Showing posts with label Rose Glass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rose Glass. Show all posts
Saturday, July 12, 2025
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
'Love Lies Bleeding' is nominated in 12 categories for the British Independent Film Awards
Rose Glass was a BIFA winner in 2020 for Saint Maud. Her sophomore feature, the blistering noir Love Lies Bleeding, is a potent blend of romance, murder and drug enhanced bodybuilding free, which scores 12 nominations. Alongside Best British Independent Film are nominations for Best Director sponsored by Sky Cinema for Glass, Best Screenplay sponsored by Apple Original Films for Glass and Weronika Toilska, Best Joint Lead Performance for stars Katy O’Brian and Kristen Stewart, and eight craft nominations. These are Best Casting sponsored by Casting Society & Spotlight, Best Cinematography sponsored by Kodak & Molinare for Ben Fordesman, who won this award in 2020, Best Costume Design, Best Effects, Best Make-Up & Hair Design, Best Original Music sponsored by Universal Music Publishing Group for three-time nominated Clint Mansell, Best Production Design sponsored by ATC & Broadsword and Best Sound.
- Best British Independent Film
- Best Director
- Best Screenplay
- Best Joint Lead Performance - Katy O’Brian & Kristen Stewart
- Best Casting
- Best Cinematography
- Best Costume Design
- Best Effects
- Best Make-Up & Hair Design
- Best Original Music
- Best Production Design
- Best Sound
The winners are announced at a ceremony on 8 December in London.
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Rose Glass and Katy O'Brian talk to British Vogue for 'Love Lies Bleeding' and mentions Kristen
Where did this audacious story come from?
Rose Glass: After Saint Maud – and maybe in response to its “women looking elegant in plush-curtained houses”, theatrical kind of feel – I wanted to challenge myself and do something more visceral. I’ve always enjoyed body horror and quite violent films. It wasn’t, like, a full story I’d had in my head for a long time. A lot of the writing process felt spontaneous and slightly experimental. The initial spark was wanting to tell something about a female bodybuilder because it seemed like both visually and psychologically interesting territory. I’m very obviously not a bodybuilder and probably incredibly physically frail and pathetic and weedy. So I find it impressive and fascinating, the psychology it must take to be a bodybuilder.
Why a bodybuilder instead of another kind of athlete?
Glass: I’d seen photos from the ’40s or ’50s, before bodybuilding was a competitive sport, at least for women. At that point, strong women were more of a sideshow attraction. These women had amazing ’50s pin-curl hair-dos and incredible muscular physiques, and the visual juxtaposition was intriguing to me. The more I found out about it, the more it seemed like this slightly anarchic but beautiful, strange sport, which is as much a performance art as a sport. It’s an aesthetic sport. So I wondered about the psychology it takes to do something like that, how that can either clash with or spill over into other elements of their life. And falling in love seemed like an appropriately derailing kind of chaos to throw somebody into when they’re otherwise very driven and focused.
Katy, you’ve competed in bodybuilding. Was Rose’s vision of that world accurate to you?
Katy O’Brian: At least with the people I know, there’s certainly less murder. [Laughs.] It takes focus and discipline and can be obsessive. You have a weird relationship with food, where you’re counting and weighing calories. And it can be isolating because you can’t go out and enjoy a meal with your friends – you have to stick to your routine. I’m a live-by-moderation type of person, but I know a lot of people who had liver or kidney failure.
Did you connect with Jackie on a personal level?
O’Brian: We’re both from the Midwest, and it’s still weird being a bodybuilder there. CrossFit has helped because it’s such a sensation and everybody’s getting bigger. But even recently someone there came up to me on the street and just touched my muscles. Female bodybuilding started out as a circus attraction, and I guess it still feels unnatural to some people, especially in a place that’s more conservative.
Bodybuilding is something Jackie loves, and it makes her feel safe, but a lot of people reject that – it’s more like she’s doing this freaky thing to her body. In acting, I’ve been told I’m too big for roles that are literally asking for bodybuilders or I get a butch characterisation because they don’t feel like muscles are feminine.
What were some of the film’s references?
