Latest news with #BellaThorne
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Risky Business' star Rebecca De Mornay wanted 'Saint Clare' to be made: 'It's not the woman in jeopardy'
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.
Fox News
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Fox News
'The Hand That Rocks the Cradle' star Rebecca De Mornay says she feels betrayed after being left out of reboot
Rebecca De Mornay is not holding back when it comes to the reboot of one of her most iconic films. The actress, 65, recently shared her reaction to the upcoming remake of the classic 1992 horror film, "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle," as she was excluded from the project. De Mornay claimed that nobody reached out to her about the reboot. "Nobody. I found out about it, and I kind of joked that I was quite perturbed," De Mornay told the New York Post. "It felt like a betrayal, like how dare you [have] somebody else be playing that part." De Mornay delivered a chilling performance as the vengeful nanny Peyton Flanders in the thriller, alongside Annabella Sciorra, Julianne Moore, Matt McCoy, Ernie Hudson and more. Despite her bold comment, the actress isn't ruling out watching the new version. "I'm actually kind of curious to see it, to see if they can live up to what we did," she added. Her comments come at a time when Hollywood continues to create remakes of fan favorites, instead of producing original stories. De Mornay continued to slam the Hollywood reboots, as she recently starred in the thriller "Saint Clare," opposite Bella Thorne and Ryan Phillippe. "New stories seem to be impossible for people to come up with. That's why I really like 'Saint Clare.' It's new. I haven't seen anything like it before," she explained. "There's a kind of laziness of falling [into] 'Oh, well, that works. So let's just do that one again,' rather than coming up with a new story. So that kind of bugs me a little," she admitted. A film remake that De Mornay did enjoy was "A Star is Born." The beloved musical drama has seen multiple versions on the big screen since its original debut in 1937. In 1951, the project was created for television with Kathleen Crowley and Conrad Nagel in the lead roles. Just a few years later, the story returned with Judy Garland and James Mason in the 1954 classic. Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson offered their own spin in 1976, while Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper drew in a new generation with their 2018 rendition. "We tend to think a movie is one cast. I guess it doesn't have to be, if it's a really good story, a good script," she said. "I guess, it doesn't have to, but I just wish that there was also more imagination with new scripts, because it feels like people are just falling back on what once were." Reps for De Mornay didn't immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Fox News
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Tom Cruise's former girlfriend admits what she really thinks of him four decades after their romance
Rebecca De Mornay has nothing but love for her "Risky Business" co-star and ex, Tom Cruise. The actress met Cruise on the set of their breakout film in 1982. They dated for nearly three years after the teen comedy was released in 1983. "I'm really proud of him," the 65-year-old recently told Page Six about her former flame. De Mornay described the 63-year-old as a "major chord" while she labeled herself "a minor chord." She said that Cruise had always been ambitious and eager to make his dreams a reality. "He's like, 'I am "Top Gun,"' and that's what America really wanted, and so he's fulfilled it," De Mornay gushed. "He is a brilliant, brilliant interpreter of what the zeitgeist is. I'm really, really proud of knowing him from when we were in the suburbs of Chicago [filming 'Risky Business'], and knowing what he wanted and where it is now." She added, "We started this together and look what he did with it." Fox News Digital reached out to Cruise for comment. One of De Mornay's latest appearances was in the thriller "Saint Claire," opposite Bella Thorne and Ryan Phillippe. It tells the tale of "an avenging serial killer [Thorne] who murders misbehaving men," Page Six reported. "It's very rare that I read scripts about a female serial killer who's obsessed with Joan of Arc, which I thought was just brilliant," De Mornay shared. In "Risky Business," Cruise plays Joel Goodsen, a high school student who stays home alone while his parents are on vacation. He goes on to meet a prostitute named Lana [De Mornay]. For the role, Cruise earned his first Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. Cruise went on to make his mark in blockbusters like "Top Gun" and the "Mission: Impossible" film franchise. De Mornay was just 24 years old when "Risky Business" skyrocketed her to fame. "It was personally jarring and thrilling and discombobulating to have become famous so quickly," she told TheWrap back in 2023. "Tom and I were together when the movie came out, and we had photographers jumping out of bushes, the pre-paparazzi days." "I was a more complicated, mysterious presence, innately, than Tom," she reflected at the time. "His presence is more like, I would say, a major chord, [thinking] in music terms, and I'm more of a minor chord… America really, really loves the major chords." After playing Lana, De Mornay was labeled a sex symbol. To avoid being typecast, she took on the grittier role of a railway worker for 1985's "Runaway Train." WATCH: TOM CRUISE CREDITED FOR TEACHER-TURNED-ACTOR'S JOB CHANGE "You reach people on many levels," she explained to the outlet about being a sex symbol. "You can reach people when they're sexually attracted to you. It doesn't have to be that it's all about sex, but when you touch someone on that level, it brings them in to perhaps other things about you." "I am an actress, and I could be a sex symbol, but I am an actress, first and foremost," she added. Over the years, De Mornay stepped away from glamorous roles and was selective about which projects to take on. As both an actress and mom to two daughters, she wanted to make sure her children weren't separated from their father. "I'm not quite sure how some of these very famous actresses with children, how they do it. Maybe they're good at multitasking? I'm not," she admitted to the outlet. "… [But] it's always been important to me to choose roles where there [is] some model of strength to women, regardless of what they do or how they do it," she added.
