Multi-hyphenate talent Rebel Wilson has added director to her list of skills with the bright new musical The Deb. Centring on Maeve (Charlotte MacInnes) a wealthy Sydney base teen who is sent to a small country town after being expelled and ‘cancelled’. Her country cousin, Taylah (Natalie Abbott) is bullied mercilessly and hopes that the local debutante ball will be the moment she has a Cinderella-like emergence. Maeve sees the deb ball as a tired and misogynistic institution and aims her sights at creating a podcast that upends the tradition. Each teen is attempting to be seen and heard, but inevitably the cousins will clash, especially with “rural stage mum” Janette (Rebel Wilson) adding her outsized personality to the mix.
Nadine Whitney speaks to Rebel about The Deb and why she chose a musical as her directing debut.
The Deb is released via Rialto Films in Australia and is opening April 9th.
Nadine Whitney: Hello Rebel, how are you going?
Rebel Wilson: Hi, hi! I’m good. I'm sorry I'm in Los Angeles as my wife is very heavily pregnant about to pop at any moment. Hopefully it's not today because we’ll quickly have to run out of here.
Congratulations!
RW: Thanks! It’s our second baby on the way. It's exciting and it's a hectic time with a three-year-old running around at home.
You're juggling so many things. You're a director and you haven't just gone into the role thinking, “I'm going to do a quiet little film indie film starting off. I'm going to do a full on musical!” What inspired you to just take the big leap and do a huge production?
RW: First of all, I think I could only direct musicals. I think the love that I have for musicals which comes from back when I was a teenager and kind of in a dark space. I saw a musical for the first time and was like, “Oh my God!” It brought me so much joy and light. There's something about singing and dancing. So, when taking that step to being a director meant I had to take a couple of years out of doing just straight acting jobs. I wanted it to be something that I was really passionate about.
I had a scholarship at the Australian Theatre for Young People and they pretty much all of them went on to have professional productions which was amazing. The first one was this original musical Fan Girls and The Deb (written by Hannah Reilly and Megan Washington) was the fourth. I thought that there was something about it that clicked and I thought it could make a really good movie. When debuted it on stage and I saw people really responding well to it, and so I knew I had to somehow get the money in and make it. There is not a lineup of people who want to commission an original Australian musical comedy film. There hasn't been movies like it in a while. It's not as if there are recent comparisons where you could say, “Oh yeah let's make a movie like that again.” I felt like “Okay, I'm going to take the leap into directing and this story I think it is the right one.”
I really connect to is Taylah because she feels like she's got to be pretty to be accepted and to be popular, and to have a love life. Then when she realises at the end with that finale song that she is pretty strong as a person. I look at myself and lot of women, especially in my life, and they've had to be pretty strong to overcome a lot and that really is what's valuable. It's not about being pretty, or you know looking a certain way, it's about being pretty strong as a person. That message really resonated. So, when it took years to bring the movie into fruition I just kept thinking that it is a story that matters and that’s why I should keep pushing with it.
It has been a while since the Australia’s done a full movie musical. Going back to when I was younger we had the Baz Luhrmann films.
RW: Those movies are 30 years old now. Like Strictly Ballroom (of course I had to cast Tara Morice for nostalgic reasons and also she's a total legend). Muriel’s Wedding and Priscilla Queen of the Desert had huge musical elements too. There was The Sapphires which was great, but I think that's over a decade old now. So, there really hasn't been anything about us in that sphere. Yet with our culture, we're so funny and we can create good music that translates well overseas. I just felt like that's the type of movie I want to make because I was inspired by the idea of other teenagers watching this movie where they are sitting in the cinema thinking, “Oh well like you know it's an Australian movie but it's so cool and so funny!”
How have overseas audiences been responding to the Australianness of it, because small country towns, we don't get much more Australian than that.
RW: It's a very Australian setting, a small country town. The Deb played at the Toronto International Film Festival and got selected to be the closing night there. I was really curious as to how it would go, and five-thousand people saw it in a 24-hour period. Some audiences gave it standing ovations midway through the film because they love some of the musical numbers so much! I was like, “Whew, okay!” Even though it is so Australian and I made it for Australians, the fact that a Canadian (and international) audience could react so well was really cool.
I'm excited to see how it does in Australia as it is being released first in Australia and then to see how it goes overseas.
How was it directing yourself?
RW: Directing myself wasn't what I set out to do; I had to be in the movie in order to get the money to make it, so as a condition of financing was that I'd be in it. It was hard because I didn't get the rehearsal time the other actors did. As the director I was focusing on the other actors. With the singing and dancing I just kind of went in on the on the day and did it. Sometimes I'd be directing and meanwhile Eileen O'Brien the hair and makeup designer will be pinning up my hair and so when it was go time when I was on cameras we just put on a wig as quickly to run over and do the scene then come back over. I think what made it easier was that the team around me. I had a great DP in Ross Emery and a great first assistant director, my friend Drew Taylor. They really supported because they had to yell action and cut and so on when I was in the scene because I had to be fully present as an actress in those moments.
Yeah it's weird. I've directed a second movie which I'm just in post-production on now. That movie was really long days because you’ve got to get in two hours earlier before everybody else just so you can get in your hair and makeup. It's about a girl singing group. I’m in as well but I’m in a lot of scenes.
I love directing. I had zero experience going into The Deb. I just was so passionate about the story and this movie actually getting made. I'm so glad it did get made and now it's coming out into cinemas! I really hope people go to the cinemas to see it and I'm so proud of it and the work that everybody did in it. I’m so pumped!