Comedian Isabel Hagen Revisits Her Roots Playing the Viola in ‘On a String' First Look
Hagen writes, directs, and stars in 'On a String' which centers on a Juilliard-trained violist looking for her big break. In real life, Hagen somehow also finds time between appearing on 'The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon' and performing at the Just for Laughs festival to tour with buzzy bands, most recently Vampire Weekend.
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The official synopsis for 'On a String' reads: 'Isabel (Hagen) is a young, Juilliard-trained violist still living at home with her parents in the heart of New York City. She's trying to make a living playing gigs with her friends but when her toxic ex- boyfriend reappears, who also happens to be the Philharmonic's 'newest, hottest cellist,' he informs her of a viola opening in the prestigious orchestra. Nothing can go wrong, right?' Dylan Baker, Ling Ling Huang, Frederick Weller, Jamie Lee, and Eric Bogosian co-star.
'As a Juilliard graduate, I freelanced as a violist in New York City for over a decade,' Hagen told IndieWire. 'I played weddings, private parties, backup strings for singer-songwriters, among other engagements. I've been a tiny part of other peoples' big life moments, finding paradoxical intimacy in being an observer. It's this role of the observer that initially inspired me to write 'On a String,' which is not about someone driven by a desire for success, but rather by a need for true connection to the world around her, with no idea how to find it.'
In an additional director's statement, Hagen cited her love for the viola 'faded' during her time at Juilliard. 'Still, music was all I knew, and I freelanced as a violist in New York City for over a decade (I did eventually become a stand-up comedian, but that's another movie),' she said. 'While this film tells a tale of a classical musician navigating a specific world, with which many may be unfamiliar, I was interested in using that specificity to capture an experience I find to be universal — that of confronting the reality of following your dreams and accepting life's inevitable limitations. Authenticity was a priority for me in telling this story. The film features live-captured musical performances, and the musician characters are almost entirely played by trained musicians, including my real-life brother, pianist Oliver Hagen, portraying my character's brother in the film.'
'On a String' is produced by Hagen, Olivia Vessel, Torrance Shepherd, Alex Vara, and Annie McGrath.
'On a String' premieres at the Tribeca Festival as a sales title with Andrew Herwitz at the Film Sales Company handling rights. Check out the first look clip below.
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The Best Lesbian Movies Ever Made, from ‘D.E.B.S.' and ‘Carol' to ‘Bound' and ‘Pariah'
If 'Barbie' was supposed to be the Year of the Girl, then what do you call the three-month stretch of 2024 that gave us 'Love Lies Bleeding,' 'Drive-Away Dolls,' and a musical 'Mean Girls' with lesbian intern Reneé Rapp? Hot Sapphic… Spring? Actually, that's not half-bad. It's just a shame Kamala Harris lost the election, Charli XCX steered the girlies wrong, and Brat Summer turned out to be a launch party for the modern Republicans' debut EP, 'Now That's What I Call Fascism!' Fall. More from IndieWire SCAD Takes Cannes: IndieWire's Future of Filmmaking 'The Eva Victor Grad Program': Inside the Year-and-a-Half the Director Spent Preparing to Make 'Sorry, Baby' To paraphrase a bi-coded owl from an almost exclusively heterosexual TV show, 'When you look at something through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.' It's a painful thing to yearn for pop culture controversies that would've exhausted us a year ago. Where is the annual railing against consumer culture? 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But when the pressure of pursuing real love with a woman proves too much for her strict understanding of societal acceptability, the duty-bound beauty abandons her Leyla to sprint back to a life she doesn't want. Based on Shamim Sarif's novel of the same name, 'I Can't Think Straight' sees the filmmaker and author adapt her own work to create a culturally distinct consideration of familial obligation. The 2008 film won't resonate with all audiences — it's stilted at times, awkward more often, and can't pick a perspective on religious homophobia — but it offers a compelling enough rom-com, two leads with crackling chemistry, and some of the best sapphic lover letters in cinematic history. 'Every night I empty my heart, but by morning it's full again…' —AF Angst-ridden teenagers come in all shapes and predilections, a fact this prettily gritty coming-of-age film celebrates. 