BVB: Blood Violence and Babes doesn’t always get political, but then again, we also don’t often get asked to experience and help promote a new film like M.F.A.
M.F.A. is a harrowing, thrilling, superbly acted and expertly directed rape-revenge thriller. But, more than that, it’s exceptionally well-written and easily crests the exploitation subgenre of horror that is filled with similarly themed films (I Spit on Your Grave, Avenged, Ms. 45, Girls Against Boys) by focusing much more on the trauma, the self-doubt and the personal despair that a female victim of sexual assault feels.
M.F.A. also is different because it was helmed by women — specifically, director Natalia Leite and screenwriter Leah McKendrick, who also co-stars. And while you may recognize McKendrick from various TV shows, or last year’s Bad Moms, know this: M.F.A. is unlike anything she has done before, and with good reason, as you’re about to read.
I told Stacey yesterday when she approached me about this opportunity, I jumped on it. One, having seen M.F.A., I love the film. I thought it was fantastic, and it’s not only a powerful film, but it’s a very important film, especially in the time we’re living in right now. I just have so many questions based on everything that’s going on in the world today. So, thank you for taking the time to talk to me about it.
Thanks.
So, this is your first feature screenplay, correct?
Yeah, that’s right.
That’s awesome. You also appear in the film as Skye, who is the neighbor and who kind of has her own history and secrets that she is trying to kind of forget about and bury, and then her relationship with Noelle (Francesca Eastwood) and what happens to Noelle really kind of brings that all back to the forefront. What made you want to write this story? What prompted this? Was this something that had always been on your mind, or was it sparked by something in particular, that the genesis for this kind of came about?
I’ve always had a huge interest and fascination and love for women’s issues. Since I was a little girl I always would read magazines that were for much older girls, since I was really young. And then I minored in Women’s Studies and Sociology in college, so I’ve always taken a huge interest. I’ve written a lot of things about anorexia and bulimia and sexual violence and motherhood, all kinds of women’s issues, but I felt really angry, all the time, since I was young, reading about rape throughout the world. And more recently, especially on campuses across the nation, how the administrations failed the girls, the survivors, and this institutionalized racism and violence towards women. So, I just felt there was a slap, story after story after story, and I felt the universe was just pushing me toward this concept and it got to the point where I felt like I had no choice, and I started writing it.
That’s awesome, and I totally understand what you’re saying. I mean, obviously, I have not lived that experience, but I can appreciate it having known people in my life, having dated people in my life, who were the victims of sexual assault, and seeing firsthand just what that does to somebody. I totally appreciate that you were angry enough to do this. How long did it take you to write?
The beginning to ending was two years. So, it took me a long time. It was many, many, many drafts. That was the hardest. The majority of it was rewriting because the early drafts were so dark, like no humor, it was very heavy. And my professor from college, he’s one of my mentors, said, "Wouldn’t it be awesome, wouldn’t it feel great, if it was like Django Unchained? And it felt good when she killed some of these guys?" And I thought, "oh, OK," and I tried to infuse some levity into it and not make it this really heavy experience that people maybe would have a really hard time connecting to or sitting through.
I felt like that was something you did really, really well because, obviously, within genre cinema, especially, this is something that has been touched on going back decades. I mean, you’ve got early exploitation films like I Spit on Your Grave, and things like that…
Yeah!
…take, that focus more, I think, on the brutality and the revenge aspect as opposed to the impact on the central female character, which I felt like you did a very commendable job of balancing both the cathartic payoff for viewers in wanting to see these guys get their comeuppance, but also the uncomfortable reality, the psychological damage, that the act has taken and put, in this case, Noelle in that position of acting out and seeking retribution. Was that hard to maintain? Were you cognizant of the I Spit on Your Grave effect, and not wanting to tip too far into that exploitation-type feel?
No! [laughing] I wasn’t cognizant. To be honest, I didn’t know it when I started, and I’m a huge horror film buff. I knew about the film, sort of, but I didn’t realize that I was sort of stepping into this subgenre of film, of the rape-revenge film. I thought I was a brilliant genius coming up with something that had never been done before, as we often do, and then realize it’s been done several times before. But, after educating myself a bit on it, I was like, OK, so this has been done. But a big thing for us — Natalia, my director, and I talked about this a lot — we really hope people walk away feeling that this was from a female gaze, for one, that this was a different take on the rape-revenge film because it is coming from women who have experienced this in real life, and who have something to say on it. And it’s not really about the blood and the gore, and I think you hit it on the head, it’s really, hopefully, about the way it changes somebody, that kind of trauma, how it changes you, and why it can’t be taken lightly because it transforms a person and it causes a lot of shame and pain. You can never go back to who you used to be.
Right.
And I don’t want to say other films haven’t been able to achieve that, or don’t speak to that, but that was the goal for us. So, we weren’t really too concerned with what had been done before or the way the other films had been done. We just sort of tried to have our fresh take and that came from our heart.
