like the the fingers are being
pointed at her but then she starts to have more of an arc once she discovers there's
trouble in paradise what well yeah I want to what I wanted to show about Shuroo is because I think
a lot of movies portray these gurus is either like the arch villain or a huge sexual predator
and a lot of the time they get can be but I wanted to show a very realistic charismatic
guru type the hipster kind of guru which now is a lot of them and just show that there's
it's not black and white because it never is completely black and white because everyone in the
retreat does have a really positive experience but that isn't necessarily about him that's because
they took the first step to wanting to grow to wanting to let go so it's kind of showing that
if you want to grow if you want to change you can do it it's within you
you don't necessarily need to go on a get rich weekend or a retreat to start the work.
Has being an artist helped you overcome trauma?