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The script by Cooke and Coen nails the small details of the queer world it inhibits, and has a winning duo in Qualley and Viswanathan. It's a dynamic you've seen a thousand times before (Qualley's the free-spirit horndog, Viswanathan is the more reserved responsible one) but the actor's make it sweet, fun, and a little sexy. —WC A genderqueer poet and their partner battle advanced ovarian cancer in director Ryan White's 'Come See Me in the Good Light' — a life-affirming documentary that came to Sundance at a critical time for LGBTQ people in American media. This intimate portrait of Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley (also a writer and poet) brings audiences into a soulful romance between two artists grappling with life's most harrowing questions. The love seen here suggests how you live your life and care for the people in it can be its own kind of art form. As complex conversations about impermanence spill into increasingly difficult medical appointments, Gibson and Falley engage with each other and White's lens to challenge how we see identity in the face of an all-consuming and transformative illness. The well-spoken and likable subjects foster a generous tone that could earnestly inspire compassion from some less tolerant viewers, and the project overall helps boost their voices and platform in a difficult cultural moment. —AF There are many coming-out films and dramas about internalized homophobia in the queer film canon, but few feel as immediate and painful as 'Blue Jean.' 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Cleo was a cocky, loud, swaggering butch — and she gets laid. Finally, a story about badass women fighting the system that kept them down, and no one could say anyone was reading too much into it by calling it queer. 'Set It Off' killed at the box office, grossing $41 million on a budget of $9 million. This is one remake no one would question. —JD The subtextual controversies plaguing Todd Field's 2023 Best Picture nominee feel borderline silly when you consider what 'Tár' is actually about. A cancel culture allegory starring 'Carol' icon Cate Blanchett as a world-famous conductor on the brink of self-made collapse, this spiritual 'Black Swan' successor chronicles the downfall of the titular Lydia Tár. She's predatory and a lesbian, yes, but Field doesn't go so far as to suggest that she is predatory because she is a lesbian — instead examining the inside of a MeToo-era investigation through an atypical character setup that still manages to pluck at universal themes for lesbians of a certain success level. Calculating in her climb and weaponized by her own brilliance, the prodigious Lydia Tár wields her power much like a man. She gives professional favors to those who return them sexually and tosses out her toys with the trash when she's done. That's behavior that can and has been exhibited by queer women, but again, not because they are queer. Field doesn't address that homophobic perspective on screen because he never seemed to entertain it in his construction of the character. What 'Tár' might lack in authentic lesbian authorship it instead makes up for with a radically agender approach to portraiture that inserts a toxic gay woman as its patriarchal monster: an elitist automaton who never bothered to kill the man in her own head. If you're still wondering if this movie about a lesbian is a lesbian movie, maybe you need to have a word with the one living in yours. —AF You know what they say: Behind every magnetic masc managing an Albuquerque gym there's a femme bodybuilder heading for Vegas with some serious rage issues. In director Rose Glass' hyperviolent sophomore effort, Kristen Stewart and Katy O'Brian will make you believe in love at first sight with the unforgettable lesbian leads of Lou and Jackie. Our desert love birds, swept up in a storm of steroid abuse, domestic abuse, and hair-trigger coffee table beatings, are easy to love when the action slows down. 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She's soon reunited with her old friend Dovid, a conflicted Alessandro Nivola, and Esti, David's wife and Ronit's secret childhood sweetheart as played by a shapeshifting Rachel McAdams. The trio's impromptu exploration of freedom, intimacy, and the conflicts inherent therein offers not just a compelling LGBTQ love story, but a powerful reflection on the rules we choose to follow and those we fight to defy. It also spurs the pièce de résistance of spit kink cinema in a sex scene between Ronit and Esti that's deeply authentic in its consideration of lesbian connection: a frantic flurry of impassioned embraces and fingers sliding into mouths. The scene was something of A Moment in 2017, and remains the subject of playful debate among sapphic cinephiles to this day. —AF Set in a post-revolutionary America, Lizzie Borden's feminist agitprop film remains as bracingly radical as the day it was made. Shot guerilla style in 1980s New York City, the film is an inventive mash-up of energizing original musical numbers, free-wheeling handheld action shots, and news footage of actual demonstrations and police violence. The story is told through two underground feminist radio hosts who mobilize their factions after the Black radical founder of the Woman's Army is suspiciously killed in police custody. Though this wildly inventive film defies categorization, it is best described as an afro-futurist political sci-fi comedy — the only one of its kind. Featuring performances from a young Kathryn Bigelow, Eric Bogosian, and civil rights activist Florynce Kennedy, 'Born in Flames' is a vital affirmation of lesbian political power. —JD Inspired by the success of Todd Haynes' 'Poison' and frustrated by lesbian films that looked nothing like their actual lesbian lives, Rose Troche and Guinevere Turner decided to take matters into their own hands by shooting a tiny little indie called 'Go Fish' in 1994. Filmed in black and white in Chicago for an estimated $15,000, 'Go Fish' went on to make roughly $2.4 million, proving Indies could make a profit. Turner played Max, a headstrong writer who begins dating the older and quieter Ely (V.S. Brodie) despite initial reservations. Max's friends, a jovial lesbian peanut gallery, offer unsolicited advice and plenty of laughs. No one dies, and no one comes out: a novelty for gay films at the time. 