I think that comes through loud and clear. Were you friends with Natalia prior to this? Was this something that you wanted to collaborate together, or was it a stroke of luck that you two ended up working on this together?
I didn’t know Natalia before. I was on a hunt for the right director. It was important to me to find a female who loved my script and understood what I was trying to do and was going to make it her own and really steer the ship. I always write, produce and act, that’s what I always do, and it’s always a challenge to find the right person that you’re willing to trust your baby with. I had seen Bare and I really liked Bare and I thought that she was a very different filmmaker from me. For me, I always create things that are very commercial and, I don’t want to say glossy, but can appeal to a wide range of people, and Natalia is not afraid to get very intimate. She’s not afraid to take her time on shots. And I felt in some ways we were opposites, and I liked that. I thought she might be able to lend her eye and her vision to my script and bring this sort of organic intimacy to it. And I think that’s what happened.
The price should not be silence. The price should not be letting men touch us and do whatever they want to us because we really want to be able to have a career in show business.
Was it important to you to have a female director on this project?
One hundred percent, yeah. It was really important to me. I was getting a lot of — I would ask people for successful female directors, and people would send me guys. "I don’t really know any female directors, other than so-and-so, and she’s already booked." I got to the point [where I thought] maybe I shouldn’t be pushing so hard for a female. I’m running out of money and time. Is it possible that there are guys? I just felt it in my heart, and my career, and my production company, my baby production company [Villainess Productions], it’s our goal to create work for women in front of the camera as well as behind. I felt with a story like this, it was so important that it was helmed by a female, and hopefully somebody that understood it from the personal standpoint, a personal experience with sexual assault. And the truth is, that’s not that hard to find. Most women have had some sort of experience with sexual assault. The beauty was with Nat, I really wanted her and I was willing to fight for her, and I really didn’t have to fight that hard because she did have that immediate reaction to it, she had that immediate connection to it. And that’s a blessing because sometimes when they are writer-directors, they really would rather do their own script. They really are not super open to jumping on board somebody else’s vision because they have visions of their own they want to bring to fruition and bring into the world. I’m really grateful that Nat was in a place in her life and her career that she was ready to take something on, something big on, that was different. It was really quick, and before you knew it, we were moving.
That’s awesome. I, um, I want to ask about this, but I also want to be respectful.
Of course.
You’ve said this twice, so I’m going to make the assumption and ask you to talk a bit about it, if it’s true, but is this something you have personally had experience with in your life and career?
So, what happened to me. I had a really, and I’ve had different sorts of experiences, but the one that always sat in my mind when I talk about the film. It was an experience I had on an audition when I was new to L.A. I went to an audition, and it was at a house, and I felt like I should probably not go in, but it was coming from a, you know, a legitimate source, this audition, and I hadn’t been auditioning in a while, and I really wanted to work. And I remember calling my boyfriend at the time and telling him, "I have this audition at this house," but it was a beautiful home, off Mulholland or something. Maybe it’s been converted into an office. Maybe it’s not actually a house where people live.
So, I go in, and it turns out, it was in the pool house, which was converted into an office, but it was a home, and it was nobody but me and the director. And he put his hands on me, and kissed me, in the middle of my audition. He came out from behind the camera and started touching me, and kissing me, and I was just frozen in shock. I’d never had that experience. And the first thing that came to my mind was, "Oh my God, I’m here alone. Nobody else is here. I’m in his house, and I’m alone, and I just thought, don’t make him angry. Just get out. You know, you’ve got to just get out."
And I kind of just got really frazzled. I was like, "Oh that’s fine, I probably need to…" [and] he’s like, "No, let’s do it again. Let’s do it again. More organic this time." And I was just really frightened, and I got out, and I complained to the Screen Actors Guild, and I complained to the source where the audition had been posted. They said they had gotten complaints about him before. And, before you knew it, this director was calling my agent, saying that I was talking shit about him around town, which is really frightening to me, because the reason that happened, where the audition had been posted, they had called him.
Oh my gosh.
So, he had gotten my information off of IMDb or whatever, and reached out. So, I felt very naked. I felt very on display, and sort of, like I was the bad guy because I had spoken out, but I just didn’t want other actresses going into the house thinking the same thing I did, that they just wanted to work and maybe it was converted and maybe it was a legitimate thing. I felt protective of other actresses, but I felt really ashamed. I felt like I was being shamed for speaking out about it. And who knows what could have happened. What if I had been raped? What if…
So that experience, for me, it really sort of shaped this idea, as a woman, especially as an actress, and with all this Harvey Weinstein stuff coming out, I can really relate to all the women because we attach so much to our dreams and our careers, and that shouldn’t be the price.
