In an interview with Variety, Joey King shared her experiences on the set of her latest project We Were the Lucky Ones. The series is based on Georgia Hunter’s best-selling novel of the same name, which accounts her family’s fight to survive the Holocaust. 

King plays Hunter’s great aunt, Halina, alongside Logan Lerman as Hunter’s grandfather, Addy. Other cast members include Sam Woolf, Robin Weigart, Lior Ashkenazi, Hadas Yaron, Amit Rahav and Eva Feiler.

“I think anyone who is a method actor is truly so brave and amazing, but I’m personally not a method actor, and when shooting a show like this, I just don’t know how I could be because having those moments of release in between setups and in between takes with your friends [is needed].” King said of shooting this project. 

“Sometimes you need that release at the snack table with each other…because it got really dark,” she continues. “It would get so sad and there would be times where you just didn’t know when it was going to hit you. Everyone had different moments where we’re all sitting there having a nice time together, just filming a scene and then someone’s hyperventilating and crying because it’s a wave that washes over you.”

Hulu also made trauma therapists available for cast and crew on set. King added that the mutual support from the other cast members made it bearable. 

King, now 24, began her acting career very young. She recalled her first experience with antisemitism when she joined Instagram at age 12. “Within the first couple months I got my first antisemitic remark and it would dip in terms of how frequent or how much it would happen, and it would kind of roller coaster in terms of how often I would experience it, but that was shocking when I was that age,” she said. “Now I just expect it because antisemitism is not the only thing I experience in terms of bullying online. So it almost feels like one of many symptoms of a grand diagnosis of horrible Internet people. I’m saddened, but I’m not really surprised.”

King’s new project is Richard LaGravenese’s  rom-com A Family Affair, also starring Nicole Kidman and her childhood crush Zac Efron.

“To say I was a [‘High School Musical’] fan would be a gross understatement,” King says. “To say I was obsessed would be a little bit more accurate.”

Last year, King starred in her second Taylor Swift music video, with the first being the “Mean” video in 2012. Swift directed King and Taylor Lautner in the video for her single “I Can See You.” King also made an appearance on stage at Swift’s Eras Tour in Kansas City for the premier of the video. 

“She had her vision, but also loved seeing what the actors come up with and do on their own and wants to make sure she got it,” King says of Swift. “But she does a few takes and when she has it, she has it. She’s a confident director.”