'Go Fish' not only changed the game for queer cinema, but for indie film of all kinds. —JD The debut effort from 'The Kids Are All Right' director traced a less controversial love story (no switching teams here), and still sparkles with that first-feature charm. Syd (Radha Mitchell) is a young art critic assigned to a big profile on notorious photographer Lucy Berliner (Ally Sheedy). Difficult and mysterious, Lucy is Syd's window into her glamorous world of eccentric bohemian artists. That includes Lucy's heroin-addicted German girlfriend, Greta (Patricia Clarkson, who steals every scene she's in). Syd and Lucy find themselves equal to each other, and a dangerous affair begins. Using photography as both flirtation and cinematic device, 'High Art' sometimes feels like a contemporary 'Carol.' Of course, it was filmed nearly two decades before. —JD At last, a raunchy, mean high school comedy for the gays! From 'Shiva Baby' director Emma Seligman, 'Bottoms' plays like a queer parody of classic sex comedies like 'American Pie' or 'Superbad,' except far weirder and more relevant than those films could ever hope to be. Seligman creates a demented, surreal cracked mirror of the typical movie high school for the film's 'ugly, untalented gays' to play around in, where football games are fights to the death and classes last two minutes before the bell rings. Rachel Sennot and Ayo Edebiri, as the selfish lesbian losers who start a phony fight club as a half-baked scheme to make out with cheerleaders, are the perfect actresses for Seligman's vision. They bring a singular comedic wit that makes their frequently frustrating characters deeply entertaining. Sure, the two eventually atone for their actions, but part of what makes 'Bottoms' so much fun is that it lets its lesbian leads behave so, so terribly. —WC Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2004, Alice Wu's buoyantly charming romantic comedy became an instant queer classic, seamlessly balancing cinematic artistry with heartfelt comedy. A satisfying blend of heart-fluttering romance and familial woes, Wu's film is loosely based on her own experiences coming out to her traditional Chinese family. Featuring a performance from 'Twin Peaks' icon Joan Chen, the film follows Wil (Michelle Krusiec), a surgeon who meets and falls for ballet dancer Vivian (Lynn Chen). Accustomed to prioritizing work and family over romantic bliss, she must learn not to let love pass her by. —JD Celine Sciamma's luscious tour-de-force practically demands to be seen on the big screen, but its subtle glances and rich performances offer plenty to unpack on repeat viewings. There are only four characters in the film, all women: a painter, her elusive subject, her mother, and their maid. The setting is a damp and nearly empty manor house on an island in Brittany, the part of France that bears the closest resemblance to England. A British austerity permeates the film's first act, all cold shoulders and sidelong glances between the women, but Sciamma delivers the French passion by the film's fiery conclusion — and then some. While the romance is undoubtedly the heart of 'Portrait,' Sciamma also seamlessly infuses the film with evidence of women's limited options, or rather, the endlessly creative ways they learned to skirt the rules. Shut out by a home country that stubbornly refuses to honor its great women filmmakers, this movie itself stands ablaze in defiance of and in glaring contradiction to the dominance of men. Burn it down. —JD Is 'Mulholland Drive' a real lesbian movie? More like compulsorily heterosexual, maybe. And yet, in the wake of David Lynch's passing, the surrealist mystery from 2001 — about an amnesiac woman (Laura Harring) and a young actress (Naomi Watts) who fall prey to the fickle dreams of Los Angeles — captures the most sapphic side of the late visionary director audiences ever knew. It can also be read as offering a layered lesbian perspective on the allure of fame, weaving an iconic blonde wig and one of the chilliest neck kisses ever performed on film into the eerie question, 'Do I want to be with her… or do I want to become her?' That predatory narrative would be more problematic if its rough edges weren't ensnared in the threads of a messy psychological thriller. Blurring the lines between more than sex and affection, the relationship between Betty and the self-proclaimed Rita is more spiritually satisfying than something like 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' by its viery nature. Still, the depth you see in Lynch's female characters here will impact how serious of a 'lesbian film you consider 'Mulholland Drive' to be. There's a girlishness to the tragedy that unfolds between Harring and Watts that recalls a sleepover gone sideways, a deep and personal pain that suggests the kind of bed death some heartbroken lesbians can never come back from. —AF In 1996, there were only so many images of Black women onscreen, fewer of Black lesbians. That's exactly why, when Cheryl Dunye cast herself as a documentarian in her feature debut, this clever meta-theatrical device added another layer to what still would have been a charming micro-budget love story. Cheryl is a young Black lesbian living in Philadelphia who becomes obsessed with learning about a Black actress from the 1930s, whom she dubs The Watermelon