Switchblade Sisters

This week’s episode is an utter delight. We are joined by director and actor Lily Mariye to discuss Anthony Minghella’s Truly, Madly, Deeply. Both the guest and this movie could be described similarly; delightful, thoughtful, and inspiring. Lily talks about the process of casting and how she gets emotional when an actor perfectly delivers the material. She even gives April a little acting lesson and teaches her not to luxuriate in her emotions, but rather move between them and let them crash into one another. Lily elaborates on her directing strategy of taking ideas from anyone on set, even the craft services person. And lastly, she explains the deeper meaning of why she always wears lipstick when directing.

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You can watch Model Minority on VOD now.

And if you haven’t seen Truly, Madly, Deeply yet, you simply must!

With April Wolfe and Lily Mariye.

This week we are joined by the wonderful director, Rachel Lee Goldenberg, to discuss the “perfect film,” Thelma & Louise. Her movie choice is actually a direct inspiration for her latest movie, HBO Max’s Unpregnant. That film stars Haley Lu Richardson as a teenage girl who needs to get across state lines to get an abortion, and the only person she can turn to for help is her weird ex-best friend. In this episode, Rachel elaborates on the joy of working with Haley Lu, and how she would sometimes get so deep into character that she would get lost. Rachel explains her storyboarding process by quoting the great Werner Herzog: “Storyboards are for cowards.” Plus, Rachel describes her time making films for the Roger Corman-Esque studio ‘The Asylum,’ and how it honed her ability to come up with big ideas on a small budget.

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You can watch Unpregnant on HBO Max now.

If you haven’t seen Thelma & Louise yet – it’s great!

With April Wolfe and Rachel Lee Goldenberg.

This is a special episode because one of our guests is an actual baby. The other guest is her mother; actor, writer, and director Alice Lowe. You may recognize Alice from her acting work in any number of things; Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers (which she co-wrote), Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, Hot Fuzz, The IT Crowd, and many others. But she’s also a director, and wrote, directed, and starred in 2016’s Prevenge. She’s on the show today, calling in from London, to talk about the undersung 1984 fantasy, The Company of Wolves. She and April discuss making independent films and not limiting your imagination just because you’re doing things differently. They chat about the writer Angela Carter and utilizing dream logic. Plus, Alice hammers home the importance of not eliminating the tragic elements from fairy tales.

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You can watch Alice most recently in Dark Encounter on Prime.

Or check out her feature Prevenge on Shudder.

If you haven’t seen The Company of Wolves, you simply must.

With April Wolfe and Alice Lowe.

Calling in from a hotel in Greece, we have the phenomenally talented actor and director Romola Garai on the show this week. She’s chosen to discuss Ali Abbasi’s 2018 troll romance, Border. Romola opens up about the creative process and how every actor is striving to be truly seen by a director. She chats about the difficulty she had finding the perfect house for her new film Amulet, and how she wishes she’d started looking for it the moment she began writing the script. She and April also talk at length about the unusual, yet beautiful, sex scene between the trolls in Border, and how it could have been silly in another director’s hands.

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You can watch Amulet on VOD now.

If you haven’t seen Border, you simply must.

With April Wolfe and Romola Garai.

It is the return of one of our all-time favorite guests; writer, actor, director, and ‘Reading Glasses’ host, Brea Grant. She’s on the show this week to talk about 2002’s May, a movie described by April Wolfe as a spiritual prequel to Brea’s latest film, 12 Hour Shift. Brea discusses expediting the exposition in her film, Lucky, and how she pitched it by describing one specific scene; a wife wakes up to find a murderer in her house. She wakes her husband who says, “Of course he’s here, that’s the man that tries to kill us everyday.”

May and 12 Hour Shift also happen to share the same lead actress, Angela Bettis. Brea describes what a dream she was to work with, and how she even helped the crew wrap the set on the final night of shooting. Brea talks about the expressiveness of the human face, and how one DP on the set of Heroes showed her how much her face takes up the screen, changing her acting forever. And lastly, Brea describes how David Arquette brought a donkey to set to raise spirits, and it did just that!

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You can watch 12 Hour Shift on October 2nd.

If you haven’t seen May yet – it’s great!

With April Wolfe and Brea Grant.