With a healthy list of credits spanning studio fare (Mona Lisa Smile, Stealth), television (Damages, HBO’s John Adams) and the independent arena (Higher Ground, Lola Versus), Ebon Moss-Bachrach is a quintessential talented character actor — able to swing effortlessly and, more importantly, believably from genre to genre. In the unusual new horror film Come Out and Play, alongside Vinessa Shaw, he plays one half of a happy couple who go to Mexico for a romantic getaway, and end up stranded on an island full of murderous children.

It’s based on an old Spanish film, but the parallel story of the movie’s production may be just as strange as Come Out and Play, since it’s directed by Makinov, an anonymous, foreign-born filmmaker who wears a bunch of masks to “enforce a personal vision of cinema that detaches itself from the ego-driven model of the director,” according to his biography. I recently had a chance to speak to Moss-Bachrach one-on-one, about the actor’s unusual experiences with the, ahem, quirky Makinov, and how the latter prefers his tequila. The conversation is excerpted over at ShockYa, so click here for the entertaining read.