'Risky Business' star Rebecca De Mornay wanted 'Saint Clare' to be made: 'It's not the woman in jeopardy'

Yahoo

5 days ago

Bella Thorne plays a college student with a traumatic past who turns into a morally complex serial killer
Mitzi Peirone's second feature Saint Clare, starring Bella Thorne, Rebecca De Mornay, Frank Whaley and Ryan Phillippe, is an antihero serial killer story as Clare (Thorne) seeks justice without the trust of traditional authorities. Based on the novel "Clare at Sixteen" written by Don Roff, Clare, a college student who lives with her grandmother Gigi (De Mornay), discovers a string of missing women in her town, and with past trauma of her own, takes matters into her own hands to take down a predator.
For De Mornay, the actor who's known for her roles in films like Risky Business and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, she was passionate about supporting Peirone's film. De Mornay felt strongly that this is a movie that "needed" to be made.
"When I read it I thought, this is important. It's a real story, a unique story that I haven't seen on screen before, which is lovely, because so much is being retried, or sequels or prequels," De Mornay said. "But also, I wanted it to be made. ... I wanted to be of support to it."
"We're so used to seeing women victimized, murdered, raped, ... on camera, and off camera, it's just so refreshing to see a thriller where it's not the woman in jeopardy. Turning that on its head and making you root for a female serial killer, I thought, OK this is great. This has to be made. ... I saw my part as being, ultimately, kind of like a foundation, holding up the story. Like she's the older version. She also didn't take any shit, still doesn't take any shit. Is independent. Is strong willed. Is an original thinker. Has a lot of fun, doesn't depend on men, is not scared of men ... and can hold her own. And that's what I wanted to bring as Gigi for the story."
The visual language for Peirone's film is particularly significant. It's a major achievement and very detailed for a film shot in just 15 days. Paired with that is this exploration of a story through an unreliable narrator.
"I think that we all also tell ourselves stories and we tell ourselves lies. ... Every single one of us is an unreliable narrator to our own narrative," Peirone said. "I wouldn't be able to tell truly a human story without accepting that there was room for misinterpretation within your own self of what really happened, and how did something affect you, and how things can change from an objective standpoint to how we remember things, and how we infuse things with certain meaning."
"I did see a brief excerpt of something ... teasing Saint Clare, just based on some of the opening scenes, and it's so interesting to me that someone could have said something like, 'Clare learned to be cruel from a young age,' and in my head I'm like, that's so funny, because to me, that's self defence. [It] opens up this whole discourse on not only is she, yes, she's an unreliable narrator, but her actions are taken differently, subjectively depending on the point of view of the viewer."
Bella Thorne as Clare: 'Ethically challenging side of her human exploration'
In terms of what made Thorne a great fit to play Clare, the famed star who began acting as a child, eventually going on to write and direct films herself, Peirone highlighted that they've known each other for years and through that time, Peirone was able to discover Thorne's "nuanced and complex" range in her performances.
"The character we crafted with Clare dives into a much more cerebral, dark and ethically challenging side of her human exploration as an actor, when oftentimes, I find that young actresses that are considered traditionally beautiful are portrayed through a repetitive and objectifying gaze because of their very beauty, limiting them, but I felt like Clare was also an opportunity for her to broaden the scope of her craft and her talent and she does so magnificently," Peirone shared.
"In a subconscious way, we showed that through wardrobe in the film. She wears mini skirts as a way of deceit, when she's putting on an act, but day-to-day Clare is in pants and big blouses."
Speaking about her character, Thorne said she was really interested in the "ethical and moral dilemmas" around Clare.
"There's so many layers to Claire and really getting to play with the different tonalities of the books was interesting, combining and taking pieces from a few, but of course focusing on 'Clare at Sixteen,'" she said. "We definitely went through a few rewrites of finding her voice and seeing who she was going to be, and even throughout the editing process as well, once the movie really started to take shape and form and being so psychologically driven and very colourful in some things, and kind of very lucid in others."
"It was an interesting process bringing that all together in the edit, all these threads to make it one. And I think that that kind of formed a new voice of Clare as well. ... I think we realized we could do so much more in the psychological sense, in the editing room."
A 'feminine quality' to filmmaking
Describing Peirone as a director, De Mornay called her "very visionary," especially with Saint Clare being just her second film.
"She was quieter on the set than directors usually can be, and she had a kind of relaxation that was wonderful," De Mornay said. "It's like, she was talking to you about the scene, but then somehow the camera was starting, and then we were shooting. There was sort of a seamless quality."
"It's lovely, and it's very creative and it's very helpful to actors. But I also think it's a feminine quality. ... I think a good director is a good director, a bad director is a bad director. It doesn't matter if you're male or female. You either are talented, or you have inspiration, or you don't. ... I've now worked with several female directors and even watching movies directed by women that I'm not in, there's a feminine sensibility that is sort of between the lines that you can kind of pick up."
De Mornay highlighted that she's seeing more women directors now than she did earlier in her career, including herself, and it's something she hopes to do more of, but she added that it's a "long haul" for women.
"I think our society has been a sexist, patriarchal society for a long time, and it's being chipped away. It's being chipped away at, and women are making progress. And then they're taking big steps back with government making decisions, but it's a long haul for women. It's just a long haul," De Mornay said.