The Black List Interview: Ry Russo-Young
Kate talks with Ry Russo-Young (NOBODY WALKS, YOU WON’T MISS ME) the filmmaker behind BEFORE I FALL, which arrives in theaters today!
BEFORE I FALL is the first time you’ve directed a script you didn’t write. What attracted to Maria Maggenti’s (2011 Black List) script?
I was sent the script from my agent, and I was incredibly surprised by it, by how moved I was by the end of the movie. It was about a young teenage girl who was on a classic hero’s journey — it wasn’t about getting a boyfriend, and it wasn’t about women cutting each other down necessarily, it dealt with substance on a philosophical, thematic level. I was impressed by it…it felt different to me, I hadn’t really seen anything quite like it. I saw a lot of potential.
Did you feel pressure to do justice to this book, since it’s such a beloved young adult novel, or were you able to approach the film as its own separate entity?
It’s a little bit of both — when I did research on the book, I saw that the same things that resonated with fans of book also resonated with me in the script. So I think that Maria Maggenti did a really excellent job of capturing Sam’s emotional trajectory from the book to the screen. One thing that a book can do really effectively is to get inside the lead character’s head, and Maria did really careful work in the execution of the script to keep the viewer in Sam’s head, and that’s something that I was very much committed to in making the movie. With the addition of Zoey Deutch, an actress that has immense range and emotional transparency, it continued to sort of help keep the audience with every single self that she tries on throughout the movie.
Zoey is so great in the movie, she’s going to be a major star I think, especially after this film.
I agree, and I just hope she lets me work with her again. This movie would fail if we didn’t have a strong performer as Samantha Kingston. And it’s not an easy role — she plays all these different sides of Sam’s personality. If you didn’t believe one of those sides, and if an actress wasn’t capable of that range, the movie would fall flat — Zoey really enables the viewer to get onboard for the emotional experience. So much of the movie plays out on her face.
You’ve got the central quad of girls in this film (Zoey Deutch, Halston Sage, Cynthy Wu, and Medalion Rahimi) and there’s a really excellent sense of the friendship between them — so much of that is done via their styling, their body work, and their physicality. What was your preparation like with these women to accurately portray a longtime group of friends that has this incredible intimacy with each other?
That was one of the things that really resonated with me from the script and the book. It reminded me of my female friendships in high school: the intimacy, that sense of your female friendships being your entire life and your entire world at that age. It really begins with casting, and casting young women that are unique in their own way.
I remember one of the really early conversations I had with Halston Sage, who plays Lindsey, and she said to me “I don’t want to play a stereotypical mean girl. I’m not interested in being Regina George.” And I said, “Great, I don’t want you to either.” We talked a lot about Lindsey’s backstory, which is revealed in the film, and we talked a lot about Angelina Jolie in GIRL, INTERRUPTED. Her character to me is a really complex depiction of a girl who may or not be a sociopath, but who you sort of adore, and we understand why Winona Ryder’s character falls in love with her in a sense.
So that was a part of it — it was about having conversations with the girls together, and sometimes separately, about the kind of movie that we were making and what the goals were with it. We rehearsed, we spent time time together — sometimes they would spend time together without me, sometimes I would be there. I think it’s also about creating an environment on set where they can play and try things — I try to create an environment where they’re not self-conscious, and release them from the pressures of production.
You can tell in the film that these women were extremely comfortable with one another, it comes down to a lot of their gestures, and the way they’re able to place their bodies together in a way that feels so lived in. It reminded me of my group of female friends in high school, and I feel like that’s going to resonate with a lot of women. In creating this group of really realistic group of female friends, they’re not always likable, and that’s one of the things that makes them extremely relatable. What are some other films that you think do a good job portraying young women honestly — with relatable flaws and faults, and really in control of their lives and sexualities?
Recently, a movie that I really was floored by was THE DIARY OF TEENAGE GIRL. I thought it was so profound, I wish it had been nominated for an Oscar. The lead performance was incredible — I so vividly remember that scene when she’s looking in the mirror at herself, it reminded me of that same feeling. I remember looking at myself in the mirror naked, and thinking “what is this body, is anyone ever going to love it?,” having those same questions. It just felt so honest to me, it’s really impressive filmmaking.
There’s another movie, GOODBYE FIRST LOVE by Mia Hansen-Løve. It’s a movie about how you never really shake your first love, and how it haunts you for the rest of your life. It shook me to my core — it also takes the teenage female experience very seriously. It doesn’t try to make the lead character a saint, and doesn’t talk down to her, doesn’t objectify her. There are so many films about young women where we get that pan up their bodies to their face, or have them half-naked, or it’s about a young female prostitute…I’m just over that.