Woman. Based on Dunye's experience hitting wall after wall while researching Black actresses, she invented the character as a fantasy and reclamation. The oh-so-90s-it-hurts aesthetic extends to Cheryl's plum job as a video store clerk, where she picks up Diana (Guinevere Turner) and takes dating advice from her hilarious butch buddy, Tamara (Valarie Walker). With cameos from Camille Paglia, Toshi Reagon, and Sarah Schulman, this movie has lesbian icons coming out of its… wherever. —JD This groundbreaking classic was among the first times lesbians got to sit in a movie theater with popcorn and see a little piece of themselves on the silver screen. Set in the 1950s and in Reno, Nevada, it follows English professor Vivian Bell (Helen Shaver) as she awaits a divorce and starts a new life. Buttoned up and fragile, Vivian is immediately drawn to firecracker Cay Rivers (Patricia Charbonneau), a young sculptor who is not afraid to go after what she wants. 'Desert Hearts' may very well have been the first lesbian movie to not involve a love triangle with a man or end in a tragedy. With sweeping visuals and multiple complex female characters, the staying power of this historic film cannot be denied. —JD Every filmmaker gets her crack at a coming-of-age story that mirrors her own, and those stories take on increasing significance when coming from rarely seen perspectives. Humming with the electricity of repressed sexuality finally breaking free, 'Pariah' follows teenage Alike (Adepero Oduye) as she embraces her queerness and masculine gender expression. The camera practically aches as Alike changes out of her baseball hat and t-shirt on the train home to Brooklyn, donning a girly sweater in order to calm her parents' suspicions (Kim Wayans and Charles Parnell). We melt alongside Alike as she lights up with the first tingles of love, seeing herself for the first time through the desiring eyes of Bina (Aasha Davis). Cinematographer Bradford Young ('Arrival') films Alike's first nights out at the club in rich, saturated colors. The movie pulses with the rhythm of first love and the cost of self-discovery. —JD Whenever Todd Haynes' unspeakably beautiful Patricia Highsmith adaptation comes to mind, it brings some of the novel's last words along with it: 'It would be Carol, in a thousand cities, a thousand houses, in foreign lands where they would go together, in heaven and hell.' In that light, a spot on a list of the decade's best films hardly seems like much of a reach. Brought to life by the careful genius of Phyllis Nagy's script, the supple glow of Ed Lachmann's 16mm cinematography, and two of the most extraordinary performances ever committed to celluloid (which isn't to sweep old Harge under the rug where he belongs), Haynes' Carol is more than just a bone-deep melodrama about a mutual infatuation during a repressive time. It's more than a vessel for Carter Burwell's swooning career-best score, or Sandy Powell's seductive costumes, or the rare queer romance that gave its characters a happy ending — an ending that resonates through Cate Blanchett's coy smile with the blunt force of every impossible dream Carol Aird has ever had for herself. It's more than just an immaculate response to decades of 'if only' dramas like David Lean's 'Brief Encounter,' or a heartstopping series of small gestures that build into the single most cathartic last shot of the 21st century. It's all of those things (and more!), but most of all it's an indivisibly pure distillation of what it feels like to fall in love alone and land somewhere together. —DE Many gay rom-coms try to replicate the gooey, heteronormative standards of their straight counterparts, just with gay people instead of a man and a woman. That makes Jamie Babbit's triumph 'But I'm a Cheerleader' all the more special, a truly queer film by all metrics that straight critics couldn't get but the queers who saw it could see themselves in. Minting both Natasha Lyonne and Clea Duvall as queer icons — and including an existing gay icon in the form of RuPaul — the film takes the horrifying topic of conversion therapy camps and turns them into a joke, as Lyonne's girly Megan gets shipped to True Directions to help her become straight, only to find herself and her sexuality. It's campy, silly, and hilariously funny in its lampooning of gender roles and heteronormativity, but also deeply sincere and lovely, a gentle story of becoming your true self. It's the holy grail of lesbian rom-coms — and queer rom-coms in general. —WC When South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook chose as source material the lesbian historical fiction novel 'Fingersmith,' by Welsh author Sarah Waters, it seemed a little out of left field. But changing the setting from Victorian England to Japanese-occupied Korea was a brilliant move, and one that infused this cold mystery about a con man and the two women he embroils in his plot with untold beauty. Chan-wook elevates the book's tawdry elements to fetishistic extremes, turning out an erotic thriller every bit as gorgeous as it is sinister. Min-hee Kim is prim and alluring as Lady Hideko, never fully dropping the facade even as she falls for her spirited handmaiden, Sook-Hee (Tae-ri Kim), who is tasked with conning her out of her inheritance. As both women make do with the hand life has dealt them, they discover passion in the shared struggle. —JD Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly are still flooding basements as Corky and Violet in the lethally sexy 