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Your new movies House
to Herself and Henry
- in a few words, what is each about, and do you at all see a common theme
they share?
I’d
say House
to Herself
is about the loops we can put ourselves through,
especially in the world of dating nowadays. So often we turn to our phones
for emotional gratification even though we never get what we’re looking
for. Desi Stephens' character in House
to Herself
is on a search for validation
and love. And yet she doesn’t leave her house to try to find these
things. The film tries to explore this mentality of thinking that we can
have it all from the comforts of our home thanks to technology, and then
the realization that this isn’t true.
I suppose this search for meaning,
love and validation is present in Henry
as well. With Henry we get the
opposite mentality though. Henry wants to search far and wide for meaning
and love, but what he doesn’t realize is that he’s leaving everyone
else behind. The film explores this concept of feeling like you’re not
enough, and feeling like you can’t be loved because of your inner
demons. Henry seems to be struggling with something and the guilt he feels
from that ultimately causes him to run off into oblivion.
Let's start with House
to Herself - what were your sources of inspiration when writing
that one?
I think I
didn’t realize it, but looking back now I think House
to Herself
was
written as a reaction to the pandemic. I also at the time had just moved
from an apartment in the city to a house in the suburbs. There was a
strange hermetically sealed loneliness to living alone in a house. I found
that interesting and I wanted to explore that feeling and its exaggeration
with the pandemic. In terms of films I was re-watching a lot of Kubrick
movies at the time and I was attracted to his occasionally cold and
stagnant style of filmmaking. You co-directed House
to Herself with Shea Glasheen - so what can you tell us about him,
and what was your collaboration like? Shea Glasheen and I have been making
movies since we were little kids. It started with little skits filmed on a
camcorder and now we still make movies together. Shea puts his mark on
every film I work on whether it’s as a co-director, composer, actor, or
co-editor. Collaboration is a breeze. We don’t have to say too much to
each other to know what we’re looking for. For this movie, while we both
directed, he focused on the sound while I focused on the imagery and
everything came together quite naturally.
What can you tell
us about your overall directorial approach to your story at hand? In terms of directorial
approach I’d say we had a pretty clear plan and we executed it quickly,
all over the course of one day. We had an idea of how we wanted Desi to
portray the character but she really brought her own thing to the
character. In fact towards the end of shooting the three of us (Shea,
Desi, and I) were all making decisions for what direction the movie should
go in because we were shooting chronologically for the most part. Do
talk about House to
Herself's cast, and why exactly these two? The
casting process for House to
Herself was done pretty quickly. The entire
film came about because I had landed a job opportunity to shoot a pillow
commercial in the house we used. I decided at the last minute to rent the
house for 2 days instead of 1 so I could shoot something in it the day
before I shot the commercial. So we put out a casting notice and cast Desi
only a couple days before we shot the movie. And we picked Ben Tiberio because
conveniently Ben is Desi’s boyfriend and he was down to act. Same
for Henry - what were
your sources of inspiration there? Henry
was also filmed pretty off the cuff because Alex Scarlatos and I never set
out to make a film at first. We both had already planned to go on a road
trip from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and I had just recently acquired a new
camera, so we decided to make something. I wrote the script forHenry
while on the flight to Vegas, and I think there were a few things on my
mind that influenced the movie. For one the pandemic played a bit of a key
role in where the plot went because it felt a little wrong to be traveling
at the time. With all the precautions it almost just seemed like something
we shouldn’t be doing, even though it was filmed during the summer of
2021. I think this is reflected in the concern that Henry’s family and
his fiancé has for him being out there on his own, as well as his
ultimate demise.
A few words about
your directorial approach? I got pretty excited about the script on the flight
and then I just sort of pitched it to Alex, and then we ran with it. Alex
and I have also been making movies since we met almost ten years ago. So
we have good chemistry when it comes to getting scenes done quickly, and he
already knows what I’m looking for. He also completely built that
character from the ground up. In the final product Henry is very different
from what was written on the page. Most of the lines are the same but Alex
really transformed the character into his own creation. What can you tell us about
your cast of this one? In terms of the
cast it’s literally just Alex the whole time. But I also reached out to
Shea, who was already doing the score as well as Timothy J. Cox [Timothy
J. Cox interview - click here] and Tate
Kenney to do the voices for various characters. Timothy and Tate actually
did their voice acting remotely. You of course also have to talk
about the desert locations of Henry
for a bit, and what was it like filming there? Filming in Death Valley was one of the
craziest experiences I’ve ever had. It was truly a challenge. It was 120
degrees out there at the time. We filmed in June, which is one of the
hottest months for Death Valley. The camera was constantly overheating, I
kept getting sunscreen dripping into my eyes, and I had a heat exhaustion
attack all while filming. Alex and I also tried to camp out there in the
middle of the night but the sounds of coyotes and a mysterious truck that
was parked a little too close to our tent made us leave and get a hotel.
We returned the next day to get some remaining footage. Any future
projects you'd like to share? I have a few
future projects that I’m working on. One of them is a short film called Trusted Hands,
which is about a mentally disturbed woman who stays at
her therapist's summer home to escape her life. The therapist is played by
Timothy J. Cox and the woman is played by Victoria Astuto. I’m also
slowly but surely working on a feature film script that I hope to shoot by
the end of the year. Filmmakers
who inspire you, and your favourite movies? This list tends to change a lot but I’d say
these are my top 5 favorite movies right now:
1. Amorous (2014)
2. The
Master (2012)
3. The Panic in Needle Park (1971) 4. Melancholia (2011) 5.
Sleeping Beauty (2011)
And my top 5 filmmakers are:
1. Paul Thomas
Anderson
2. Stanley Kubrick
3. The Safdie Brothers
4. Lars Von Trier
5. Alex Ross Perry
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Your/your
movies' website, social media, whatever else? Both House to
Herself and Henry
can be seen at these links
here: House to
Herself:
https://vimeo.com/637754455
Henry:
https://vimeo.com/679612603
And here’s links to my last two films before these: Daddy’s
Wallet:
https://vimeo.com/577835349
Miss Freelance:
https://vimeo.com/342904617 Thanks
for the interview!
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