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The cast of Forbidden Fruits — Lili Reinhart, Lola Tung, Alexandra Shipp, and Victoria Pedretti — talk all things witchcraft with PEOPLE
Shipp has bound people before: “Bad people, you take a photo of them, you put it in water and you put that in the freezer and they leave you alone”
Forbidden Fruits, directed by Meredith Alloway, is now in theaters
The cast of Forbidden Fruits aren’t afraid to get a little crafty.
Lili Reinhart, 29 (Apple), Lola Tung, 23 (Pumpkin), Alexandra Shipp, 34 (Fig), and Victoria Pedretti, 31 (Cherry) won’t use dark magic to bring harm onto anyone—like their characters in the comedy-horror film—but they have some tricks up their sleeves.
“I’ve bound people before, which just means I bind you from being able to get in contact with me,” Shipp tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview about the film alongside her costars. “Bad people, you take a photo of them, you put it in water and you put that in the freezer and they leave you alone. And I think that’s so important.”
“I don’t ever want to do anything negative,” Shipp continues. “But if someone’s invading on my peace and my personal safety, then I’m just like, ‘Can you just like not be around me, bro?'”
In the film, Apple, Fig, and Cherry work in a clothing store in the mall called Free Eden, getting up to some pretty otherworldly practices at night. Apple “secretly runs a witchy femme cult in the basement of the mall store after hours,” a synopsis says. “When new-hire Pumpkin (Tung) challenges their performative sisterhood, the women are forced to face their own poisons or succumb to a bloody fate.”
Similar to their characters, all of the “fruits” believe in witchcraft in one form or another. For Tung, it’s “manifestation,” but for Pedretti and Reinhart, the magic came in a small package. “I had a little book of spells when I was a kid…it was pink” says Pedretti. “I remember learning different meanings of different flowers.”
“I feel like that sounds really familiar,” adds Reinhart. “I probably had the same one.”
Alexandra Shipp with ‘Forbidden Fruits’ director Meredith Alloway
Credit: Sabrina Lantos
PEOPLE also chatted with the film’s director, Meredith Alloway, to learn about her relationship with the cast, some of her favorite scenes to shoot, and how each team worked harmoniously on set to bring her vision to life.
“They really did such an incredible job at understanding these characters,” says Alloway. “You know, I sort of go, ‘Here, I wrote this character and I’m giving it to you and I really want you to make it your own.’ And I wanted them to bring their sort of, their own energy as people to the characters.”
Alloway recalls filming one particularly witchy scene that was a true bonding moment for everyone on set.
“We shot the first paradise [cult meeting] on the third day, and we had a minimal rehearsal time,” explains Alloway. “It’s a behemoth of a scene, and it really relies on these characters knowing each other.”
“And there’s a chant, you know, that comes sort of towards the end of the scene… it took a while to get that,” continues Alloway. “I was like, ‘Can we get some cue cards? Is this SNL? What is going on?'”
Lili Reinhart, Victoria Pedretti, Meredith Alloway (director), Alexandra Shipp, and Lola Tung on set of ‘Forbidden Fruits’
Credit: Sabrina Lantos
Tung was the only “fruit” who didn’t have to learn the chant—and spent the entire time cracking up as her costars tried to remember it.
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Forbidden Fruits is now in theaters.
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