If she could, Amber would be a wall painted nondescript grey. Paint isn’t like wallpaper. It can’t be removed completely. No matter how much sanding down, they would still be forced to cover her with white to clear the slate before the next shade splayed atop her. She would haunt the walls and infuse the room with her very essence. This was what she wanted instead of a body.
This excerpt is among the countless breathtaking passages to be found in Consumed, the 2023 debut novel by Emily Robinson, one of my favorite actors, filmmakers—and now authors working today. Robinson first came to my attention with her role as the compassionate older pal of Elsie Fisher’s anxiety-addled middle schooler in one of my all-time favorite films, Bo Burnham’s 2018 masterwork, “Eighth Grade.” One of the movie’s most memorable sequences finds Fisher’s alienated heroine losing herself in the endless distractions provided by her iPhone, as Enya’s “Orinoco Flow” casts its spell on the soundtrack. Burnham is cleverly name-dropped once in Robinson’s novel, and the reference is entirely fitting, since the book brilliantly portrays how our insatiable appetite for consumption is exploited on a constant basis by modern technology.
After helming the splendid shorts “Virgin Territory” and “Hearsay,” both of which I previously spoke with Robinson about for Cinema Femme, she has made the leap to features with her galvanizing, often hilarious and endlessly provocative new film, “Ugly Cry,” which premieres at SXSW on March 12th. She stars as Delaney, a young actress whose attempts to land a major role are threatened by her titular “affliction,” as deemed by her auditioning overlords. Further spiking her paranoia is the fact her friend Maya (Ryan Simpkins) is vying for the same role, while her boyfriend Miles (Aaron Dominguez) appears to be getting too close to his female costar on a faraway shoot. It was a joy getting to interview Robinson again last week, this time via Zoom, about what is sure to be one of the most talked-about films of this year’s festival.
During our first interview, you said that “Virgin Territory” captures the “whirlwind of being very neurotic and anxious about needing to understand all of the things about myself that I don’t know how to define, as if I’m going to be tested on them.” I feel this theme is explored with arresting depth and creativity in both Consumed and “Ugly Cry.”
Yeah, absolutely. It’s interesting how the way in which you represent anxiety is so different depending on the format. In Consumed, I had the space of prose where I got to really kind of throw up on the page. Hopefully it’s not too verbose. It doesn’t go on forever, and it’s still a pretty concise book, but I had the ability to go down these tangents and really be in this internal world. The exciting challenge of taking that same sort of spiral into film is how do you externalize that? You want to create a journey for the audience in which they don’t just witness somebody experiencing it, but they are brought into it and find themselves kind of going crazy too.
In both cases, I did start to find myself questioning reality along with the characters.
To me, writing and acting feel very connected. Writing just has more structure and other voices that you have to take into consideration. Because “Ugly Cry” and Consumed are both so character-driven, I felt like I needed to make the viewer or reader feel that viscerally instead of being kept on the outside. Each story centers on very imperfect characters, and I think that if you were placed a little bit more outside of their moment-to-moment feeling, it might be easier to judge them more harshly and come from a place of less understanding. There are times where even I’m looking at it and am like, “Oh my god, why are you doing that?”, or, “Don’t betray your friend!” There are still going to be those sorts of reactions, but hopefully there will also be a little bit more empathy and understanding, since we are brought along on their journeys with them.
In Consumed, I love how you expressed the characters’ discombobulation through the fragmentation of words and the intrusion of iPhone screens. The list of missed call notifications chilled my blood just as much as the use of italics for the ghosts’ dialogue in The Shining.
Thank you so much! My god, I find text very exciting, and it actually applies to both projects. I am deeply interested in the way that we translate the internet, because I think, especially with prose, there is this desire to still make it feel literary and not fully embrace it. Yet there’s also value in subverting the expected by leaning into it. So it’s divisive, but I find it to be a really fun thing to explore by pushing the boundaries of it. I’m really glad you got it, and that it resonated with you.
As you can see in “Ugly Cry,” I am equally interested in translating technology on screen, which may cause some people to protest, “It’s not cinematic!” Of course, the presence of technology is not for every movie. Yet at the same time, we now live in a world so defined by technology that to deny it and not grapple with it feels akin to ignoring the world that we live in. It was always a huge part of this movie, and felt really integral to the way that Patrick Lawrence, our editor, and I approached the editing process.
I would say that I am very not precious. I write a script and for the purposes of time, specifically in the case of “Ugly Cry,” it was mostly scripted in the way that we shot it. I have done more improvisation on projects in the past. But then once we reached the edit, I realized we could do anything we wanted and throw out things as needed. The structure and a lot of the beats remained pretty much the same, but there are things in the film that were not at all in the script. A lot of the surreal videos Delaney finds on social media emerged in the edit. There were days where I’d be working in person with Patrick, and then I’d go home, get a new idea and send him an audio memo about it. The presence of technology in the film gave us a lot of room to play even after we had wrapped production, which was really special and only possible because I was also acting in it.
