Horrorella Talks BURN BURN BURN with Laura Carmichael and Chanya Button!

Horrorella: Congratulations on the film – I really loved it.

 

Both: Oh thanks!

 

Horroella: And I hope you’re having a good time in town and at the festival.

 

Chanya: Yes, we actually got here yesterday and were quite sleepy. We had a 20 hour commute to our screening. By the time we got there we had actually left our homes at 6 am our time and by the time we got to the screening it was midnight our time so it made it extra trippy.

 

Laura: We probably needed to sleep more on the plane. We tried, we just got over excited and watched loads of films together and had loads of snacks.

 

Chanya: The plane ride was reminiscent of the film in that…

 

Laura: It was like the Volvo.

 

Chanya: The Volvo in the film is like exactly the same age as us.

 

Laura: it is the most comfortable car though.

 

Chanya: It’s weird! It’s very peaceful in the Volvo. It’s very peaceful and incredibly comfortable.

 

Laura: I don’t drive – we haven’t talked about that in any interviews. So the Volvo, along with a 1920 sunbeam is one of the only two cars I’ve ever driven. So they’re both quite cumbersome. It’s funny.

 

Chanya: And Chloe hadn’t drive in like 10 years, 12 years or something.

 

Laura: Chloe was definitely more nervous than me.

 

Chanya: It was really funny. The crew sort of teamed up to just sort of remind me that Laura didn’t have a drivers’ license and Chloe was really nervous. Because we were making a road film and about a third of the film is in the car with them driving. But it worked out really well. You know, there are ways around it. They did great. Laura was a hero and did this bonkers crash course right before the shoot.

 

Laura: That was not good.

 

Chanya: But they did bits and bobs of driving and did really well. I mean the challenges of making an independent film – we shot this in 25 days all around the UK, so honestly, the fact that both of them were a little reticent about driving was the least of my worries.

 

Horrorella: Uou didn’t crash into anything, so really, you’re doing okay. 

Laura: Chloe did go up on a roundabout once and it cracked me up. The first time when we were going over the Seven Bridge, we were coming over the car park, and she just panicked.

 

Chanya: She was really nervous, but she was great. It was in character though. Her character’s quite an anxious person. I’ve got amazing videos with their prop phones. Once the art department cleared their prop phones I got this influx of silly pictures and videos they took of each other in the car. And I’ve got this amazing video of Laura doing a three point turn with Chloe and a load of other actors in the car. We had one tape in the car - it was just Tina Turner. In the Volvo you can listen to one cassette of Tina Turner. It was brilliant. And there’s Laura doing a really tense three point turn with this lovely, hilarious actor, this lovely man, just sort of giving her tips from the boot. “Left hand down. Left hand down.”

 

Horrorella: That’s fantastic. Can you talk a little bit about the genesis of the project and how the two of you came to be involved in it?

 

Chanya: It was my best friend in the universe, Charlie Covell we sort of developed the project together. She wrote it, I produced and directed it. So it was a very personal project in the sense of it was just us two sort of incubating it, caring for it like a tiny egg for a long time. It was sort of influenced by how much we were enjoying Lena Dunham, Noah Baumbach, all that mumblecore-y great stuff. And we noticed there wasn’t much coming out of the UK that really spoke to that. Fantastic stuff from the UK, but there was nothing in that dialogue sort of way. So our film’s sort of a message in a bottle to that. And very personal in the sense that this isn’t a script that was developed by a production company and sent to a director and hired a writer. This is something that two very close friends decided to bring to life. And very luckily – Laura, Chloe, Jack all came in to sort of make it happen.

 

Horrorella: Very cool.

 

Chanya: Very personal and lovely and made by people who really like one another.

 

Horrorella: So Laura, what specifically appealed to you?

 

Laura: I read the script and I loved it. I loved that it felt very of our generation and it felt very close to me and my friends and our experiences. And that also had heart to it. It made me laugh it made me cry. I’m very excited when I see people come out from watching it. They leave feeling good.

 

Chanya:  I’m really happy about being in Seattle at this film festival – neither of us have ever been here before – but I’ve heard wonderful things about the festival and how the city is a city of film enthusiasts. But the thing I love about here is that we drove up the Egyptian last night and there was a queue of people around the building for our film. And people coming up after - all sorts of different people who just love film. We basically, until now, have only shown the film to industry audiences, who have a very different critical eye. And it’s fine, it’s just a different thing. So it’s interesting to see. I don’t know how many people were in the Egyptian last night – it looked like loads. I was also probably seeing double because I was so tired. It’s just a massive room of people who love film and turned up and wanted to like it. It’s a real kick to see people enjoy it in that way because it’s a film that’s made to make people feel good.

 

Horrorella: Agreed. And what I liked so much about it is it is a film that makes you feel good but it doesn’t take a cheap, cheaty road to get there. You get a lot of really legitimately emotional moments from the characters and there’s a lot of honesty there. And I really appreciated that as it all came together. It isn’t overly sappy or just too easy to get to the end. You really see them follow their path and see their experiences.

 

Chanya: We get asked a lot of questions about the fact that at times, these people aren’t brilliant to one another. But it’s not like we’ve made a film about terrible people that happens to be entertaining. When you’re close to people, you are crap to one another sometimes because people are crap sometimes. And that’s what is nice for me. There’s no one single thing in particular that any of them do that is earth-shattering bad and makes you ask “Why are you friends with one another? You’re awful." The biggest thing is the fact that Dan was ill and didn’t tell them. You know, and that’s the biggest thing. We get asked a lot of questions about the fact that Seph cheats on her boyfriend, and it’s like Dan was dying and didn’t tell them he was dying. Should we talk about that? That’s an unlikable move. That’s trickier. That’s worse than her doing something rude with someone in a toilet. It’s funny. But all of its relatable, because you can see a path, even if you don’t necessarily agree with what they’ve done, you can see the path they take towards that.

 

Laura: Lots of producers worry about if these characters are going to be likable, and that can get in the way sometimes. And people actually do respond pretty well to characters that are three dimensional and are really crappy sometimes.

 

Chanya: And that’s another thing people have said to use quite a lot – “Wow, these are really complex characters” and I think it’s funny. We just tried to make real people and reflect our friendships in the story of the film. And I think more work should feel like that. We were just trying to reflect a truth that is in our own lives.

 

Horrorella: Given that we’re hearing a lot of conversation right now about more female driven films, about more female creators, what are you hoping that this film will add to that conversation?

 

Chanya: It’s cool to be part of that conversation. It feels amazing to be part of a project as a director. To be a director of a project that is women in control of women’s stories and to be in control of your narrative.

 

This industry is addicted to precedent. I know I’ve been in a position where I’m not being given an opportunity as a female director because “oh, we want a safe pair of pants for this. You haven’t done it before, so we don’t know.” The industry is addicted to precedent. So the fact that a female director can handle a big project or a female lead can sell tickets to a movie or people respond to a character that isn’t sexy and likable the entire time - I hope that this film can be part of a body of work that is setting a precedent. As we were saying “look what happens when you just let us do it. It’s fine, it’s not really alarming or weird.”

 

Horrorella: Right. People enjoy it, it works well.

 

Chanya: Exactly – it’s not a big deal, so for us as filmmakers and for the industry, I hope it’s a film that people can really enjoy and it moves them and makes them feel good but also contributes to a conversation that’s going on.

 

Horrorella: Well said.