We speak with the Writer & Director of Lionsgate’s “Miller’s Girl” Jade Halley Bartlett, on the genesis of this personal story, and working with Jenna Ortega & Martin Freeman #MillersGirl #JennaOrtega #MartinFreeman @Lionsgate @Rmediavilla
A talented young writer (Jenna Ortega) embarks on a creative odyssey when her teacher (Martin Freeman) assigns a project that entangles them both in an increasingly complex web. As lines blur and their lives intertwine, professor and protégé must confront their darkest selves while straining to preserve their individual sense of purpose and the things they hold most dear.
Now Avilable Exclusively In Theaters.
Criticólogos:
So, before we dive into the questions, I got to tell you, that I want you to write a modern version of Cruel Intentions and just cast Jenna Ortega. And the two of you just run with it. Throughout the movie, I was with my jaw on the floor because of how personal, and emotional the story is.
Jade Halley Bartlett:
Thank you so much. That’s I’m so glad you said that because when we were trying to sell this movie, Cruel Intentions was one of our comps for the movie. Because it’s so because it’s so beautiful and the characters are so mean. Yeah.
Criticólogos:
This is your first project, the first movie for everything written and directed. What inspired you to write the story? How did this come about?
Jade Halley Bartlett:
I was living in New York City, uh, and I was an actress that wasn’t getting any jobs. And I was like, what am I going to do with my certificate of participation from an acting school? So, I called one of my very best friends, Julianne, who is an extraordinary actress. And I knew I just wanted to build something around her. I wanted to try to write, but I wasn’t a writer until I was like 25 years old. And so, I called her and I said if you could play any character, who would it be? And she said, wrote a pen mark from The Bad Seed, who, if you recall, is a psychopathic killer child.
So, I was like, I was like, okay then I’m going to write a villain. And it was originally a play, and that was in 2011. And then #MeToo happened, and I realized that I had not one villain, but two. And I was sort of going through my journey with #MeToo and sort of understanding my internalized misogyny that I couldn’t even see; I didn’t see the villain that I’d written right in front of me. But now, after #MeToo within the story, not only did I have two characters who I guess you could say, villains.
Like I use that word lightly because I don’t think they are. I don’t think they are all the way villain or victim. And suddenly I had characters across the board, like, the whole court is out of order in this movie, right? So, like two characters who are neither the perfect villain nor the perfect victim, neither of them fit the binary, which suddenly became, I think, so much richer for the characters, for the actors, and for the story to tell. Like, I think I feel like writing the perfect victim and typically it’s women, or like in my experience, it’s been women, and my experience as an actor, it was even playing women like that. Like, I think it’s boring, you know because it’s not real. And it just keeps women in the I call it the damsel box. It just keeps women in the same. Trapped in the same space. It’s just got new rapping on it, you know? And I want to I want to see and write characters that are more complex than that. You know.
Criticólogos:
I want to talk about working with Jenna Ortega and obviously Martin Freeman. What did they bring to the table that you just said? Yeah, we’re going with it with this how we just went about what happened with the two of them in the set.
Jade Halley Bartlett:
I wrote Martin a letter and I was like, and I knew, I knew it was a shot in the dark, like, lol that I, I mean, like, you know, who am I to him? And I wrote up, excuse me, I’m so sorry. And I wrote him a letter and I was like, please, please talk to me. And he did. Um, and we spoke for like two hours on Zoom, and he just really understood the content. He understood the character. He understood the story I was trying to tell. He understood that this was going to be complicated and nuanced.
And because Martin is so Martin is like a surgeon or an actor. He’s so deft and so precise. Um, but he’s also very. Tender kind and generous. And so, I think it would be very easy for Jonathan or for Cairo, for those characters to become quite arch, you know, or to become or to seem quite pretentious. And because John, of course, is a villain in this story. Martin, however, gives him such warmth that you it’s hard to it’s hard to resist liking him, which I love.
And then, of course, Jenna. Jenna can do this thing. I could ask her to drop a tier on a word, on a syllable in a line, and ten times out of ten, she could do it every time. But every time she would do something different. And Jenna understands, she understands heartbreak in a way like you that you watch her heartbreak on screen, and you watch her calcify you watch that armor grow over her, and it’s so subtle and it’s so terrifying.
But she still has. Despite that, she turns into a bug at the end of this movie. She’s so there’s still so much heart within her. It’s almost like she’s fully calcified, crystallized. But there’s still this thread beating inside of her. And that is very, very hard to show, especially in a character that so could again, very easily be played like a supervillain. But Kyra is not a supervillain. She’s many things, you know. And both of They brought incredible humanity to these characters.
Criticólogos:
This question is mostly for inspiring filmmakers who look at you and say, hey, I can make this happen. So, I wonder, what went to your mind when Lionsgate liked the project and they said, well, distributed the project, and to have a distributor like this one take a chance on your story as personal as it is, it’s going to spark a conversation. What did that mean to you?
Jade Halley Bartlett:
Oh my gosh. I mean, I feel like I sound like Pollyanna when I talk about it because it’s I’m so kind of I not that I can’t believe this happened to me. I have worked very hard in my career. I worked very hard as a writer. It is magical. Like I’m making movies, which is crazy. And I’m making movies with people that I love. I like the executives, all the executives on this. All the executives on this project including assistants. Um, everybody that has touched this project, from the studio to every member of the crew to all the actors. Um, everybody just really understood the assignment. Everybody knew what we were making. Um, and so my producing partner, Mary Margaret Quincy, who produced on the film, um, she’s also actually the person that swipes us out at the end of the film.
She and I, when we were putting this film together with heads of department and with cast and crew and all of that, like, we just knew that we had the opportunity to build a family, um, and that we’re not we’re not doing very dangerous work like some other people in this world are doing. We are making movies. So, it should be fun, it should be safe, and it should be kind. And now kind and nice are different. But we knew that in choosing the people that we wanted to work with, we were selective with it.
And because the studio was so generously understood what my project was and gave me a shot. I just knew that I had to do it to the best of my ability and to the best of my ability will always be kindness. Like, I think that is the height of anything, in any way that you can do anything. And so, it just created like a superfamily. We’re all still very, very close, which is, which is wonderful. And I’m grateful. And I’m also, like, still a little, like, starry-eyed about it, you know.
See the interview below:
Trailer:
