Mia’Kate Russell’s brilliant slasher and homage to mid-1980s teen films and Ozploitation needs an antagonist to spark the chaos and that’s precisely what Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn does as Penny’s malicious and mixed-up cousin, Kat. Where Penny is light, Kat is darkness in her goth clothing and fire engine red hair. She thinks she is in control, but she has no idea just how out of hand things will get when she brings her drug dealing boyfriend and his crew into the beach house.
Nadine Whitney speaks to Sophia about how she got into character and her amazingly collaborative experiences on set.
Nadine Whitney: I've seen Penny Lane is Dead a couple of times and I've spoken with Mia’Kate Russell about it. She's so great.
Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn: Mia’Kate is unbelievable, and for this to be her first feature film is mind blowing! She was so comforting. She let us have a kind of creative freedom that made me realise how cool this the process was going to be, because she was just so open to everyone collaborating. Mia’Kate is the kind of person who is open to the “Yes, and” and it was like that for almost everyone. She was never like, “Nah,” she was just open to see how ideas would go.
Can you tell me a little bit about how you got into the mood and era of the mid 1980s with Kat’s character? Especially the non-mainstream clothing and club life.
Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn: I had about a month between when I signed on and when I actually started the project, so I kind of had to scramble a bit for my research and getting into it. I think that actually really helped because I cast my net very wide, and then just got a bunch of very strange things. I feel it worked in creating a character that is quite odd and discombobulated.
I talked to Mia and she brought up Nina Hagen and Iggy Pop as people that were in Kat's “atmosphere.” I think that was a big thing for Mia when she was writing Kat. I also got just like weird bits of inspiration, like Shalom Harlow's (Canadian model and actor) walk, for instance. That was a random thing that stuck out for me.
Kat’s dating Angus (Ben O’Toole) and he hilariously looks like Brian Mannix. I know he's supposed to believe he looks like look Kiefer Sutherland in The Lost Boys, but he looks like a knock-off Brian Mannix who was never cool. I couldn't stop laughing whenever, whenever he was around, like doing the big man stuff.
Can you think of some of your favourite parts of making the film?
Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn: It's really difficult to pinpoint. It was such a high energy and fun shoot. I was worried that because of like the night shoots and the fact we were shooting in winter and it was really cold. There were all of these kinds of obstacles that we had been prepared for during rehearsals, So, when we were on the set we could be completely focused on doing the job.
It was freezing but we just had so much fun. We all got on so, so, well. There was just such an electricity at all times and just so much support and love. I think, creating the film all together it felt like we were doing something cool and important, and that we were all exactly where we were supposed to be.
That's kind of a high bar for Mia’Kate to set for future projects!
Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn: I know, but she really does have something very magical about her.
I know that the house where you shot was really crowded, and it was a very small place to shoot. Can you tell me some of the challenges about this increasingly insane party in a tiny room.
Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn: Totally! Choreography is not my strong suit. There ended up being a fuck tonne of choreography, Nadine. That was absolutely a challenge, but something I welcomed with open arms, mind you. But that balance between remembering lines, remembering where you are in the scene. Obviously everything was shot consecutively, essentially all of our scenes were kind of like boom boom boom boom… keeping that energy, and then also remembering that you know I have to swing this hip here, so that my face will come here and that her shoulder will be here in the lens – it was I think more than any of us had expected. It was a precise art, the blocking.
Weirdly I think one of the biggest challenges was I recall specifically the scene where something really awful happens to Penny (Bailey Spalding). I remember that shoot. That day was so difficult because it was making me so emotional. Bailey's performance was really going into a dark place. I didn't realise how upsetting it would be holding myself together while watching people who had become very close people to me go through these really upsetting performances. That was, that was a really interesting challenge to be evil while being like, “Oh my god, you're breaking my heart.”
Kat is a very complicated character – an absolute menace and malicious, but I actually did feel some pangs of sympathy for her in places.
Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn: I think that's the human experience of watching something like Penny Lane is Dead. It's strange, and it's messy, but most of the characters are really young people on a very extreme bend. Young people figuring out who they are and what went wrong. Also, it was the era where a lot of that behaviour was normalised in culture and pop culture.
The Breakfast Club (1985) was absolutely something I watched and was thinking about. Puberty Blues (1981) was something that I delved into again. Even years later in 2009’s Jennifer's Body as well. There’s a horror about growing up in a society where autonomy is not given equally.
What would you like audiences to take away from your character?
Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn: Ah, well, I suppose anything you like, really, but if there were something, I suppose reflect perhaps on how easy it is to go so dark so fast, and what a change in perspective can do to become so disenchanted and angry. Penny and Kat are cousins. They grew up in the same family, and she just took all the darkness that there was, and I suspect there was a lot of light as well. But she became a weapon, you know.
You did a great job crafting Kat. Although she’s a bit more extreme in her behaviour I feel like a lot of people will think, “I’ve seen this girl before.”
Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn: One hundred percent. We've all seen, or we've all met, a Kat.
Thank you so much Sophia. You were a joy to watch. You're a joy in person. I wish you so much luck and strength in your career and everything you do.
Penny Lane is Dead is playing at Revelation Film Festival. For times and tickets visit here.