Glass: I suggested people should watch David Cronenberg’s Crash, Showgirls, and Saturday Night Fever, and the tiny Venn-diagram crossover was the cinematic universe the film might take place in – dark, melodramatic, sexy films. I tried to avoid watching the more Americana cornerstones of Thelma & Louise and Wild at Heart until after we’d made it so I didn’t get too referential.
Why set the film in the 1980s? Could it have taken place today?
Glass: One of the main reasons for putting it in the past was wanting it to be pre-internet or pre-social media. What I liked about doing it before everyone became so connected is that it heightens the fact that both Lou and Jackie are misfits and alone. They’re both from different small towns, very isolated, and haven’t found their people because they’re not physically around them. So when the two cross paths, there’s recognition there.
The year 1989 was right before anabolic steroids became illegal, so in the film there’s a naivete to how they’re being handled. And this excess of the ’80s and more, bigger just before the ’90s, when everyone becomes more nihilistic – I thought Jackie’s the ’80s and Lou’s the ’90s, a love story between a romantic and a cynic.
Katy, you’re an accomplished martial artist, and one of the leads of True Detective: Night Country, Kali Reis, is a former pro boxer. Is there something about this moment that’s particularly primed for depictions of complex women whose physical strength is also foregrounded?
O’Brian: Hollywood has made a big push to be more supportive of female writers and directors. These aren’t things that are weird to us – a lot of women box, go to the gym, work out.
Glass: The way that both Katy and Kristen appear in this film shouldn’t be radical. There are many women who look like both these characters. How people are responding to seeing them as main characters versus how unextraordinary it is in real life – the fact that’s such a stark contrast just highlights the homogeneity that, as everyone’s well aware, has been present in films for a long time.
The film also has a real playfulness and sexiness in its depiction of desire, even amid all the menace and violence.
Glass: There’s a lot of queer films in particular, and a certain type of tasteful period lesbian film, where all the looking is done very secretly and with longing in a sense of forbiddenness. So I enjoyed that here they’re both more horny and blatant. When Lou sees Jackie across the gym, if I’m referencing anything there, it’s the bit in The Mask where Jim Carrey sees Cameron Diaz across the bank. It was fun to lean into the silliness.
Rose Glass talks to People about 'Love Lies Bleeding' and mentions Kristen
Kristen Stewart has a "dorky" side that shined through on the set of Love Lies Bleeding.
Director Rose Glass tells PEOPLE that the Twilight alum, 33, has a "good sense of humor" and is "kind of dorky in a really lovely way."
"Considering how super famous she is and considering the sort of surreal, strange life she must have had, she's about as grounded and cool a person as you could be, given all that," says Glass, who co-wrote the film with Weronika Tofilska.
"She's very focused and unpretentious and just good fun," the Saint Maud filmmaker adds.
In Love Lies Bleeding, Oscar nominee Stewart plays Lou, a gym manager in the 1980s who keeps mostly to herself until she falls for a bodybuilder (Jackie, played by Katy O'Brian) who's new to town.
The pair get tangled up in crimes connected to Lou's estranged father, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris), that tests their love and commitment for each other. The cast also includes Dave Franco and Jena Malone.
O'Brian says she found costar Stewart to be "laid back" and "freaking stoked" about the project, which filmed in New Mexico.
"I feel like unless you've lived under a rock, you know who Kristen Stewart is, so I knew who she was," says the Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania actress. "In general, you never know how someone who's been in the limelight for so long is going to behave — will there be diva moments or whatever? She just kind of kept to herself and was just really laid back."
"What excited me the most, and surprised me the most, was how excited she was for this project," says O'Brian. "When someone's been doing this for 20-plus years and is still really excited and passionate about something, that gives me hope for the next 10-plus years that I hopefully get to be in the business."
She added, "That was refreshing and fun and cool."
'Love Lies Bleeding' interview with Cosmopolitan
Rose, you always had Kristen in mind for the role of Lou. What did it take to convince her to do the movie?
