The first trailer for Mother Mary, A24’s new pop star-centered thriller starring Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel, bears the message “This is not a ghost story.” It’s a bit cheeky, given that the film is directed by David Lowery, who made 2017’s A Ghost Story, but it also suggests something a story centered more on religious fervor.
Hathaway plays a pop star who, at first glance, seems a little bit on the run. She arrives at the door of Coel’s character asking for a dress; Hunter Schafer is also there in what looks like an assistant role. Somewhere along the way it seems like a séance is conducted to cast some kind of spirit out of Hathaway as she eventually gets back on stage.
We’ve been hearing about Mother Mary for quite a while; Hathaway and Coel’s casting was announced way back in March 2023, as was the information that Jack Antonoff and Charli xcx would be creating new music for the project. (brat was hardly a twinkle in Charli’s eye, much less another soundtrack for Wuthering Heights.) Back in July, Hathaway teased a little bit of the film in an interview that accompanied her Vogue cover, explaining that “I had to submit to being a beginner” when learning how to be the Taylor Swift-Lady Gaga hybrid depicted in the film. (The trailer and its religious overtones make it look a little like Madonna, too.) “The humility of that—showing up every day knowing you’re going to suck. And it has to be okay. You’re not ‘bad.’ You’re just a beginner. Getting to that mindset—I had to shed some things that were hard to shed. It was welcome. But it was hard, the way transformational experiences can be hard.”
Mother Mary is due out in spring 2026.
