My Animal, the feature debut of director Jacqueline Castel, gives a new spin on the werewolf mythos in a sexual coming-of-age genre-bender.
The feature debut centers on a secret tryst between small town hockey player Heather (Bobbi Salvör Menuez) and ice skater Jonny (Bodies Bodies Bodies’ Amandla Stenberg) that grows ever more dangerous thanks to a family werewolf curse.
My Animal premiered in select theaters on September 8 and will be released on Digital outlets on September 15.
Bloody Disgusting previously spoke with Castel about her debut out of Sundance, where the filmmaker broke down the werewolf metaphor and the symbolism behind her use of the color red. Ahead of its theatrical release, Castel shared the real-life chemistry between her leads for her twisted werewolf romance and how that translated to the screen.
Castel recalls how her casting fell into place, leading to a pair of leads who already had built-in chemistry.
“Well, it was cool with this project because I was interested in the two of them separately. They were my top picks,” Castel shares. “And what was interesting to be revealed through the process was I built the whole film around Bobbi because I was like, ‘I have to go after my lead first.’ That has to be the first thing because the whole world is built around Heather. So, I knew I was going to go after Bobbi, and then I approached Bobbi. When we had our first phone call, Bobbi read it and said, ‘Of course, I love this project. I want to be involved.’ Our first conversation was, ‘Oh, well, who are you thinking of for Jonny?’ And I mentioned Amandla’s name, and Bobbi was just so excited and said, ‘We’re friends. We know each other through the queer scene in New York and LA.’ At one point, they later revealed that they initially had a crush on each other when they first met.
“I thought, ‘That is so perfect.’ Because you have this real-life story that’s underneath all of it. You have this element of, I don’t know, trust, which I was also really attracted to because to get certain levels of performance, to have chemistry together, to be able to do the love scenes and feel comfortable. For everybody to really feel like they knew how to handle that material, I thought it was really exciting to have two people that were friends and that also personally connected to the material so much.”
That natural chemistry between the performers enhanced the romance between their characters, particularly the steamy romance scenes.
Castel explains, “Yeah, it was very special working with them in that capacity and feeling the kind of love and trust in the room. You know it’s going to be great. Those are the first scenes that I shared with Amandla when we were cutting the film. She was so excited and thrilled when she saw them. She was like, ‘These are so beautiful, and how I want to see this type of love shown on screen.’ That was a really exciting part of the project.”
The filmmaker also reveals why casting Menuez as Heather was so fortuitous to the story: “With Bobbi, what I thought was really compelling was just even Bobbi’s own story in terms of being trans and that being again, interlaced and interwoven into the film itself. What does it mean to transform? What does it mean to transform your body? What does it mean to transform your life? That’s this thematic thread I was also going after in the film. I really love that element.
“That’s why it couldn’t have been anybody else. It just makes sense to me.”
Look for My Animal in theaters now, on Digital this Friday.
The post ‘My Animal’ Director Jacqueline Castel on Star Chemistry in Steamy Werewolf Genre-Bender [Interview] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.