RG: Luckily she saw Saint Maud and really liked it. Now that we're doing press for this film, she's said I could have offered her anything and she would have done it, which is nice. I met her when she came to London to promote Spencer and we had what I thought was a really bad meeting, I thought I came across very badly and got unexpectedly really starstruck and tongue tied. But anyway, she was up for it.
Katy, I read you heard about the part of Jackie because a friend tagged you in something on Instagram. When you actually got your hands on the script, what were your first reactions?
KO: I got my hands on the script after my first audition. So I didn't know anything really in that first audition except that it's this queer Midwestern girl going for a bodybuilding competition, and I was like, well, that's me, so I'm just gonna do me. Then when I when I finally read the script, I was terrified. Jackie goes through a lot. She does a lot of shitty things in this movie. I've not done scenes this violent before. I haven't done scenes as intimate before, but also I haven't had scenes that are so fucking embarrassing. I was like, Okay, I have to do this project. This is the thing that's either going to help me as an actor or tell me I don't want to do this anymore.
How did you both know the pairing of Katy and Kristen would work?
RG: They met for the first time when we did the chemistry reads. We saw a couple of other people read with Kristen, but the thing that clinched it was seeing the two of them together and just being like, Oh, you can really see something there. The chemistry thing is so unquantifiable. There has to be this extra spark of something.
KO: We're both such awkward people that we could work as our characters and people are like, Oh my god, this is amazing. You must be like, so tight. And then offset we're like, so, um, how are you today? We're just like really awkward people. It was fun to see her process and the way that she builds up her energy and nervousness. She has to really physically manifest that, running around jumping up and down and getting into that moment, she gets really anxious and she stays in that elevated state.
RG: They both really embody the yin and yang of the characters. Katy's incredibly strong and powerful and Kristen's the weak, frail one. But Katy brings this really important softness and vulnerability and sweetness to Jackie. Kristen brings a real hard, moody antihero kind of vibe. It's a very complimentary couple.
Katy, what was your favorite moment working together?
KO: There's a scene where Kristen and I push a car off a cliff, but our stunt doubles did that. They were like, it's not safe, and we were like, we want to push that car off a cliff. But Kristen got throw real Molotov cocktails off of the ridge. So the car is already on fire from below. And then Kristen throws a Molotov cocktail over, so it explodes. And we feel the explosion from the top of this ridge. Those reactions are genuine. We were not expecting that much fire to come back up.
And luckily for this role, you're already someone who is absolutely shredded. But what further prep did you have to do?
KO: I was given two weeks notice that I booked the project, so they hooked me up with my trainer two weeks beforehand. I was grateful I already had the muscle because then we were in the cutting phase. I tend to do bodybuilding workouts year round anyway, but not as intense. So in reality, if you're going to be competitive, you have to think of it as like a year-round thing. You're eating to grow muscle in the offseason. And then you're very slowly cutting fat. My trainer is really good at training people for film. So he knows okay, this is the muscle that a camera is gonna see better, so he really knows how to train you for the camera lens. And it's different than training for stage. So he was able to do some cool things with my muscles to make them pop on camera.
A lot of people are praising this movie for how horny it is, but I want to dig into that a little deeper. Rose, how much does that factor into your process when writing the script? Did you want to write a "horny" movie?
RG: I knew I wanted to make something sweaty and violent. So the sweat came first and the visceral bodyness. But then very quickly in writing it me and Weronika Tofilska, my writing partner, decided it should be a love story. If you've got sweaty, muscle-y, greasy people taking a bunch of drugs and falling in love, probably they're gonna have some interesting, fun sex as well.
What was it like for both of you to work with an intimacy coordinator, both in front of and behind the camera?
RG: I was a little apprehensive that it would feel like somebody else was taking over, but it's kind of like working with a stunt coordinator. You try to be as specific as you can in writing the scenes, like, hand goes here, head goes there. I talk with the intimacy coordinator about each scene and clarify with them exactly how I'm thinking of shooting it. And then she basically has separate meetings with both the actors and they have a chance to voice any concerns. So by the time you get on set, everybody knows exactly what is and what isn't going to be happening. Then they kind of take a backseat and it almost feels like you have a motherly school teacher sort of vibe, in a nice way, checking in.
