Kaitlin Mercier and Andrew Bates Discuss What Would Happen If...
They transformed into furniture, candle scents, real housewives & more. Oh my.

posted on May 29, 2016, at 10:00 a.m.

If you’re still not over Ex Machina, you know about Kaitlin Mercier in all her boho-chic glory. If you’re filled to the brim with excitement about the Untitled Han Solo Film in the works, you know Andrew Bates and his creative flair well. If you’ve wondered why these two have popped up on each other’s social media while simultaneously stalking the two of them, well, we're here to fill you in. These two are actually best friends who go way back! They co-starred in the indie flick Ruby Sparks, started up a Youtube channel that has garnered some eager fans, and even live together with a few other roommates in Los Angeles. Can we get in on this friendship?

These two pals stopped by Buzzfeed New York to play a little game we made up to fit their eclectic styles called “What Would Happen If…” so we could see what exactly would happen if they were different versions of themselves. Things get weird. Check it out.



What would happen if you turned into a world dictator?

Kaitlin Mercier: I have very little faith in Dictator Kaitlin, on her first order of business she’ll probably try and make everyone go to the beach for a bonfire party which will all be fun and games but then after a while her country-wide events will be getting old and once we get to event #113, mandatory country-wide talent show day, a group of Bob Marley cover artists will sing their rendition of “Every Little Thing Will Not Be Alright” and stage their take over.

Andrew Bates: Dictator Andrew would try to instate a legitimate form of communism and then fail because obviously communism cannot exist under the rules of this world. When that failed, he would certainly turn the world into a survival of the fittest battlefield and see if humanity will in fact ban together and overcome or tear itself apart.



If you became a ghost?

AB: I want to say I'd be the pottery making kind of ghost, but realistically, ghost Andrew would linger bemoaning that he couldn't debate with anyone. He'd probably shake your chandeliers - does anyone even have chandeliers anymore? And slam your doors. And if you try to exorcise him, he'll be wrathful and get a little Bloody Mary.

KM: What if you try to exercise with him and do some yoga?

AB: Yoga at your own risk.

KM: We're going to bring back those chain emails about being visited by a ghost if you don't forward the email so I can actually haunt those who don't do it.



If you turned into real housewives?

AB: Do I have time to work on my table flipping or drink throwing? I think Andrew the drunk housewife whose husband is cheating with Kaitlin would really want to be perfect with those wrist movements.

KM: This actually works well with what I decided because Kaitlin the real housewife's got fake breasts, only wears clothes that shine even brighter than her porcelain veneers, her drunken alter ego is called Sloppy Suzy, her second husband just bought her a small island and her tagline on the show is “I love my double d’s! Diamonds and drama!” Setting up season two perfectly where it’s confirmed after a bitch slap or a glass of water to the face that I’m sleeping with Andrea’s husband. That’s your housewife name, by the way.

AB: You know where you can shove your gender normative name?

KM: Touche. Let me throw it in the gender normative river where it belongs.



If you turned into a piece of furniture or household item?

KM: Frying pan. So you can make delicious food or hit someone over the head.

AB: Andrew the hammock lives an idyllic life, but it also seeks to overthrow complacent and unsuspecting visitors.



If you turned into each other?

AB: Andrew as Kaitlin would be more emotionally unstable. She'd be more or less what she is today, except her accent would be weird and faintly Australian. Maybe we are already swapped. Maybe I am now Kaitlin pretending to be Andrew pretending to be Kaitlin.

KM: (gasps) Did you just call me emotionally unstable? Did you just call yourself emotionally unstable?

AB: We’re both pretty emotionally unstable.

KM: Fair enough.

AB: The best kind of emotionally unstable, which is to say: completely insane.

KM: A little insanity keeps you sane. Kaitlin as Andrew would have luscious locks that shampoo commercials would try and copy, he’d start randomly dancing at inappropriate moments and he'd often have important internal debates wondering if Pluto's feelings are hurt after all these years of identity confusion, if he should really have this third smoothie before noon and if it's socially acceptable to continue a text conversation he hasn't answered in months like no time has passed at all.



If you became "ordinary"?

AB: Ordinary Andrew would be a wandering monk or a philosopher in the vein of Henry David Thoreau, or if he were feeling particularly Grecian that morning, Plato.

KM: Ordinary Kaitlin is going to be a tightrope-walking firebreather in the circus. This isn’t all that ordinary yet somehow I feel like it’s more ordinary than the acting world.

AB: Hm, yeah, neither of us chose ordinary things. I don't think we could be ordinary if we tried. Maybe we ARE ordinary versions of ourselves already.

KM: Cue the Twilight Zone music.



If you were a candle scent?

KM: Kaitlin’s Kandles is going to have a signature scent of rain on a warm but breezy day. That perfect mix of hot and cold meshing together to create equilibrium.

AB: So you're going to smell moist?

KM: I'm going to smell refreshing, it'll be like you're one with nature wandering through Monteverde.

AB: It's a moist smell.

KM: You're ruining this beautiful and mystical scent I've got going.

AB: What's wrong with the word moist?

KM: Enough!

AB: I'll continue my damp torture later when we're off the record. A candle of my essence would most certainly smell like charred wood and you wouldn't be sure if it was a familiar, nostalgic scent of your childhood and s'mores, or if some idiot accidentally left his burning cigarette on something. Which, by the way, you should never do. Don't be me. Or that idiot.



If you were reincarnated?

AB: I don't think I've lived a good enough life to be reborn another human, so my next incarnation would likely be a cat with a terribly leading sense of curiosity and a desperate hope for eight more lives. And catnip might be fun. I'm curious about the appeal.

KM: Good life, maybe. Morally responsible life, not so much.

AB: I prefer the morally grey areas of the world.

KM: That's where the fun happens. I did a Buzzfeed quiz and according to my answers I’m going to be reincarnated as an office deskchair. The reasoning was the best part because it was like, people will spin around on you and you will give them joy but you will also give them crippling back problems later in life. Watch out, world. We're going to have some fun but I might also ruin you a little.

AB: There really is a Buzzfeed quiz for anything, huh. Maybe they should make one about us.

KM: Yeah, make one about us!

Stay tuned for a Kaitlin and Andrew inspired quiz, coming to a Buzzfeed near you.