The price should not be silence. The price should not be letting men touch us and do whatever they want to us because we really want to be able to have a career in show business. It’s really sad that we always get put in these positions repeatedly where we’re asked to choose: Want a career, or not? And that’s the price. Luckily, for me, that experience happened, in a sense, early on, and I was able to sort of, shape my ideas and my view of how I was going to handle it. Nothing like that has ever happened to me since because if something is happening in that house, I don’t go in the house. And luckily, I have more of a resume now so I can choose what I want to do. I’m not desperate for work the way that I was when I first moved to L.A. Sorry, this is a very long story, I didn’t mean to go on for so long.
No, not at all.
My point was that that experience, it affected me in a deep way because I just feel so much shame, and because I was so young, and even as well-versed as I am and have always been in women’s issues, it really surprised me how scared and how ashamed I was. I have so much love and protectiveness over girls in college experiencing this, or other young actresses in Hollywood experiencing this.
I’m, one, so sorry that you had that experience because no one should have to go through that to do what they want to do for a living. I mean, that’s a violation of a basic tenet that we all hold true, that we’re professionals, we’re there to do a job, we’re not there to have to endure that type of behavior.
Right.
And, two, I’m thankful it wasn’t worse for you. Is it difficult, or — not difficult, maybe, is the right word — but you mentioned Harvey Weinstein, and that was something I definitely wanted to ask you about with this film coming out at a time when this issue has kind of just rocketed to the forefront of our cultural zeitgeist. I mean, where everyone is talking about it right now, which I think is such an important thing. Is this something that has just been swept under the rug for far too long, and now we’re finally seeing a break in the dam so that people feel more able to speak out and more able to say, "hey, this is not right"? I’m wondering, one, if you think we’ve reached a tipping point in our society where now, finally, this type of behavior may actually be done with. We have people now so aware that hopefully this won’t continue to happen. And, two, do you feel — I think fortuitous is probably the wrong word, also in this situation — but it’s got to be an interesting thing for you for this film to be coming out in the week when so many bombshell revelations are coming out about a figure in Hollywood who was larger than life, but preyed on young actresses, and young women.
Right, right. I think it’s just the tip of the iceberg, the things that we’re seeing. I wish I could say I felt like it was the end, or a new frontier. I’m not even a famous actress. I’m not even a big actress. I’ve never worked on a Weinstein Company movie, but I’ve known about Harvey Weinstein and his abuse. Everybody knows. And Meryl Streep came out and said she didn’t know, not everybody knows. Well, she’s Meryl Streep. She’s kind of our royalty in Hollywood, so maybe Meryl Streep didn’t know, but every young actress in Hollywood has some understanding. And let’s get real — it is not just Harvey Weinstein. It is many, many, many people in Hollywood in power who are not Harvey Weinstein. He is just very prominent, very successful, very well-known.
As my story shows, there are many men at many different levels taking advantage of young women and young actresses in this field, and young men and children. So, I am really proud of The New York Times coming out, and The New Yorker, and the stories coming out, and I hope it’s just the beginning. I hope there are many more bombshell stories and many more careers ruined from this, because to be very honest, I’m very lucky and grateful that I have not experienced — that [what happened to me] is all I’ve experienced in Hollywood.
My experience, I’ll be very real with you, I have many stories similar to that one, but that one hit me hard because I was young and I didn’t know what to do. But I hope that this is the beginning of us becoming more aware as a society, as a city, as a business of how prevalent it is and how widespread it is so that this tolerance becomes a zero tolerance for this kind of behavior, at least publicly, at least we stop protecting predators. This is not news. This is not news that Harvey Weinstein was harassing young women, and people — if I’m not even a famous, prominent person in the industry, and I knew, that means everybody knew, or most people knew. OK? They may not have known the extent of it, or the details. But now you hear Angelina and Gwyneth and all of these humongous actresses, they know a lot of people in the industry, and believe me, they’ve spoken to a lot of people in the industry.
So, I’m just really grateful it was put on paper and he’s having to pay for it now because it is so prevalent. He’s going to get what’s coming to him, and I hope he’s just the first. When we talk about my film coming out the same week as this Harvey Weinstein drama, I think it’s great. I think it’s great because I hope that people are angry and they are able to achieve a little bit of catharsis through our film the way that when Get Out came out — there’s been so much racial unrest and turmoil in our country forever, but also, especially now with police brutality — I went to see it and I saw Get Out and people were just cheering when the white people get taken down, and I was cheering because it felt good because I’m angry, because I’m angry right now about the racism in our country, and I’m angry about the hate, and I’m angry about it and I feel powerless. Isn’t that great to have the art form of film that we can go, we can experience something… and it might achieve some catharsis or peace or joy or laughter.
M.F.A., from Dark Sky Films, is available to rent or purchase on most streaming and video-on-demand platforms.
This article appears in Oct 26 – Nov 2, 2017.