KO: I loved it. They're like, don't hesitate to pull me aside and be like, I'm not comfortable with this. But we were doing some intimate scenes in 100 degree weather. So when we were pulling each other's pants off, we had some kind of cover, like fake underwear, and they taped that down. And then they put another layer on and they taped that down, and then they put a cut out yoga mat on top of me and they taped that down. But everyone was very collaborative and making sure that everyone was comfortable. I wanted to make sure Kristen knew I wasn't trying to take advantage of her. She wanted to make sure that I didn't feel taken advantage of.
Where do you both think Jackie and Lou end up after the credits roll?
KO: The realistic side of me is like, well, they get arrested eventually, they get extradited back to New Mexico and they go to jail for murder and all the things. But the movie side is like okay, so they go out to California and try to start anew, and I think they would eventually get over each other. I kind of hope they don't stay together because they're not good for each other. Maybe they'll go to California and murder more people and that can be Love Lies Bleeding Part Two. But whatever the end is, I hope the cat is fine.
RG: Short term, I think it's going to be great and continue to be a lot of fun. Maybe they'll get to the next bodybuilding competition. I'm not sure how highly I rate their long term prospects, but you never know. It's what they both needed at that point. So long as Jackie continues bodybuilding, and Lou doesn't really have a huge amount of purpose beyond getting out of this town, she'll continue to latch herself on to Jackie too much. At one point were like, maybe maybe Lou should go and become a slightly manipulative manager, but I don't want to write a sequel just yet.
'Love Lies Bleeding' interview with USA Today
Be gay, do crime.
That seems to be a theme of the 2024 box office, between lesbian road-trip comedy “Drive-Away Dolls” and the gritty “Love Lies Bleeding” (in theaters nationwide Friday), starring Kristen Stewart as a training gym manager whose ripped, vengeful girlfriend (Katy O’Brian) sets off a brutal chain of events. They’re the latest in a string of genre movies that eschew queer trauma and pain, from last summer’s raunchy “Bottoms” to this spring’s offbeat “Problemista.”
“It does feel like a movement,” says Stewart, speaking over Zoom with filmmaker Rose Glass, who playfully suggests a “Dolls" and "Bleeding” double feature.
“When is it that you have two (gay) films out at the same time, both doing their own weird thing?” Glass says. “Lesbians everywhere!”
“Heads explode!” Stewart jokes. “Lesbians overload!”
Kristen Stewart says her new movie is 'so sexy and very gay'
"Lou's really weak and Jackie's really strong," Kristen Stewart, right, says of her big-screen duo with Katy O'Brian.
Set in dusty 1980s New Mexico, “Bleeding” opens with the unassuming Lou (Stewart) plunging toilets just before she spots Jackie (O’Brian), an alluring newcomer to her gym. Within days, Lou is introducing Jackie to her dysfunctional family and feeding her steroids for an upcoming bodybuilding competition. But their romance quickly turns toxic, as Lou is forced to clean up the mess of Jackie’s violent decisions.
The film is frequently erotic, despite its grisly subject matter, with electric chemistry and carnal sex scenes between Stewart and O’Brian.
“I wasn't interested in doing the tasteful lesbian period drama where it’s all fleeting glances and hand grazes,” Glass says. “It’s nice to do something that’s a bit hornier and more visceral.”
For years, folks on social media have sardonically begged for more movies where "lesbians have electricity and running water." “God, that's so funny,” says Stewart, 33, who came out publicly in 2017. “That's Hollywood's problem: Lesbians having electricity!”
With this film, the Oscar nominee was interested in bringing modern sensibilities to a queer romance. Jackie sleeps with both men and women and uses her body to get what she wants. Lou, meanwhile, harbors dark secrets and struggles to connect with others. But through Jackie, she finds the strength to stand up to her diabolical dad (Ed Harris) and imagine a real future for herself.
“They’re able to believe in each other in the way that they want to be seen, and that is so sexy and very gay,” Stewart says. “It’s a little more cerebral than physical.”
