'Promising Young Woman' Cast Explains the Female Revenge Thriller

what are the themes of the movie I would say forgiveness romance revenge Paris Hilton [Music] [Applause] [Music] I wrote the script a few years ago and I think certainly there are elements to it that are timely but I think amongst my friends and the people that I talk to you these are all themes that like certainly women have been talking about for many many centuries really hey I said what are you doing reading for the first time suits have made me nervous in a really good way in the kind of way that makes me excited to be a part of something and really that kind of writing just doesn't come along very often so I was very excited you know the movies that I love a kind of proper old-fashioned thrillers really this is a it's a dark comedy and a thriller and it so happens that it has a kind of female lead who is struggling with something that happened in her past but I do think it's on the face of it I hope that it's a movie that is kind of timeless and I think the certainly the romantic comedy aspect of it feels like I sort of like you've got mail that's what I watched on the plane but you know it was like like an amazing nineties romantic comedy in a way that doesn't really get written anymore and said I didn't know that was just something about it that felt kind of really nostalgic and warm and sentimental in all the right ways and I think you don't see that very much so there is a whole part of the film that feels like you were in a like a really great 90s rom-com so we had a collection okay how old am i what are my hobbies what's my name sorry maybe that one's too hard her whole life was derailed by a single event and so we figured out what that event was together and and then put together what her life had been like but most of my preparation was literally just long chats of emerald and we work together and I think my preparations changed a lot in the last couple of years in the artists anytime because they were two children who were little so you know I don't have and for this we didn't have extended periods of time and and I feel increasingly more like jumping in with some I really really trust and with brilliant actors and taking risks sometimes it's about sort of not feeling silly I think and an emerald was just so brilliant at making everyone feel so comfortable and so we just tried lots like there were lots and lots and lots of different versions of things Cassandra we're in class together at Forest you would have been a great doctor I play a former classmate of Kerry's character that comes back into her life looking um harmless and kind apparently so yeah it was just like in contrast to sort of the rest of the movie my scenes got to be light-hearted and sweet so the whole time I thought we were making a very sweet approachable movie and then I would like to see the shell-shocked looks on the faces of the crew will show of me like oh I think the scenes yesterday were slightly different than this total pleasure they thought he was making a sequel - you've got mail yes we didn't want to disabuse him the next what are you gonna do when emerald and I met about the film she sent me a playlist and toxic was on there twice gave me a kind of indication that Britney would be a big part of this film and I think the thing is is you often find this with pop music or like popular culture particularly pop culture that young women like is it sort of treated ironically or it's treated like a guilty pleasure but I've always loved Britney Spears and I think toxic is one of the greatest songs ever written and so I kind of wanted to actually the whole movie in general I wanted to kind of make sure that these things that we kind of think of as silly and our culture dismisses like clothes makeup pop music stuff that you know some women Norwin and enjoy and treat it seriously I think I always hoped that I might get the opportunity to direct but I didn't I really didn't dream I would get to make a movie in Hollywood with you know people like Carrie and beau who were just beyond exceptional and wonderful and so I think you kind of hope that something like that might happen that you might be allowed one day to you know direct your sister to the shops something else that it might direct you don't expect this you know it's meant to be at Sundance with these guys you know Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan and Bo Burnham we get accusations like this all the time you need brains they never did a girl any good sorry I didn't go with her you gotta let it go I would really encourage people to watch the film because in many ways it's a lot of smoke and mirrors and a lot of tricks in a way that I think all the movies that I enjoy our and it's surprising in ways I think that people won't expect and so it's a very difficult movie to talk about theoretically and in terms of the tone I think the most macabre terrible things are the things that we tend to laugh at to make sense of them to make them bearable and so I don't think many things are off-limits and and certainly you know the worst moments in my life have always followed been followed by FISH if like terrible helpless giggles so it always felt like the right way of you know talking about something difficult okay I know that you've worked with a series of female directors recently do you feel like things are changing and what does the Academy need to do to like catch up I wonder if the system works in terms of getting sent 100 screeners and maybe you shouldn't be allowed to vote unless you can prove that you've seen every single one there should be a test because the films that did I in my opinion get left out are indisputably brilliant hustlaz little women of course and the farewell but I feel like the fact that they're all getting made and they are getting celebration in some form is progress but it's all baby steps I think the way that humans are is they tend to watch the they prioritize the things that they're comfortable with that they like so they will go with really you know established filmmakers making movies about subjects that they've they kind of know very well well if it worked more like a like a jury on a film festival where many smaller groups of people were allocated certain I don't know there's got to be a system where you can't just poke your mates all the people who had the biggest advertising campaign have the most money pump behind it not to say that they're not disparaging any of the films that will recognize but there are exceptional films that year after year go on Raider having said that we welcome all in any awards yes absolutely and then finally and will you play Camilla in the crown yes what have you learned about the royal family the thing that I felt most strongly about is how unbelievably difficult it would be to live like they do I think it would be unbelievably hard so I went into it kind of very ambivalent not really knowing huge amount about the royal family and an eyeful enormous ly sympathetic which I really wasn't really wasn't expect [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Variety

Views: 458,438

Keywords: Variety, Variety Studio

Id: HFg8Hh5LpZ4

Length: 8min 3sec (483 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 28 2020