'Bound.' The red-hot lovers are at the center of the Wachowskis' brilliant 1996 directorial debut — a sleek and ferociously queer crime caper that bottled the filmmaking duo's neo-noir aesthetic years before 'The Matrix.' When a former inmate-turned-plumber outdoes herself as the handywoman [wink] for a mafioso's bored girlfriend, the women's explosive chemistry sparks an idea for a dangerous scheme. The double-crossing of Caesar (Joe Pantoliano) isn't on wheels like the antics of Bonnie and Clyde, or their femme-for-femme counterparts Thelma and Louise. But the suspense of a sharp script, paired with the claustrophobia of an increasingly tense Chicago apartment complex, delivers a wonderfully oppressive effect. Spectacular bursts of terror and comedy, particularly from a revved-up henchman played by Christopher Meloni, pepper an atmosphere that's otherwise thick with romance. Effortlessly steamy, the film's unforgettable lesbian leads… and the controversial use of full frontal nudity in a sapphic sex scene… almost got 'Bound' an NC-17 rating. That's a testament to the authentic fearlessness of the Wachowskis, Gershon, and Tilly: a lightning-strike creative team that even being obvious made exquisite art from the act of seducing you. —AF Best of IndieWire The Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in June, from 'Vertigo' and 'Rear Window' to 'Emily the Criminal' All 12 Wes Anderson Movies, Ranked, from 'Bottle Rocket' to 'The Phoenician Scheme' Nightmare Film Shoots: The 38 Most Grueling Films Ever Made, from 'Deliverance' to 'The Wages of Fear'
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‘Sorry, Baby' Filmmaker and Star Eva Victor Can Do It All — Make You Laugh, Make You Cry, and Keep the Cat Alive
Two weeks before the limited release of Eva Victor's feature directorial debut, 'Sorry, Baby,' the multi-hyphenate was busy with some off-beat grassroots marketing: assuring Instagram followers that the film's feline supporting star, who appears in much of the Sundance hit's marketing, was OK. More than OK! 'I keep having to do them,' Victor told IndieWire during a recent interview about those homegrown PSAs. 'Someone told me that their friends aren't going to see it because they're worried the cat dies. And I was like, OK, so, something must be done. I'm continually trying to remind people, but I don't know if it'll work out. But I hope the word will get around eventually that it's not that kind of movie. [And it's not just] 'the cat doesn't die.' I want it to be 'the cat lives a wonderful life and nothing bad ever happens to the cat.' You know what I mean? Because that's different.' More from IndieWire SCAD Takes Cannes: IndieWire's Future of Filmmaking 'The Eva Victor Grad Program': Inside the Year-and-a-Half the Director Spent Preparing to Make 'Sorry, Baby' That's the sort of care and attention that Victor — who wrote, directed, and stars in the film — lavishes on everything they do (Victor uses she/they pronouns). And it's that exact sort of sensitivity that runs through every minute of 'Sorry, Baby,' which premiered to great acclaim at this year's Sundance Film Festival, where it also picked up distribution from A24 and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for Victor. Victor's debut is a darkly funny and enormously tender film that is about what happens after the worst happens, but with plenty of room to weave the light next to the dark. As the film's logline hints, 'something bad' happens to Victor's Agnes, but the creator and star is wise enough to understand that's only part of the story, because that's only part of life itself. Told in non-linear chapters, the film follows Agnes as she deals with said awful life event, all of it set in the small New England town where she attended grad school and is now a professor. While 'Sorry, Baby' might be rooted specifically in Agnes' story and the bad thing at its center, in its specificity, there's still tremendous room for wider recognition and revelation. Plus: cute cat. So, yes, the cat (named Olga in the film, as played by Noochie the cat) is just fine, more than fine. Other animals? Well, there is a key scene in the film involving a mouse who doesn't fare quite as well, though that's all treated with the same blend of kindness and dark humor that sets the film apart. Victor is incredibly easy to talk to, and on a wide array of subjects, so chatting about Olga soon led to talking about their own cat (Clyde) and this writer's pair of tuxedos (Felix and Oscar) and their various adventures with in-house vermin (mostly bad). Then, of course, came this exchange, which feels as if it could have been pulled directly out of 'Sorry, Baby': Kate Erbland: I got a hamster when I was Victor: Bad? And while 'bad' doesn't even begin to cover it (anyone who has ever owned a hamster can see where this is going, and that's before I mention that my hamster came to me pregnant), the quickness with which Victor can read emotion, respond to it, and do it in such a way that you feel like instant confidants, well, that's probably why 'Sorry, Baby' is such a revelation. Cats, mice, hamsters, oh my! aside, how is Victor feeling now, on the cusp of the film being released? 'I'm feeling good. And weird. But I feel really excited for the movie to come out and have real people see it,' they said, speaking in the same clipped manner as Agnes. 