I think we all are. Did you find it difficult on set to find the balance with your female performers? You want to show them as young, capable, vital women, but you also never want to get into any kind of objectification territory.
All of those girls — Deutch, Sage, Wu, and Rahimi — they’re all so strong as actors, they always surprised me on set. They brought so much to the roles, and would do things that I never could have imagined. There were times when we would start rolling the cameras, and I’d get so sucked in and involved in what they were doing. I was thrilled and elated to be watching them. They deserve a lot of the credit for digging within themselves, and bringing that to screen.
It really shows that they had some freedom to play on set. I think there’s a lot to be said for young women working with a young female director, as opposed to an older male director. There’s a comfort level that develops, and it’s one of those reasons we need more women in the director role.
I completely agree, 100%. If we’re talking about how you see these women — the gaze in which we’re accustomed to seeing young women — that’s the male gaze, the “normal” way. Movies teach you how to look, so one thing I was really cognizant of is how we’re not dismembering these women in terms of their bodies — not having that low angle shot of [Zoey’s] hips moving that’s part of the language of objectification for young women. For example, when there’s nudity, the first thing you see is extremely casual: it’s a young woman taking off her shirt when she’s trying on a new outfit for her friends. We’re not zeroing in, it’s in the least self-conscious moment. Tow these women were treated visually was really important to me — that’s actually what it’s like to be with your friends.
You can immediately tell that this is the work of a female director in scenes like that, where it’s casual and expected, and doesn’t objectify at all…we touched on Zoey Deutch earlier, and I’ve read that you guys formed an instant, intense bond on set. How did that bond develop, and how do you navigate being friends with your lead performer?
We always really respected each other — I’m very close to Zoey now — we were friends during the movie and we’re friends now. During the movie, it was an artistic collaboration. There was a lot of push/pull in that relationship, but it was always with complete respect, and a lack of ego. She would say something, and I would listen and consider it. I didn’t always agree, but she was heard, and her opinion was absolutely taken seriously. The same is true from me to her: the truth is that she taught me a lot. I’ve learned from Zoey, and I’m really grateful for her honesty and collaboration. The director/actor relationship is all about trust, and she pushed me in ways that I think I really needed to be pushed. And that’s what I want — those moments are when you’re growing and learning, I’ll be growing and learning until I die.
Given the film’s GROUNDHOG DAY structure, how do you keep the audience guessing about what’s going to happen next? What’s it like on set when you’re shooting with this unconventional structure? Were there any specific challenges?
Absolutely, it was super challenging, but it was definitely a fun challenge. We did not have a lot of time to shoot the film — it looks very expensive, but it was a very fast shoot. Zoey would say that the irony of shooting a movie about time was that we didn’t have enough time to shoot it. We had to block shoot the film — we’d have to shoot all of the classroom scenes in one day, all of the wake up scenes in one day. Because so many of the camera set ups were the same, we’d have to shoot back-to-back, sometimes not in consecutive day order. Zoey would have to toggle between the days very quickly — we do day one four times, then we skip to day four, and shoot that a different way. It requires a lot of discipline from the actor, and an immense amount of range and focus in terms of keeping it all straight.
You’ve been to Sundance with several films — YOU WON’T MISS ME, NOBODY WALKS, and now, BEFORE I FALL. What’s your favorite part of that experience?
Sundance is an incredible organization that’s really supportive of female filmmakers, and has helped me develop as an artist. They have so many great programs to develop filmmakers like the screenwriters lab and the directors lab. It’s really exciting to go there and share my work with an audience, and also to see other new films, other friends films, and get a sense of what’s going on in independent film right now. It’s a really inspiring process for me, and an education, which I enjoy.
In closing, what do you hope teenage girls take away from this film?
I remember being a teenager and craving models of how to be a woman in the world. I had a fantasy of independence, confidence, and femininity — this abstract idea of what a woman is. What I’m hoping for with this film is that it gives young women a bit of an orientation, and offers one way a woman can be in the world.
That’s definitely the takeaway in the film’s final moments: there are so many different ways you can be, but it’s all about what’s best for your life, your goals, and your values.
Exactly. It’s about becoming what you are, as in being your best self, whatever that is. Everybody’s best self is so different. I hope that the movie helps young women find themselves, and be true to who they are.
