Dennis Widmeyer & Kevin Kolsch Talk Starry Eyes

Interview with directors Dennis Widmeyer and Kevin Kolsch about their great, grisly horror flick Starry Eyes.

You need someone that understands the material, because you can have a really talented actor, but if they don’t get it you’re gonna have problems when you get on set. “Hey, put these worms in your mouth,” or, “Hey, you’re gonna be naked in this scene,” or, “Here’s where you’re gonna be on the floor pulling your hair out, screaming.” You always have to have that conversation with the actors. If nudity is involved, there’s that scene with the old guy and the blow job, a lot of risqué things in the film. We didn’t want to get burned on set where suddenly she has cold feet and doesn’t understand what we’re trying to do.

Her story is a familiar one. By day, Sarah Walker struts around in tight little outfits as a waitress at a Hooters-like chain called Big Taters. But like so many young beauties, Sarah’s dreams extend far beyond the corporate grind, to the enchantment of silver screen fame. And like so many others, she’s about to find out that achieving stardom requires sacrifice, and in her case there may truly be hell to pay.
Such is the premise for Starry Eyes, an indie horror film that has been widely vaunted by genre fans since it debuted at SWSX last March. Marked by sharp satirical fangs, an atmospheric score by Jonathan Snipes, and a truly tour-de-force performance by star Alexandra Essoe, it’s a gripping, often harrowing, experience that warrants a hearty “Hail Satan!” 

This film seems particularly concerned with the experience of being a woman in Hollywood and all of the standards and expectations that come with that. Have you witnessed or heard any horror stories from actresses about the casting process or being offered the casting couch or being objectified? Anything that you could draw upon for this script?

Dennis: Not necessarily, we’ve read articles about it. There was a rumor that it happened to Halle Berry early in her career. I can’t think of any specific examples of that happening, there’s just the general sense that it doesn’t go away. Even if a person has the best intentions there’s that vibe sometimes, y’know? As co-directors, Kevin and I have tried eradicate that completely and keep it professional. I won’t say any names, but there are people that I’m aware of that had some uncomfortable situations. There’s always that sleazeball on the set. Every movie has one or two people that say the wrong thing or give off a sort of flirty vibe. Sometimes it’s appropriate, sometimes it’s not. Definitely women feel it way more than men do. We even had a guy approach us for the LA premiere of this film, he was homosexual, and he had an experience with a producer where a producer made him come over to his place and tried to kiss him, all for a role. It was kind of traumatizing for the guy. I think it never goes away. I think it’s just human nature unfortunately, so we definitely satirized it for this film and turned it up a notch, but I think it’s based on a very real thing. The role of Sarah Walker is very emotionally and physically taxing. I’m sure you were looking for a very specific actress. What was it about Alex Essoe that really brought the necessary qualities to the table?

Kevin: It was two things, really. When you’re casting a role like this you’re looking for someone that, one, has the chops that can pull it off and has the ability to go to those places. Also, you need someone that understands the material, because you can have a really talented actor, but if they don’t get it you’re gonna have problems when you get on set. “Hey, put these worms in your mouth,” or, “Hey, you’re gonna be naked in this scene,” or, “Here’s where you’re gonna be on the floor pulling your hair out, screaming.” We’ve both done movies in the past where we worked with very talented people and there would be certain scenes where they would say, “Wait, why am I doing that? I have to get on the ground and roll around in the dirt?” We knew that this movie is very demanding and that she goes through the whole gamut. From the beginning to the end she goes through every tool in her actor toolkit and so we needed someone that really understood the material. And that was excited by the possibility. Because there were people that read the script that we were interested in for the role and they said, “Thank you.” They clearly were not interested in the challenges of the role. It had to be someone who was committed to going through the whole spectrum of acting. Alex understood the material, she had seen all of the films that we were referencing, and she liked them and was a fan of them and was excited to do all of these things. Those were all important, and, of course, the fact that she’s talented, which she proved in the audition.It’s certainly a very juicy role. As directors, do you feel a responsibility to protect her or do you feel, “She’s an adult, she knows what she’s getting into, let’s trust her”?
Dennis: Oh yeah, it was completely an open conversation. You always have to have that conversation with the actors. If nudity is involved, there’s that scene with the old guy and the blow job, a lot of risqué things in the film. We didn’t want to get burned on set where suddenly she has cold feet and doesn’t understand what we’re trying to do. We always joke about this, it isn’t an exaggeration, but there was almost that notion of trying to talk her out of it in the film. “You’re going to be naked, you’re going to be covered in mud, you’re going to be under the ground, you’re going to be simulating oral sex with a seventy-five-year-old man. There are a lot of things that you’re gonna be doing that are really taxing. Four hours of makeup, emotionally you’re going to have to go from a one to a ten, you’re tearing your hair out. Are you really, really up for it?” It was really about making sure she was up to the challenge, but you don’t know until Day One when you’re on set if the actor is really gonna go there. Right from the first minute of shooting she was there. The first thing we shot was her standing in her underwear in a mirror crying. Because she doesn’t like herself, she’s insecure about her body. I remember Kevin and I were sitting behind the monitor and we looked at each other and kind of breathed a sigh of relief. We were like, “Okay, she’s good!”
Kevin: As far as making her feel safe, yeah, of course, anytime you’re dealing with sensitive subject matter you want to make sure that you have as few people on set as you need and that everyone is being professional. You don’t want extra crew members standing around gawking during a nude scene or a fellatio scene. So you need to make sure that the people who don’t need to be there aren’t and that the people who do need to be there are being sensitive and not being sort of blunt. And, you know, you need to make sure that she feels safe about what she’s doing. 
But she says, “Nope, I wanna put the worm in my mouth.”
Kevin: Yeah, exactly! [laughs]
Dennis: That was her idea. We told her, “There are ways to edit around that,” but she wanted to really put one in her mouth.

You balance a lot of tones. One of the things the trailer doesn’t tell you is how funny this movie is. Was there ever any trepidation about pulling those multiple levels off?
Dennis: Yeah, there are scenes that we wrote and then excised from the script. There are scenes that we filmed that just tonally didn’t work. There are twelve deleted scenes on the DVD. For the most part the scenes are tonally of the same film, but there are some really good ones that we didn’t include because on the page they made sense but when you filmed them the tone was a little different. A lot of it was just talking to all of the actors on set, talking to all of the crew, and saying, “Here is the movie that we are trying to make. We know we’re dealing with the occult, we know we’re dealing with transformation, but we’re not trying to be campy. We’re trying to approach this as a very grounded thing. It’s a metaphor. The satire is not gonna be in your face but the metaphor is going to be loud and clear.” That was sort of how we approached it. We didn’t approach the ending like it was a slasher film, the whole thing was very guided by the consequences of the character and the decisions that she makes. She goes into that house and what’s going to happen? And it all plays out very organically. It almost plays out like a Manson murder gone wrong.

I read that you’re both working on your next project already?
Dennis: Yes.
Kevin: We’re working on a script but it’s not in development, yet. We don’t know if it’s going to be our next film or not. We’ve got a couple of scripts that we’re working on at different stages. Hopefully one of them will be the next project. One of them that you probably read about was Geminia, an erotic thriller. We also have a small thriller and a biiig sci-fi film which probably will not be our next project. It’s a huge jump from Starry Eyes but it’s definitely something that we hope to do one day.