'It's been so amazing that film people see it, but it's also a movie I made for a version of myself that didn't know much about film and just wanted to feel a film. That's sort of who the film's for. It just feels like kind of this pent-up thing, but I'm ready to release. It's funny it's called a release. It's mirroring so much about birth in a way that I'm surprised by.' Victor is quite thoughtful on the subject of who the film is 'for.' 'Whenever you're in a finance meeting, people love to talk about 'target audience,' and I'm like, 'Honestly, I think for a film like this, it's actually so much based on your lived experience,'' they said. 'I remember all the financiers were like, 'It's young women!' and I'm like, 'Maybe?' I don't know, but I'm excited to figure out who ends up seeing it and who finds it.' Taking the film around to other festivals and screenings has been instructive, and Victor has spent the weeks and months since that Sundance premiere getting a sense of who will find the film. Who needs the film. 'Once in a while, I'll do a Q&A after a screening, and then there are people who I meet, people who are feeling connected to it,' Victor said. 'It's not always the people I expect, based on how they look or something, but I really like that.' They noted that producer and Pastel principal Adele Romanski has a 'finance bro friend' who is 'obsessed' with the movie. 'I feel like the more time I spend in gender-fluid mentality, the more I'm like, 'Everyone's just fucking figuring it out.' I think people are surprising. People can surprise you with what hits for them,' Victor said. Victor talks about film in a very visceral, physical way. Films can hit you. They can move you. They can lodge in you. 'The way I keep thinking about movies right now, it's like there are some films that come in as you're watching them and then move through you and leave. They leave your body. And then there's some films that lodge themselves into your body and soul,' Victor said. 'Because the movie is so personal, I can't really tell [which one it is]. It's up to each person, whether it lodges or whether it moves.' Victor has been open about the very personal nature of her film, and that Agnes' experiences are inspired by things that happened in her own life. In the early days of lockdown, Victor did what many people did — got super into watching movies — and while they'd already been performing by that point (stand-up, incredibly hilarious social media bits), their interest in movies took a different cast. She started looking for stories that appealed to her own lived experiences, and that desire to see those experiences and stories and emotions eventually led to Victor writing the film's screenplay. 'When I was writing it was like, 'Can this [even] be a script?,'' they said. 'And then I started to understand how movies are not a script. One part of what the film will be exists in the script, and the rest is visual, and you can try to write towards it, but it's a completely different medium. That part I actually found a lot of joy in.' The kind of films that inspired Victor — they named some 'really intense' titles like 'Three Colors: Blue,' 'The Double Life of Veronique,' and 'The Piano Teacher' — were more about the feelings they wanted to convey. 'It started becoming clear that this is what the movie looks like and this is what the movie feels like in different moments,' Victor said. Victor said there are two distinct moments in the script where all of that blended together during the writing process — how it would look versus how it would feel, and what visuals were needed to bridge that — including the opening shot of the film and a key moment that happens in the film's second chapter, 'The Year with the Bad Thing.' Both moments focus on a building: the opening shot is of Agnes' small country house, the other scene is of her professor's (Louis Cancelmi) rowhouse over the course of a few hours. 'Those were two moments where I was like, 'This is very clear to me, the filmmaking in this is very simple and clear to me,'' Victor said. 'And they're sort of driving moments of the film visually that allowed me to see it as a movie and that it needs to be a movie. I think the screenplay part, I felt pretty comfortable, I felt like I understood what the screenplay was, and it was really about translating it into a film. That was the part that I was like, 'Oh, my God.' But, also, if you have a screenplay, it is in there. You just have to figure out exactly what you mean.' Starring in the film? That was an easier ask for Victor. Directing it? OK, a bit more fraught. 'I knew I wanted to act in it because I wrote it for myself ultimately, honestly,' they said. 'I was like, 'Maybe we should find someone else to direct it, because that seems like a lot,' and I thought about it for a little bit and I was like, 'Wait, this feels weird.' My producers were like, 'Go think about it, let it crystallize.'' I took a couple months and then I think I wrote back an email that the subject was like, 'Crystallizing Happening' or something.' Those producers include the team at Pastel, including fellow filmmaker Barry Jenkins, Adele Romanski, and Mark Ceryak. Pastel came on early to the project, and were instrumental to Victor in many ways, including getting Victor to the point where directing felt possible. 'It took me a little bit. Then I was like, 'I do want to direct it, and these are the places where I feel very insecure about that,'' Victor said. 