Carey Mulligan and Emerald Fennell on why 'Promising Young Woman' is the ultimate #MeToo revenge film
The star of Promising Young Woman, Carey Mulligan, and director Emerald Fennell, tell Yahoo Entertainment why the film is the ultimate #MeToo revenge thriller.
Video Transcript
- I need to lay down. What are you doing?
- It's OK. Hey, you're safe.
- What are you doing?
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
Hey. I said, what are you doing?
KEVIN POLOWY: "Promising Young Woman" has been called the ultimate #MeToo revenge thriller. Emerald, what can you say about the story's origins? I mean, was #MeToo sort of part of its genesis? Was this written sort of coming out of that initial public reckoning? Or was it already in the works?
EMERALD FENNELL: It was already in the works. So I started writing and pitching it before the #MeToo movement became public. But honestly, I think most women and a lot of men would say that these are conversations that we've been having for an incredibly long time. This is just a film about people who think they're good being told by someone that they're not good, you know. And I think that's what's so unnerving about it.
KEVIN POLOWY: Emerald, I've seen this theorized-- I don't know if it's true, if you've confirmed it, so I wanted to ask you about it. But in terms of the title, which really pops out, was that a riff-off of the Brock Turner case, this college student who was convicted of sexual assault and intent to rape yet was often referred to as a promising young man?
EMERALD FENNELL: It's really difficult because I don't think that it was, but certainly that as a phrase is so commonly used when young men do something wrong. You know, they are almost always referred to as promising young man, whether it's a case like this of assault, whether it's even if they get a gun and do something completely reprehensible, there's always this inclination to be forgiving. And I believe entirely in forgiveness.
But it's an interesting thing. When you look at "promising young woman," if you look at the phrase "promising young woman," it's hardly ever used. And if it is used, it's usually to describe a girl who's no longer alive. So it's an interesting thing that you can only really be a promising young woman when it's too late-- when your promise is kind of complete aborted.
So I don't know, but really it seemed at the time to be just the perfect encapsulation of who Cassie is. She is constantly forever a promising young woman because she's just never moved on.
KEVIN POLOWY: Carey, what was your first response to reading Emerald's script and the way it turns the tables on sexual assault?
CAREY MULLIGAN: As a first read, I just hadn't read anything like it, but it was the best script I've read in a really long time. I felt Emerald's perspective on things was so unique.
And I mean, I remember in our first meeting, we were talking about towards the end of the film, where it was about the nurse's costume and that whole sequence. I think I said something like, shit, I really don't want to take my clothes off or something like that. I was sort of like, I've had two kids, or whatever.
And Emerald was like, oh no, that's not-- the second your finger is on the zip, we will be on the men, and you will see that. And you will see visceral reactions from them. And you'll see close-ups of them experiencing this. And you'll never see that. And it was that case throughout the entire film.
And I think it wasn't just that we were flipping the lens on what those experiences are, because we have been used to seeing that from the comedic standpoint in the last 10, 15 years of films where guys attempt to get a girl drunk to get her home or pick up a drunk girl from a bar. That's very normal kind of comedy fair that we've all kind of laughed at.
And so it wasn't just flipping the lens at that. It was flipping the lens on the sort of femme fatale character that doesn't really exist and getting to see the truth of that situation as well. And that was played out through all of the scenarios. There's never a scenario in the film where actually Cassie isn't completely in control.
It was really kind of fun to lean into some of the sort of faux drunk work, mainly because she's not actually drunk. I think if I'd had to play someone who was genuinely-- I've had to play drunk once before in a film, and I was so nervous about it because there's something that's just so specific and you can kind of see people who-- you know, bad acting. In this case, Cassie could act badly. And there was no issue about that because she isn't actually drunk. She's completely sober. So that was a kind of fun thing to play with.
And in terms of those moments, the fun part about that was really working with Emerald on how much the audience was allowed to see what Cassie was really thinking. And I think most particularly, in the scene with Chris in the apartment, where he's sort of kissing her nose and force feeding her cocaine, the audience gets to see a lot of what Cassie's really experiencing, which is, get this man away from me or I'm gonna snap. I can't take any more of his chat.
And that was really a lot of, Emerald and I were constantly in communication through every take, and how sharp those turns would be. And we played a lot with levels on that. And it was so nice to have such full faith in my director because I felt like I could go all over the map and Emerald would kind of make it work in the best way.
[WHOOSHING]
