How far would you go to make it to the highest? Would you do no matter it takes even when it meant backstabbing your greatest pal? The ugliness of the music trade involves life within the new horror movie, Torn Hearts. Greatest buddies Leigh (Alexxis Lemire) and Jordan (Abby Quinn) are a rustic music duo in search of their massive break within the trade. When the women hunt down the assistance of music icon Harper Dutch (Katey Sagal) at her secluded mansion, they’re slowly pitted in opposition to one another as they study concerning the cutthroat nature of the enterprise.
Directed by Brea Grant and written by Rachel Koller Croft, Torn Hearts is a tense psychological thriller with a rustic music spin that places a highlight on the horrors girls are inclined to face within the leisure trade. In dialog with Avisionews, Grant spoke about her love for tales about sophisticated protagonists, the method of casting the three feminine leads, the backstory behind the unique music, and the issue with pitting girls in opposition to one another within the leisure trade.
Observe: This interview has been edited for size and readability.
Avisionews: I learn that you just love telling tales about sophisticated girls. What attracts you to these kind of tales?
Brea Grant: Nicely, I feel we’ve seen plenty of girls in style films for a very long time. However I feel despite the fact that they’re the heroine, they’re the lead or one thing, they’re not that sophisticated. I hate to invoke the trope of the ultimate woman, however typically she is, you recognize, a virgin. She hasn’t executed something flawed. She’s harmless. And I feel there’s something far more attention-grabbing about girls who’ve executed issues and have flaws. I feel we’ve been telling the tales about males with flaws for years and years. We now have so many flawed males in our tales, and I feel it’s time we began doing the identical for ladies. I simply assume it’s a lot extra attention-grabbing.
If you learn the script, what stood out to you from the beginning?
Have you ever ever seen a film about horror within the nation music scene? [laughter] I learn so many horror scripts, so many style scripts, and this one had a superb setting that I liked. Simply the truth that it befell on this world was one thing I had by no means seen. There usually are not that many films about it, interval. I imply there are some dramas. There are some musicals and stuff. However for essentially the most half, there may be not that a lot set within the nation music world. There’s positively by no means been a horror film in that world.
How did you come to solid the three leads? Had been you in search of actresses that would additionally sing?
Yeah, completely. It was scary at first as a result of I really need them to have the ability to sing. I would like to have the ability to do a few of this dwell. I don’t need to should dub everyone. I didn’t know if it was going to be attainable. However then I began getting tapes and I used to be like, “Oh yeah, L.A. and New York and Atlanta and all these cities are full of those multi-hyphenates who can sing. I acquired some tapes in Nashville, too. It’s a humiliation of riches on the subject of the quantity of expertise that’s in all of those cities.
Abby and Alexxis each despatched in tapes of them singing. I used to be acquainted with Alexxis’s work. She’s in a movie referred to as The Half of It, which is completely nice if you happen to’ve by no means seen it. Alexxis has an attractive voice. She’s not an expert singer. She has no coaching, however she’s simply an incredible voice. And Abby is an incredible guitarist and singer and in addition simply has this unbelievable voice. I simply liked the thought of them collectively.
For Katey, she was on my record from the start. I needed somebody who we’ve seen do all types of stuff. We’ve seen her do comedy, and we’ve seen her do drama. However wouldn’t or not it’s actually rad to see her do a horror film? And she will be able to sing. She simply has this gravitas, and I felt like she might do that character and do her justice with out going excessive together with her, however [someone to] draw us all in. I simply wanted somebody who individuals instantly had been like, “Oh, yeah, I need to watch this girl and see what this girl’s going to do.”
Katey appears to have this magnetic power to her the place it’s very arduous to look away when she’s on-screen.
She’s like that in actual life too. She walked on the set and everybody was type of like quiet and I used to be like, “Oh okay. Everybody’s behaving hastily as a result of Katey walked in.”