'They sort of set me up on a journey. We collaborated on a journey of getting me to feel comfortable directing. Which, I don't know if I've ever felt comfortable directing, but I got to a place where there was no more learning to be done not on the job.' Romanski and co-producer and Pastel exec Catalina Rojter were often on the film's Massachusetts set, Victor said, joined by Jenkins when his schedule allowed. (Victor said the pair really bonded during the editing of the film, when Victor was editing 'Sorry, Baby' at the same post-production facility as Jenkins' 'The Lion King: Mufasa.' 'We edited in the same place as 'Lion King,' but they built a wall so that we couldn't see what they were making, because it was very private,' Victor said with a wry smile. 'Like, one time I saw one image of an owl, and I was like, 'Fuck, I'm going to get fired.' And then I was like, 'Fuck, that looks good.'') To prepare for their first day on set, Victor also turned to other filmmakers for some advice. Jane Schoenbrun offered some that really stuck, speaking to both the pragmatism and emotion Victor wanted to bring to the production. 'At that point, I was just ready,' Victor said. 'I was really nervous though, too, because I was trying to set tone in all these ways before [we even started]. I remember Jane told me this thing while they were shooting 'I Saw TV Glow,' and they were like, 'The most important thing about the first day is making the day.' So, you have to finish on time, because morale needs it, and people need to trust that you know how to do that. That was a lesson that I took with me. I was like, 'We're finishing the day on time.'' The first shot? A little trickier, as it involved Victor as Agnes and Naomi Ackie as her devoted best friend Lydie going for a walk near Agnes' house (which also used to be Lydie's house). 'There was a train that went by every 20 minutes under the tunnel we were walking over, and I really wanted to wait for the train,' Victor said. 'And Adele was like, 'That's crazy. This is the first shot of the day.' And I was like, 'Ah, man, I don't know if I should wait for the train,' and then I turned to Naomi, and I was like, 'Should we wait for it?' And Naomi was like, 'Whatever you want. Do whatever you want. I'm here.'' In some ways, that's Agnes and Lydie's relationship in a nutshell, one borne of love, trust, and confidence. If Lydie is Agnes' person, it sure sounds like Ackie filled that same role for Victor. 'I really think the reason that the shoot worked was because Naomi had so much trust in me from the beginning, without having any proof I could do it,' Victor said. 'There were moments when I had to think about what I wanted, and the patience that she gave me and the love that she gave me was completely essential for me to then become more confident. That's such a gift from day one for her to trust me without having any reason to, really.' The last day of production focused on scenes with Victor and co-star Lucas Hedges, including a handful of more intimate moments between Victor and Hedges. No spoilers here, but Victor said Hedges' last shot sees his Gavin running out of his house toward Victor's Agnes, and Victor's last shot was the converse, with Agnes running toward him. That's a sweet enough note to end it on, but Victor, as ever, had a slew of hilarious details that only added to its power and humor. 'Our Steadicam operator, Dean, was recovering from Norovirus that he got from his kids,' Victor said. 'I kept running in the wrong direction, because I was running toward the house, because my intuition was telling me that, but I really had to run toward these lights. I kept running the wrong way, and he just kept chugging Gatorade and I felt so bad. Then it started snowing. The whole reason I wanted to shoot there and then was because I wanted to get fucking snow in the movie, and it snowed the weekend before we shot, and it snowed the night we were wrapping, and we actually had to wait for it to stop snowing because the shots wouldn't match. So, snow didn't happen! But I heard that happened to 'Certain Women,' too, which is a really important movie for this film. I'm in good company.' What did it feel like to wrap production? 'It was fun, but it was weird,' Victor said. 'There's a grief to it. When you're imagining your film, it's endless, and the reason it's hard is that it doesn't exist yet, but it's everything. By the end of the shoot, there's this sadness of, it's finite, what you have is what you have. But then it's also euphoric, because you have it.' Victor laughed. 'And I had never done an edit before, so we wrapped and I was like, 'We did it! It's over!,'' they said. 'And it's like, hell no. I was humbled quick. I went to LA the next week to start editing. I had one week off where I was in my parents' house, comatose. It was an intense time. It was amazing. I miss it. The further I get from it, the more I crave it. I really do miss the part where we were making something.' There's little question that making the film was intensely personal and deeply healing for Victor, but they also understand that by saying the film is based on their own experiences or events in their life, that opens a door for people to pry. 'I'm incredibly interested in privacy,' they said. 'It's something I've had for a long time. When I was doing stand-up, I had all these boundaries around what I would say. I think it made me a pretty bad stand-up, because I was like, 'I don't want to talk about anything about my relationships.' That's one of the most interesting things people could talk about!' But 'Sorry, Baby' is, Victor stressed, a fictional narrative film. 