Alison Brie says watching her husband write The Rental gave her confidence to write her own movie
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Alison Brie is an actress who has evaded being defined by character type. Her roles weave a circuitous path through what it means to be a woman, exploring that through comedy, drama, arthouse introspection and horror.
"My job is to do as much work about who this woman is, to know how she was going to react to whatever [another] person is doing," Brie told Digital Spy.
From Ruth in Glow to her breakout role as Annie in Community, Brie has been genre-hopping, building a formidable list of roles that now includes Michelle in the horror film The Rental, written and directed by her husband, Dave Franco.
"I get very scared. I feel like, especially in recent years, the problem is that horror movies are getting better and better. There are some really great films that are in that genre. So I have Dave pre-screen movies for me usually, and he'll be like, 'This is a horror movie you should watch.' Or even if he hasn't [seen it], he'll read all the stuff about it, and be like, 'This one is worth the risk.'"
What makes The Rental, and other recent horrors like Saint Maud, His House and Relic, 'worth the risk' is that they explore themes beyond fear of axe-murder or zombie bite (not that we don't love a good slasher film, too). In The Rental, "The first real horrors that present themselves in the movie just all have to do with the deterioration of these relationships, and the deterioration of trust within these couples," Brie explains.
"But then on this macro level, it's sort of about how divided our country is right now, and how people don't trust one another in a day-to-day space. But somehow when we're home-sharing, we just don't think – it's in the abstract.
"I just kind of love the parallels that are happening over the course of this movie, like these dangers that are happening because of the trust that they put in this home-sharing app that becomes more and more present in their lives as their personal trust is breaking down."
There's a humour in the fact that Brie worked on this film about relationships breaking down with her husband, but for Brie the effects were far more concrete. "Watching Dave write this movie with Joe Swanberg really gave me the confidence to write Horse Girl with Jeff Baena."
Netflix's Horse Girl stars Brie as Sarah, a socially isolated woman with a fondness for arts and crafts, horses, and supernatural crime shows finds her increasingly lucid dreams trickling into her waking life.
"The whole experience was so scary because I'd never written anything before, and the themes of that movie are so personal to me – kind of dealing with my familial history with paranoid schizophrenia.
"That whole movie really just felt like a tearing open of my soul a little bit, in that way. And again, like I said, it was the first movie I wrote, and it's the first film I've produced.
"So to be kind of working on it at that level, felt new and scary. And then at the same time, the role I was playing was very intense. It was all very scary. And it probably is my favourite thing that I've ever made, because it really had so much to do with the story we really wanted to tell, and so little to do with what other people want or expect from me.
"Which, as an actress – you know, so much of your career can kind of be consumed by: 'What do people want from me? What do they want me to be? You know, I can be this character for you. Or this character for you. Or this character. Do you want more of this?'
"So with that movie, we were really not trying to fit into anybody's mould, but to kind of really make this our vision of this thing that we wanted to make."
As an actress who does "a lot of my own work to try to understand the women that I play, and why they are the way that they are", Brie brings levels of tension to every role (her turn as Trudy in Mad Men is evidence enough of that). It's what makes her engaging to watch.
"You have to start with what's on the page. Whoever is casting me in the role, that's their vision. That's their story that they're telling. So it's always going to start with my core, basic, acting character work, you know, in terms of like: who is this character?
"Who is this writer and director saying that this character is? And from there, how do I find a through-line to myself and to how I can sort of relate to this character, and empathise with them, and not judge them?"
Whatever Brie's vision is for her character, and the "deep levels of backstory" she creates, her first job is to the director. "I'm very flexible, maybe to a fault.
"I guess having spent so much time working on television – first of all, you work with a lot of directors, because every week there's a new director. You really learn how to go with the flow, because you're learning new things about your own character, episode to episode.
"I know that I want to come in, always, with strong choices and then be ready to go wherever."
The Rental is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video from January 22.
Digital Spy has launched its first-ever digital magazine with exclusive features, interviews, and videos. Check it out with a 1-month free trial, only on Apple News+.
Interested in Digital Spy's weekly newsletter? Sign up to get it sent straight to your inbox – and don't forget to join our Watch This Facebook Group for daily TV recommendations and discussions with other readers.
You Might Also Like
