Joseph Zada Was “Sh*tting Bricks” Before Filming With Florence Pugh
The East of Eden set may have been even more nerve-wracking than the Hunger Games arena.
Before he found himself in District 12 as Haymitch Abernathy in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, Joseph Zada spent the early part of 2025 in New Zealand filming East of Eden — which came with its own stressors.
The 21-year-old Australian actor, alongside Joe Anders, plays a twin son of Cathy Ames (Florence Pugh) in Zoe Kazan’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s famed novel. Getting to do a scene with someone like the Avengers: Doomsday star proved to be an intimidating task for the Hollywood newcomer.
“[Joe and I] were both in the most vulnerable position ever, because we’ve never done anything in this scope or scale. We’d never worked with anyone of the likes of Florence, so we were just preparing together for three weeks, sh*tting bricks,” says Zada. The mutual fear of working with the Oscar nominee was what helped Zada and Anders form their twinlike bond for the Netflix series.
Not only was it stressful to share the screen with Pugh, Zada tells Elite Daily, but their first day on set was an important one. “Our first scene was with Florence. It’s both of our biggest scenes in the show,” he says. Anders agrees that the pivotal moment really brought them together. “The twinlike relationship mostly came out of the fact that we were both forced into the same boat of being absolutely f*cking terrified we were going to f*ck this up and weathering the storm,” Anders says. “We made sure we were there for one another in New Zealand, where we’d both never been before.”
When they weren’t worried about filming a big scene or sharing the screen with Pugh, Zada says the two Arsenal fans furthered their bond by discussing football and going on vacation together. During the shoot, the two also stayed in neighboring apartments, and the We Were Liars star had the chance to look over Anders’ screenplay. “Joe let me read his script for his film that he made, and I bawled my eyes out the whole way through. It’s so phenomenal; Joe is such an incredible writer.” The support between the two truly is brotherly.