Although most Hollywood sex scenes cut away before the clothes come off, Glass allows you to sit in the characters’ sweaty, fumbling intimacy. “They’re not the most explicit (scenes); you don't see much,” Stewart says. “They’re just gnarly because you’re not used to seeing things like that.”
The actors worked with an intimacy coordinator and filmed nude scenes on a closed set with minimal crew.
“Kristen was very straightforward, like, 'If I do anything that makes you uncomfortable, please voice it,’ ” O’Brian says. “It was a cool, collaborative thing and it wound up being fun.”
After her chilling debut film “Saint Maud” in 2021, Glass was interested in subverting the idea of a “strong female lead.” Rather than write a woman whose strength is her moral compass, she decided to make a pulpy thriller about a kind of She-Hulk.
“There was an endearing petulance and brattiness to being like, ‘All right, you want a movie about a strong girl? I’ll give it to you,’ ” says Stewart, who met with Rose in 2021 while promoting Princess Diana drama “Spencer.” “Her pitch was like, ‘Monsters come out of the crevices, we all have them inside. It’s a scary place to live in the ‘80s in America, and how can I be strong as a woman who’s gay?’ ”
One of Glass’ chief inspirations was the infamous 1995 flop “Showgirls,” about one woman’s ruthless pursuit of stardom in Las Vegas. “It was this tightrope of wanting to lean into that camp melodrama, but still wanting there to be an emotional reality to it,” Glass says.
After seeing “Showgirls” for herself, Stewart instantly understood the dark humor and heightened performances that Glass was going for: “Our movie never goes into the absurd quite as much as ‘Showgirls’ does, but every time I watch (‘Bleeding’), I can’t stop laughing.”
"There is something inherently punk about it," Kristen Stewart says of "Love Lies Bleeding."
“Bleeding” continues a creative hot streak for Stewart, who has drawn acclaim in the last 10 years for her work in “Certain Women,” “Crimes of the Future,” "Still Alice" and “Personal Shopper." She first caught critics’ attention at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival for “Clouds of Sils Maria,” a turning point for the “Twilight” actress.
“I was lucky,” Stewart says of the project. “That spun me off in a cooler, more satisfying direction.”
Stewart wants to make bold choices behind the camera as well. She plans to make her feature directorial debut with the long-gestating “The Chronology of Water.” She admires Glass' visual vocabulary and command of tone but is also eager to forge her own path as a filmmaker.
“Movies say something about the person that made them,” Stewart says. “I’ve worked with great directors and Rose is absolutely one of them. I learned so much on set, but more so that you have to just kind of do your own thing.”
Thursday, March 14, 2024
Kristen, Katy O'Brian and Rose Glass interview and photo shoot with AP News for 'Love Lie Bleeding'
Click on images for full view.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kristen Stewart knows that not everyone should make movies. She also knows that Rose Glass should.
The 34-year-old English director and screenwriter is one of those rare original storytellers with daring things to say and the vision to do them justice. In other words, definitely not “everybody.” Glass’ first film “ Saint Maud,” was a chilling picture of faith and madness. Her second, “ Love Lies Bleeding ” (expanding in theaters this weekend) is also kind of about madness but of different sorts – that of love, of power and of strength (the literal kind).
“I wanted to make something kind of fun and sweaty and violent,” Glass said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Moviemaking may be a risk-averse business, but Glass and her collaborators are not. Set in the American West in the 1980s, Stewart plays Lou, an introverted gym manager and daughter of a local conman (Ed Harris) who gets swept up in the fever dream of new love with an aspiring bodybuilder, Jackie (Katy O’Brian), who’s passing through town.
“I loved that it felt a bit like mythology, like a comic booky, throwback ’80s,” said Stewart. “I can’t finish any of these sentences but the movie is good.”
“(Rose) made this audacious and singular, unique experience personal for us and let us be our own individuals and just, like, traipse all over her thing,” Stewart added. “It’s so fun to work with people who are like cuckoo birds but also really concerted.”
Glass, Stewart and O’Brian spoke to The Associated Press in an expletive-filled and slightly R-rated conversation about the twist on the idea of “strong female characters,” their aversion to a certain overused shorthand and “Showgirls.”