Music is such an enormous a part of this movie. How did you go about selecting the songs? Did you usher in artists to put in writing authentic songs?
So Rachel, who wrote the script, wrote lyrics to those songs that she thought could be the lyrics for the songs, which was wonderful. Usually, I really feel like we might be ranging from scratch, however we introduced on a music producer named Alan [Ett] and he learn the lyrics and was like, “I feel I could make this work.” Then he and I kind of labored collectively to craft what the songs could be like as a result of I needed all of them to really feel very completely different. Those that Torn Hearts had been doing ought to really feel virtually bordering on pop music. They’re like pop-country. They’re attempting to interrupt into the mainstream, whereas those that the Dutchess Sisters did, these ought to be like 90s nation. I even needed them to really feel a bit of bit older than that. Then for Caleb’s songs, one didn’t make it to the film, sadly. These ought to really feel extra like “bro-ey nation” a bit of bit.
So I despatched him [Alan] examples and we talked quite a bit about it. Then he wrote these songs and organized them and despatched them to me and I gave him notes. We had a couple of week to do it. I imply the turnaround time on this film was tremendous quick. So we did that, after which Abby and Alexxis got here to New Orleans. We put them within the studio for a day so we might get their songs recorded, and the opposite ones had been recorded elsewhere. However yeah, it was a fast turnaround course of, which is tremendous enjoyable. It felt like, “Okay, simply go along with your intestine. We are able to’t take into consideration this an excessive amount of.” The songs should really feel just like the type of songs that we’re attempting to emulate right here.
One of many bigger themes in the movie is the concept that outdoors forces try to pit these two women in opposition to one another. Early within the film, Caleb tells Jordan how one individual sometimes makes it in a gaggle. Additionally, Leigh’s supervisor/boyfriend tells Leigh she may be higher off solo. Was it necessary to determine this concept of pitting girls up in opposition to one another from the start?
You’re hitting on one of many themes I needed to verify individuals walked away with as a result of I feel Harper even says in some unspecified time in the future one thing like “When girls struggle one another, all of us lose.” And I really feel that is one thing that the leisure trade tends to do. It tends to pit girls in opposition to one another, not similar to being up for a similar jobs, but in addition like, “Oh, there’s like one girl per set or one feminine lead in a film.” I simply really feel and see it taking place time and again.
I needed to point out that on-screen and the way it’s affecting them as a result of I don’t need us to have plenty of judgment in direction of them. I needed us to see that they had been put into the state of affairs they usually did what their characters would do in that state of affairs. What these girls would do in the event that they had been put up in opposition to this as a result of they’d been given all this data. They assume that is the one solution to succeed, and they also do what they should do.
Torn Hearts is billed as a horror movie, nevertheless it’s virtually like a tragedy as these characters get constructed up solely to come back crashing again down. I used to be questioning if you happen to seen the movie like that, too.
I like that. I are inclined to make films that aren’t in a single specific style. For higher or for worse, I like my films to have style components from plenty of stuff. For instance, this one has some motion in it. It positively has some horror components. It has plenty of thriller components. I took plenty of cues from Distress, which I feel is a horror film, however it’s a slow-burn horror film. I additionally wish to have plenty of enjoyable with my films. I feel it’s arduous for me to actually outline the style. Perhaps in some unspecified time in the future, individuals will likely be like, “Oh, it’s a Brea Grant flick.”
What’s the largest takeaway you prefer to the viewers to stroll away with after watching this movie?
In the beginning, I at all times need individuals to have enjoyable. That’s at all times my purpose with films. I would like individuals to have a superb time, to see one thing they’ve most likely by no means seen earlier than. However then, I truly need individuals to sympathize with the characters. I sympathize with them. I actually felt like sure, they did issues that perhaps one shouldn’t do. However, I would like individuals to be with them on their journey.
Torn Hearts is offered on digital beginning Could 20.
Editors’ Selection