You’ve previously told me that part of your usual preparation process is to journal as your character. Did you do the same for Delaney?
A lot of the overarching character history—who Delaney is, what her choices are—had been figured out by the time I was actually prepping. There were so many iterations of the script, including a version where she had a dad, which was a storyline we ultimately cut. Before production, I did still journal as Delaney to remove her from the plot structure and what made sense arc-wise so I could delve into her inner monologue. So I do think that diary and first-person prose is really helpful. And then you throw it all away and just get into her body.
There’s tremendous tension in the sudden intrusions of internet sounds during a zoom audition in the film, where the camera of a director or producer will switch off mid-performance and a cough is heard.
We are all living in this zoom world now. During a different interview today, someone’s camera wasn’t working and he was like, “Ugh, technology!” There’s a moment in the audition zoom before Delaney’s about to do the scene, and I was like, “We need to add the sound of a garbage truck backing up outside!” There’s been so many times where I’ve been doing a self-tape and all of a sudden, a helicopter is in the sky, and I’ll be like, “Oh god…” Even when we were filming in Burbank, there was a big airport nearby, and the planes would keep ruining our sound. So the film was definitely informed by my own zoom hell. [laughs]
Zoom is the source of so much awkwardness. Right now, you see these enormous framed Lincoln pictures behind me. That’s because I am currently taking care of my dad as he recovers from knee replacement surgery, and he is one of the world’s leading Lincoln enthusiasts.
That’s so funny. We are not a pro-Lyndon B. Johnson household, but we are a pro-Robert Caro household, so we have a weird amount of LBJ merch because of this. You come in and it’s like, “What is happening?!” So I didn’t even blink twice. [laughs]
The scene where Delaney’s mother is feeding her lines during a self-tape earns some of the film’s biggest laughs. How did you find Robin Tunney for that role?
I’ve worked with most of the people in the film before, but I have never worked with Robin until now. She is so incredible. I have continuously referred to Amanda Kramer as my filmmaking faerie godmother. We got greenlit pretty quickly, so I texted her and was like, “We still need somebody for my mom, who do you think?”, and she was like, “I know.” That day, she connected me with Robin, who read it that night and responded to me immediately afterward. She was the most supportive, kind, generous human, and is such an advocate for female filmmakers, for indie film, for supporting people trying to tell crazy stories. Robin is just a force.
I cannot wait to see Amanda Kramer’s new film, “By Design”!
Oh my god, I’m so obsessed with it. Once “Ugly Cry” was officially happening, Amanda and I would go for hours-long walks or get coffee, and she would give me advice. She was just the best mentor. When there were specific things that we needed—such as when a location fell through—within twenty minutes, she had a solution for us. Amanda was always there to see how she could actively support us in a way that was beyond amazing. Her mind with casting is just crazy, and she always had the best advice, ideas and connections to provide us.
Watching that self-tape scene with you and Robin, I was reminded of a friend, Casey Hartnett, who has possibly the most gruesome death scene in the “Terrifier” franchise. You illuminate the inherent comedy in the bizarreness of playing a character being torn apart before snapping back to reality.
I may have been hyper-aware of it because I had started acting when I was a child. I have one memory of being on the FOX show, “The Following,” and it was a flashback scene. I was basically being given up to a cult leader and raped, and I was a young teen, so my mom had to accompany me. The male actor who was playing the cult leader could not have been nicer to me and her, but she was still sitting there thinking, “What did I let my daughter do?!” That is such a core memory for me, and I had so much fun doing it. There was stunt choreography and I got to scream. This was before intimacy coordinators, but we had a stunts person on set. It’s really fascinating how challenging things on paper are sometimes really fun and absurd to film. Also, I’ve had to do so many self-tapes with my parents where my dad is playing my love interest or my mom is attacking me. Afterward, you kind of step back and are like, “What are we doing?” [laughs]
There’s nothing duller to me than a “photogenic” cry, and I love how when Delaney cries, you include close-ups of snot coming out of her nose.
Yeah, I’m kind of biased. I love an ugly cry. I’ve had visible snot bubbles in multiple projects. Here, it’s not a bubble—it shoots out pretty aggressively. When we were in the edit, one of my producers had watched it on her computer. Maybe her computer screen was dirty, I don’t know, but she didn’t notice the snot. So my editor and I slightly heightened the sound of it a little bit and we sent the cut back to her. She watched it and was like, “Oh my god, did you add VFX?”, and I was like, “What? No, that’s just me!” [laughs]
I think the reason that the film is about an ugly cry is because it is this thing that should be pure and vulnerable and emotional and present. To be judged for not looking a certain way or having an eyebrow twitching when you’re trying to be vulnerable and connected is so sad. It shows the multiple things weighing on actors. I’ve been really lucky that I have not felt pressure to exist in a certain way. On “Transparent,” I was a teenager and would have zits. The makeup team would try to help me cover them up, and Joey Soloway would come in and be like, “Why are you covering up Emily’s zits? Take the makeup off, we need those on camera!” I really appreciated that.