AP: What were some of the things that really excited you about “Love Lies Bleeding”?
STEWART: I guess, like, in your dreams, you don’t always do the right thing. And in movies, somehow girls are kind of expected to make everyone feel really comfortable. I think that’s a very default setting for women in general. And in this case, it was like, yeah, but what if I’m (expletive) and my rage is boiling out and bubbling over? And it also really turns me on to share that with another person?
O’BRIAN: It wasn’t like just about resilience or just about one thing. There’s so much that you can read into it if you want to, which I think is cool. Or you can just watch it and have fun.
AP: Why do you think it’s subversive to make a movie about female power that’s also literally about bodybuilding?
GLASS: Maybe it’s just something you haven’t seen. I don’t know many films which have female bodybuilders in it.
STEWART: You said something recently about looking at a female body like that, like there’s something kind of punk about it. Because when you think of feminine qualities, unfortunately, we defer to like demure, or soft or elegant or sort of like something languid. And you’re like, well, she’s a woman, so she’s inherently feminine. That’s just not the shape that you’re used to. But it is definitely female strength.
I think also just playing with toys that we’re not usually allowed to play with in a petulant way. I’m like looking at Rose and going, “because you’re a brat and you’re (expletive) hilarious that’s why you wanted to do this.”
The idea of the strength, it must have come from annoying conversations that you were having in rooms with people who fund movies. And I could be wrong, but that’s my take.
GLASS: Like, “Oh do something with a strong female character”? I’ll make her really muscley.
AP: It sort of makes me think about women being described as “kick (expletive)” which always makes me wince.
STEWART: Like “bad (expletive).”
O’BRIAN: The words “bad (expletive)” together.
STEWART: We’ve had it a lot today. And I don’t mean to diminish anyone who used it, because it was really nice for them to say and it came with good intention. But it makes my toes curl so far into my body that I no longer have an (expletive). AP! Let’s go.
AP: We’ll put a demure “expletive” in there. Katy, how did Jackie come alive for you?
O’BRIAN: What really helped me was everything else around: The wardrobes and the hair and makeup. Then getting to see Jackie next to Lou and see Jackie in the gym. I was trying to tell the costumers, I was like well people wouldn’t really work out in this. And she’s like, “Katy, people also don’t grow to be 35 feet…We’re going for the magazine vibe, the sexy vibe.” And it’s 100% what Jackie needed. Even the workout equipment that you got from the ‘80s, it’s made for men because women didn’t work out (that way). They did aerobics, Jane Fonda. You had to adjust your own height to try to figure out how to get the right muscle because it’s bigger equipment.
AP: I read that Rose had the cast and crew watch Cronenberg’s “Crash” and “Paris, Texas” and “Showgirls.” Were any of those new to you, or did you find different dimensions as they related to this?
STEWART: I had never seen “Showgirls.” I watched it in the trailer halfway through the movie and came out and was like ok, I’m not big enough. I’m not thrusting hard enough.
GLASS: Not walking away dramatically enough.
STEWART: Like ohh that’s why you wanted me to go bigger.
O’BRIAN: I wasn’t able to find “Crash” in anything other than French, which I don’t speak.
GLASS: That’s crazy!
STEWART: It wasn’t on MUBI.
AP: This has played at Sundance and Berlin and is now rolling out wide in the US. Do you feel like people are getting it?
GLASS: It’s great to be there in the audience in particular hearing people make involuntary gasping noises and laughing in all places you hope they would…
So far it’s been very nice and positive and for people who don’t like it, I’m like “fair enough!” It’s not for everyone.
STEWART: There’s a line in Chronology (“Chronology of Water” which Stewart is adapting) where it’s like, “I started weeding out friends based on their reactions to ‘Empire of the Senseless.’ It was like, the women who were grossed out and walked out of the room, I stopped being friends with. And the women who smiled quietly to themselves and touched themselves were the friends that I kept.” This movie kind of does the same thing … not to be alienating and sort of us and them-y about it. But it is like, hey, ready? I’m going to sell the movie: Not for everyone. But that’s why it actually should be for everyone!
Monday, March 11, 2024
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