'Top Gun: Maverick' breakout star Lewis Pullman talks his frat house hazing drama 'The Line'

From Animal House to Old School, collegiate frat houses were once a regular source of cinematic humor. But the new drama The Line offers a serious counterpoint to those vintage comedies, revealing why these institutions aren't a laughing matter.

Premiering at the Tribeca Festival, the film takes viewers inside a fictional fraternity where abusive hazing and toxic masculinity run rampant, with ultimately deadly consequences. And co-writer/director Ethan Berger says he based the narrative both on the many real world stories of frat house hazing gone wrong as well as personal accounts he's heard from friends.

"I know so many people in fraternities who were hazed," the filmmaker tells Yahoo Entertainment. "It's something that people don't talk about, because it happens in basements and other out of sight places. It felt like something worth exploring to provoke some questions and make people think about whether or not this is a good thing."

And Berger points out that The Line features a deliberate connection Animal House, the movie that popularized the frat house comedy. Both fictional houses are based on Sigma Alpha Epsilon, which has had several well-documented scandals in its past. "After Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds, fraternity membership skyrocketed," the director says. "Those movies made it seem like a fun thing, but I've since seen in the news that somebody has died of a hazing-related thing almost every year. We wrote the first draft of the film in 2012, and similar things kept happening while we were waiting to make it."

Top Gun: Maverick breakout star, Lewis Pullman, plays the president of The Line's fraternity and says that the film provided him with a crash course in the perils of Greek campus life. "It's a rotting brotherhood," he says of house his alter ego presides over. "It's more like The Last Detail or Full Metal Jacket than Animal House. I went to a really small college where there wasn't much room for [fraternities], and I learned a lot about the culture through Ethan's script."

Ahead of The Line's Tribeca premiere, Yahoo Entertainment spoke with Pullman and Berger about the frat house-to-political office pipeline and what Pullman's father — actor Bill Pullman — taught him about Hollywood growing up.

Lewis, your character, Todd, is caught in an interesting place because he's answering to two masters: his fraternity brothers and the school administration. How does that affect his leadership position?

Lewis Pullman: That's what's at the core of him as a person, right? He's in this liminal space of being one of the guys, but he's also in a very political position where he has to be very careful.

Ethan Berger: For me, Todd's character is like a lot of fraternity leaders in that he has to maintain face, but there's lots of other stuff going on inside the house. It's got these grandiose columns, but rotting interiors. Lewis and I also talked a lot about politicians — we watched a lot of videos of them and I'm sure that really helped you.

Pullman: Ethan also cast a few [former frat] guys who were in the middle of school, and they took some semesters off so they could work on the movie with us. Their energy and knowledge of the whole world really put wind in our sails as an ensemble and helped set the tone for a world I wasn't really familiar with before.

There's a larger conversation we're having right now about abuses in Hollywood in books like Burn It Down, which describes leaders like Todd who claim ignorance of what happened on their watch. How much plausible deniability does a person in power have?

Berger: That's a huge part of the story. Todd frames [abuses] as accidents in public, but when he walks in the house, he blames it on his brothers. So there's a disconnect there, and he's the one doing it. Todd is looking out for his own future, but at what cost? And that's true of a lot of people in the movie.

Pullman: For me, I always wonder if the same things would have happened if Todd had actually been present for them. He's probably relieved that his hands aren't dirty, but I think he knows deep down that this kind of s*** happens all the time and it easily could have involved him. He's in this place of not knowing what's right.

Berger: Todd and the school's headmaster are not ultimately dissimilar. Both are more concerned about the media, so it becomes about protecting the house at all costs with no real empathy for the inhabitants. What's interesting is that so many politicians come from frats: presidents and Supreme Court justices grew up in them so to speak. So I think a lot of this stuff is born in fraternities.

Lewis, has your dad talked with you about what the film industry was like when he started acting and how it's changed today in that regard?

Pullman: He does talk about how things are shifting, but for the most part collaboration is collaboration, and there are always going to be some ugly moments. So that hasn't changed — the beauty and the difficulty of collaboration is always there. What it takes to be in sync with a crew and a cast while telling a story is always going to present challenges that aren't going to go away. But he's also been really excited by the influx of female directors who have different perspectives. That's something he does feel is starting to change — the kinds of stories we're telling.

Did he have the dreaded "nepo baby" talk with you when you said you wanted to be an actor?

Pullman: No, he was always quietly supportive. He wasn't really pushing me in either direction, but we've obviously talked about the double-edged sword of nepotism. Not a day goes by where I don't acknowledge and am aware what kind of privilege I have walking into this thing, you know? There's a weight to it, but it also makes me feel like I have to work harder to earn the sense that people are taking me seriously.

Berger: I will say that Klay Thompson and Steph Curry's dads were basketball players, and Lewis is just naturally gifted. Sure, you can have that perspective of being privileged because your parents have been in the industry, but at the end of the day you gotta bring it and this dude does that.

Ethan, have you had any personal Hollywood experiences with leaders who aren't minding their own houses?

Berger: Not so much, but I wasn't really thinking about Hollywood for this movie. There's a lot of stuff made from an L.A. or New York centric kind of mentality, and we didn't want to do that. We wanted this to be relatable to a lot of people, including those in fraternities. Hopefully it will provoke them to question whether their fraternity has the same allegiance to them that they have to it. But I do want to say that I personally haven't always been the best leader that I can be. Part of life is acknowledging when you're not and having that kind of self-awareness, and that's what the movie is about. We can all be better.

Pullman: Personally, I thought you were a fantastic leader, and that self-awareness is integral. There were moments when there was no money and we were out of time, and you'd look to all of us and go, 'Let's talk about this.' All of us really looked up to Ethan, and it wasn't a hierarchical thing: we were in it together, on the same level, and that's rare.

Lewis, you had a breakout role in Top Gun: Maverick last year. What was the most valuable part of that experience for you?

Pullman: Much like The Line, it was the chance to integrate myself into a world I'd otherwise never have dipped my toes into. We shot for eight-and-a-half months, and I cherished losing myself in that group of people and that world. Plus, working with Tom Cruise was so good. I talk about him so much that I'm always trying to come up with a new answer, but every day was just a masterclass under his guidance. He's such a hungry sponge eager to keep growing, and that in and of itself is really contagious. Even now, whenever I reach a moment of stagnation, I remember how he never let himself stay put for longer than five seconds without pushing forward. He was always asking, "How can I move this story forward? How can I take it from good to excellent?' And that's invaluable.

Do you expect to receive any pushback from fraternities after The Line premieres?

Berger: Absolutely. The Interfraternity Council wrote a letter trying to shut down production while we were shooting at the University of Oklahoma. A lot of them won't like the film, and that's OK. I feel like it's a good movie for Americans to see because we have a tendency to value institutions over the lives of our neighbors. Also, something like 85% of politicians and CEOs come from frats and if those are the people in positions of power, let's examine where they come from.

The Line premieres June 9 at the 2023 Tribeca Festival