Writer/Director David Moreau & Actress Olga Kurylenko talk to The Inside Reel about concept, interpretation and approach in regards to their new psychological horror film from Shudder: "Other".
00:28Obviously, David, there's a whole metaphor going on with the other in terms of the concept of beauty, the concept of ambition, and the concept of either identity or loneliness, too.
00:41Could you sort of talk about those concepts in building it, and then I'll talk to Ogo about sort of inhabiting that from various perspectives?
00:48I think, I mean, like, the beauty aspect of the, I mean, like, I always was shocked by those documentaries on young beauty pageants.
01:06That, where you see those 10-ish, 10-year-old girls dressed and with, like, shiny dress, with makeup and all that.
01:19And I always find it, like, kind of a little bit disturbing, you know?
01:24And those mothers were, like, playing dolls with their child.
01:32I always find it a bit awkward, you know?
01:34And I've always found, like, this kind of a monstruosity of it.
01:42I mean, as a parent, you know?
01:46I have a child.
01:48I would never, in the whole world, put my child in front of a camera or an audience with, with, with, with, I mean, it's a boy, so, but, but if I had, like, a daughter, I would never put her with, in the adult world, too young, you know?
02:16My mom died, Johnny.
02:18When was the last time you spoke to her?
02:23We didn't really talk.
02:25What do you see, Alice?
02:27And I always find it, like, pretty off, you know?
02:31And, and, and, and, and when I, when I started to write the script, because it's, it's, the movie is all about beauty and monstuosity.
02:42Is, is it really monstrous, what we think it is?
02:45Or is it beauty, which is not monstrous and all that?
02:48And the character is going back and forth with this two, two different approach about a beautiness or monstuosity, you know?
03:00And, and, and, and, and I knew that I will have the, if I would have the chance to, to, to have an actress who would actually know a little bit about that and who have felt it in her real life, it will, it will, it will, it will be a real treasure for the movie, you know?
03:19And, and, and, and, and, and Olga's mother is a marvelous woman, so it's nothing regarding her own story.
03:36But she kind of knows what it is to be like, to be as, as a young person to be put under the, the, the starlight, you know, and all that.
03:48So, and I needed to, to, to, to, to, and I knew that Olga was really connected to this part of the, of the character.
03:57So, it was a great chance for the movie to have her on board, you know?
04:01Olga, can you talk about finding the details at work?
04:27Because obviously the scene in the pool, unbelievable, but also when you're listening to your diary of somebody, of the person you were when you were younger as the character, all those things probably connected you.
04:37Could you find, figure out or tell me about those details in terms of what you saw in the movie that you could glom onto?
04:45Because it's, a lot of the movie is you with yourself in many ways.
04:49Could you talk about that?
04:52Well, yeah, it's me with myself, just in my, like in my real life.
04:57I don't know if ever, it's like this for everyone, but for me, it's definitely, I've always felt by myself.
05:05I'm always alone.
05:08I'm always, you know, a bit away from the whole society.
05:15I'm never like in the, in the group.
05:19It's my choice.
05:20I'm like that.
05:20I'm a bit of an, I guess I, I outcast myself because I don't, I just don't feel like I belong, but, but, but I was of course in this whole, yeah.
05:33As David said, in this whole beauty industry for a pretty long time.
05:39And yeah, it was, we have like those, those beauty contests.
05:44I think it's quite perverse what they do to, to children.
05:48Um, yeah, I also, and having been, having been, um, in this business, I wouldn't have put my daughter in, in the early ages.
06:02I mean, it's okay, it's okay to do it from 17.
06:07Like I, I mean, I started, I started like my first pictures at 15, but it was, uh, easy for me.
06:15For me, it's a particular case because I, uh, I don't think it was too early for me because I had no choice and I had to feed the family.
06:22So thank God I started at 15, otherwise I wouldn't have survived.
06:26So, and look, I was a serious person.
06:29I didn't go, you know, in a, in a weird direction.
06:32I was always, I had my head on the shoulders and, uh, my mother had the right to trust me.
06:38Um, uh, but, um, but yeah, it depends, you know, I, I think I was quite mature at my age, but mature in, um, you know, in a mature in a serious way.
06:52What do you think about yourself?
06:54I don't know.
06:56I'm beautiful.
06:57You are beautiful, Alice.
06:59What did you put on your body this time?
07:04Yes.
07:07Like I knew, you know, I had responsibility to feed the family.
07:12That, that was my, like normally I think at 15, you don't think about it.
07:16And, um, I knew I had no right to fail.
07:19So I just did work, work, work, work.
07:21There were no parties, there were no friends.
07:23There was no going out.
07:24I was like, uh, so determined.
07:27Um, and it saved my life because this beauty industry, I, uh, it fed me and it fed my whole family.
07:33And I'm not only talking about, I mean, we're going away from the subject, but I will, but, um, I fed my whole big family, including cousins and aunts and all that.
07:42So it was, for me, it was great, but yeah.
07:45Um, so obviously I could identify with that, but the whole, that whole, like, uh, abuse, the mother abuse, uh, the way she abuses the, her daughter in this film.
07:54Uh, uh, that, uh, that I didn't really know personally.
08:00However, this whole, you know, regime and diet thing, I've witnessed it a lot because all my colleagues, they were always on some sort of a diet or starving or falling off their feet because they hadn't eaten in a week.
08:15You know, and we're all experimented with that.
08:17So I also, I, I do know that even though I felt like I had to go on a diet, but I've, I never needed it because I'm naturally, I'm lucky I can eat anything I want.
08:27And I don't, I don't really put on weight, but then taking sort of that idea or that, um, that putting it into a horror concept and playing something like a character like Alice, because Alice is like, obviously through the looking glass, it's about going into that, you know, that spiral.
08:43Um, can you talk about looking at, you know, transferring that maybe apprehension or stuff like that into a character like this and embodying her, um, because it's all about movement.
08:56I mean, that might've been a direction thing between David and you, but can you talk about that?
09:01Then I'll go back to David about sort of capturing that in sort of a horror space.
09:04Yeah, it is great because in this case, you know, we're transferring it into a bit of a, we're pushing it too far.
09:11And, and people, uh, I mean, I think if you just spoke about it in the, in the straightforward way, you know, maybe people, maybe actually people would have found it too hard, but this, in this case, this is, it's a horror film.
09:27But of course, as you said, it's a metaphor underneath, there's a whole message going on.
09:32And there's a lot, but, uh, that this movie speaks about, well, not just one thing, it's the beauty, the, the, the sublimation of the woman, the, uh, the, uh, it's the, yeah.
09:45So, you know, what is a monster do we, uh, um, are we born a monster or are we born innocent?
09:54And then we create monsters ourselves from which we then suffer, you know, monster is, monster is a creation, I think.
10:05And it is very well shown in this movie, uh, can be the most beautiful, innocent thing in the beginning, but if you treat it badly, you will create a monster, which will then kill you in, you know.
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