The Guardian
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Saint Clare review – Bella Thorne takes out predatory creeps in feminist revenge horror
Former Disney child star Bella Thorne, now more notorious for a kerfuffle around her OnlyFans account, stars in this muddled horror feature as a young woman called Clare who is convinced she is on a mission from God to slay sex abusers and other bad men. (The fact that university student Clare looks so pretty is a distinct advantage in her quest for deserving victims.) Like predatory creep Joe (Bart Johnson), they find her seemingly by accident, pre-equipped with stock photo prints of their mythical children and hip-flasks full of spiked booze, hoping to dupe her into getting in the car so she can be raped or worse. But Clare has mad self-defence skills, homicidal instincts of her own, and a backpack conveniently stocked with rubber gloves and lint rollers just in case she needs to wipe away fingerprints and evidence. Funnily enough, it seems there have been numerous unsolved disappearances of young women in the very town in which she lives with her retired actor grandma, Gigi (Rebecca De Mornay, underused but feisty). So Clare gets investigating and nearly every man she meets seems suss, apart from the campus's flamboyantly gay theatre director (Joel Michealy) who is clearly just there for comic relief. And yet Clare doesn't seem all that good at building relationships with women either, given the toxic, bitchy interactions she has with supposed friends Amity (Erica Dasher) and Juliana (Joy Rovaris), mean girls whom the film seems quite happy to put in danger. This is adapted from a novel by Don Roff, the script crafted by director Mitzi Peirone and co-screenwriter Guinevere Turner. Turner, also an actor, was once quite a name in the indie movie world with credits for co-writing Go Fish and American Psycho among others, but this doesn't really have the same zeitgeist-harmonising thrum. Instead, it plays as pseudo-feminist horror for viewers who don't really like women, or, for that matter, men. Or people of any gender. It's all curdled but not in an especially interesting way, although there is no denying that Thorne has a basic charisma that holds the screen, and Ryan Phillippe is well cast as a grouchy cop whose agenda doesn't mesh with Clare's. Saint Clare is on digital platforms from 21 July.
The Guardian
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Saint Clare review – Bella Thorne takes out predatory creeps in feminist revenge horror
Former Disney child star Bella Thorne, now more notorious for a kerfuffle around her OnlyFans account, stars in this muddled horror feature as a young woman called Clare who is convinced she is on a mission from God to slay sex abusers and other bad men. (The fact that university student Clare looks so pretty is a distinct advantage in her quest for deserving victims.) Like predatory creep Joe (Bart Johnson), they find her seemingly by accident, pre-equipped with stock photo prints of their mythical children and hip-flasks full of spiked booze, hoping to dupe her into getting in the car so she can be raped or worse. But Clare has mad self-defence skills, homicidal instincts of her own, and a backpack conveniently stocked with rubber gloves and lint rollers just in case she needs to wipe away fingerprints and evidence. Funnily enough, it seems there have been numerous unsolved disappearances of young women in the very town in which she lives with her retired actor grandma, Gigi (Rebecca De Mornay, underused but feisty). So Clare gets investigating and nearly every man she meets seems suss, apart from the campus's flamboyantly gay theatre director (Joel Michealy) who is clearly just there for comic relief. And yet Clare doesn't seem all that good at building relationships with women either, given the toxic, bitchy interactions she has with supposed friends Amity (Erica Dasher) and Juliana (Joy Rovaris), mean girls whom the film seems quite happy to put in danger. This is adapted from a novel by Don Roff, the script crafted by director Mitzi Peirone and co-screenwriter Guinevere Turner. Turner, also an actor, was once quite a name in the indie movie world with credits for co-writing Go Fish and American Psycho among others, but this doesn't really have the same zeitgeist-harmonising thrum. Instead, it plays as pseudo-feminist horror for viewers who don't really like women, or, for that matter, men. Or people of any gender. It's all curdled but not in an especially interesting way, although there is no denying that Thorne has a basic charisma that holds the screen, and Ryan Phillippe is well cast as a grouchy cop whose agenda doesn't mesh with Clare's. Saint Clare is on digital platforms from 21 July.