'I know, [there's] a lot of curiosity,' Victor said. 'It's obviously a personal film, but I did have a lot of joy in the creation of world-building and in the fictional parts. It was kind of the best of both worlds, where I got to weave in my little truths in ways that are disguised enough in this world that I got to build to support this person's story. Real life is real life, but a movie has to be contained, because it only lasts a certain amount of time and the world has to support the story.' Victor added, 'People's interest in my experience, I'm trying to look at it pretty empathetically, that people feel connected to the film and are wanting for more information.' For those wanting more information, Victor points back to the film itself. 'I do think the film is the purest version of what I could ever say about me, and the film is also not me,' Victor said. 'The film is the film. The film is what we can all look at, and I'm just a part of it in my own ways. It is a piece of art. It's meant to be a piece of artistic creation. So, I do always feel it's appropriate to point people toward the film if they have questions about me.' As we were speaking in a tucked-away alcove on the second floor of the Cherry Lane Theatre (which A24 purchased in 2023), Ackie and Hedges were on stage doing remote video interviews. A monitor in the alcove featured a live feed, and we could see and hear the interviews as they unfolded. On one hand, so nice! On the other, so nerve-wracking! 'It's so nice to have Naomi and Lucas around me doing [press] with me, because I don't want it to just be my film,' the filmmaker said. 'I want it to feel like a film we all made, because we did. It's nice to remember that it's not just me.' As another remote video interview started up, Victor couldn't help but smile at the monitor. 'Aw, look at their cute little faces,' they said, just as the interviewer asked a question about Victor. 'It's so awkward. They're talking about me and I'm not here.' While we managed to turn the volume down, Victor couldn't help zeroing in on a slight framing problem, with Ackie and Hedges not quite evenly situated next to each other. 'It's freaking me out that they're not sitting in the middle,' Victor said, with a smile. 'But that's my problem. I'm the director.' A24 will release 'Sorry, Baby' in limited release on Friday, June 27, with a nationwide release to follow on Friday, July 18. Best of IndieWire The Best Lesbian Movies Ever Made, from 'D.E.B.S.' and 'Carol' to 'Bound' and 'Pariah' The Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in June, from 'Vertigo' and 'Rear Window' to 'Emily the Criminal' All 12 Wes Anderson Movies, Ranked, from 'Bottle Rocket' to 'The Phoenician Scheme'
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‘The Cat in the Hat' Trailer: Bill Hader Gets Animated for Dr. Seuss Adaptation
Bill Hader is swapping the dark comedy of 'Barry' for pure animated fun — while staying under the Warner Bros. Discovery hat. Hader's first project since wrapping his acclaimed HBO series in 2023 is the animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss' 'The Cat in the Hat.' Hader stars as the titular character who 'takes on his toughest assignment yet for the I.I.I.I. (Institute for the Institution of Imagination and Inspiration, LLC): to cheer Gabby and Sebastian, a pair of siblings struggling with their move to a new town,' as the synopsis reads. 'Known for taking things too far, this could be this agent of chaos' last chance to prove himself…or lose his magical hat!' More from IndieWire SCAD Takes Cannes: IndieWire's Future of Filmmaking 'The Eva Victor Grad Program': Inside the Year-and-a-Half the Director Spent Preparing to Make 'Sorry, Baby' Xochitl Gomez, Matt Berry, Quinta Brunson, Paula Pell, Tiago Martinez, Giancarlo Esposito, America Ferrera, Bowen Yang, and Tituss Burgess co-star in the animated film. Alessandro Carloni and Erica Rivinoja co-write and co-direct 'The Cat in the Hat.' Earlier this year, Carloni said during a Work in Progression session at Annecy, via Deadline, that WBD's 2023 shelving of 'Coyote vs. Acme' was sadly 'representative of how painful and atrocious the industry can be,' especially for animated films. ('Coyote vs. Acme' was later sold to Ketchup Entertainment in 2025 and will receive a theatrical release next year.) As for how their version of 'The Cat in the Hat' will differ from other iterations, Carloni said they approached the source material with a fresh perspective. 'We looked back at the book and wondered why the children become more confident by the end of the books,' Carloni said. 'Deep down, is [the cat] the greatest child psychologist of all time? The greatest emotional support animal?' In addition to 'The Cat in the Hat,' actor Hader has another project in the works at Warner Bros. Hader is co-writing a series about the Jonestown cult massacre with 'Damages' showrunner Daniel Zelman. Hader will serve as co-showrunner with Zelman and also executive produce, with Hader set to direct should the project move forward at HBO. A source told IndieWire that Hader could potentially star in the series as Jim Jones as well. 'Saturday Night Live' alum Hader previously won two Emmys for Best Actor in a Comedy for 'Barry.' The series itself garnered 16 total Emmy nominations for writer/director/creator Hader across its four seasons. Warner Bros. Pictures will release 'The Cat in the Hat' in theaters February 27, 2026. Check out the trailer below. Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See