For this film, it was important to us that Delaney would not be wearing any makeup unless she was transforming for a role or becoming the person that she wants to become. That was logistically very nice and also very important to the storytelling.
The ending confounded me in a thrilling way and made me want to see the film again immediately—which I did. I felt as if I had gone through the looking glass with Delaney.
I like to have answers for myself—I like to have clarity on what I think is happening—but I also think it’s really important to not just shove that into the viewer. I want there to be conversation. It’s not my intention to moralize about Botox or plastic surgery, but rather, to spark conversations around beauty standards. Why do we feel this pressure to not age or to look like a high schooler when you’re 30? I want it to be an open door for people to disagree and to laugh at different times. I think a lot of the movie is really funny, but it is awkward to laugh at. I’m really excited for the film to screen with a full audience because it’ll give people permission to laugh. Sometimes when you’re watching the film alone, it kind of lives in this liminal tonal space because the story is dark and sad and kind of spooky. So I’m looking forward to observing how watching it in community will encourage different reactions.
The score by Sóley Stefánsdóttir has an entrancing eeriness that reminded me at times of “Mulholland Dr.”
Sóley is a really incredible musician. She’s never composed for a feature before, which is really exciting, and I actually became aware of her work through Chalia La Tour, who plays the casting director. Chalia was in a short film that was done for the release of Sóley’s album, Mother Melancholia. It was a captivating short, and the music and her voice were haunting and mesmerizing in a way that felt tonally aligned with both Consumed and “Ugly Cry.” It felt kind of like a scream, but in a really eerie, haunting, beautiful way. So I was thrilled when she agreed to do it. We were talking a lot about drones and sounds—when to pull score back to let us live in a sort of eerie silence and when to bring score in to get us off edge. We talked a lot about themes, and created some specifically for the young version of Delaney.
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Ryan Simpkins about their work in Jessica Barr’s own superb debut feature, “The Plan,” and it was a joy to see you both act together in “Ugly Cry.”
I met Ryan over ten years ago. We did a Sundance Lab reading together with Kathryn Newton, who will also be at SXSW this year. Then Ryan and I both acted in “Edge of Everything,” which Sofia Sabella and Pablo Feldman directed and Jolene Mendes produced—and all of three of them are producers on my film. Ryan’s wonderful and we’ve been friends for a long time. We also have written things together, so it was really special getting to collaborate in this sort of meta way. Our characters’ relationship is very different from our own, but it does mirror how we’re both in film and on this journey together. Thankfully, our dynamic is much less fucked up than that of Delaney and Maya. [laughs]
It was really special for Rebecca and I to see Cinema Femme’s invaluable collaborator, Sofia Joanna, make her debut feature film appearance as one of the “alternate Delaneys.” You and Sofia both have a spirit similar to your wonderful character in “Eighth Grade.”
I was so glad that she agreed to do it, and it was really fun to have her there, though I wish it had been for more time. I have been very lucky to have had a few people in my life who I feel like I can turn to with questions. Relationships ebb and flow, and there are times you feel closer to them than others. But having people who you can ask for advice or who can you guide you toward opportunities is just so important, and I hope to be able to do that for other people too.
How do you quiet your mind in order to free your inner creativity?
I go for walks and I think about things—and then I overthink things and then I talk to my mom and then I overthink things with her. [laughs] I do like to write first drafts in coffee shops or other spaces that are not my home because I think it both forces me to actually write and also to just push while devoid of distraction. Consumed was nice because I was in college when I wrote it and I had the support of workshop. Sam Lipsyte and Hillary Leichter were my writing teachers who were really great about providing space and prompts that allowed me to push myself formally, which I appreciated so much. I used to host some writing workshops in LA because, especially in the city, it can be very hard to find people writing as a form of creativity rather than writing for work. I still work on finding ways to stay inspired and try to foster them in my creative practice. I get so in my head that doing physical things such as dancing, running or yoga, being in nature outside, and seeing people in the world and interacting with them is really helpful. The one thing I don’t like about LA is it’s all cars.
Now that you’ve published your first novel and directed your first feature, are you eager to continue exploring these mediums?
Absolutely! I am so ready to be back onset with another movie, and to write the next book. I just love doing this and I want to be able to keep doing it forever.
“Ugly Cry” premieres on Thursday, March 12th, at SXSW (for tickets and showtimes, click here). Consumed is available for purchase here.
