EB: I feel like I didn’t choose this fairy tale; it chose me because the idea just came as lightning. I was not flicking through the fairy tale books, saying, “Where can I go?” When I got the idea, I saw the stepsister in a new light. I was in her shoes for the first time, pun intended. I saw the human within or behind the archetype, right? I needed to do that for all the characters, not let them be these two-dimensional archetypes we don’t understand and [who] do whatever their fairy tale tells them. At the same time, [I didn’t want to] stray away or try to say, “Oh, but she’s actually really nice.”
AVC: They have such clear motivations and justifications.
EB: I found the scene where she cuts off her toes in the Grimms’ version, and really identified with that moment, the willingness to do almost anything to try to fit within the beauty ideal. Then when I found the worm cure, “worm cure,” the tapeworm thing, I saw that, up until that moment, she’s been the victim of other people telling her, “You’re not looking right,” “Do this, do that,” or doing it to her. She’s a victim. But when she takes that tapeworm egg, that’s the first action she does herself. For me, that’s an image of her starting to self-objectify, so she’s internalizing the objectification and integrating it with her own belief system and identity. Then it eats her up literally and metaphorically from the inside.
AVC: But you don’t lose empathy for Elvira because, clearly, she’s suffering. It’s a sad movie in many ways. Was it difficult to torture Elvira?
EB: It wasn’t that hard because Lea [Myren] was so great. [Laughs.] It was so much fun working with her. It was harder writing it and knowing how far to take it. Not just making it but also now watching it with an audience, the biggest takeaway for next time I make a movie is, if I want to make something erotic or funny, if I don’t think it’s erotic or funny or shocking, the audience will probably not think that.
For the last part, where Elvira’s falling down the stairs, hitting her nose and everything. It’s so funny, when I wrote it, I was like, “Am I taking it too far?” It felt like “oooh” [winces], but I wanted to do it because it’s like the movie’s beating her up and saying, “You have to stop. You’re insane. Stop now.” Also, it’s freeing her from all the procedures she’s had done up until that point. Then it’s just so funny watching it with an audience because that’s exactly the feeling the audience has, but like, “Oh, no, please. No, let her be!” It was a good reminder that as a filmmaker, you’re your film’s first audience. Trust those instincts.
It was so much fun with Lea. I was a bit worried because it was such a physically demanding performance, and such long days and so much makeup and everything. I was really afraid I would push her over the edge or that she would crack at some point because she was going full force into everything. The day with the “falling down the stairs” stunt, I found her crying outside, and I thought, “Oh, no, now I did it.” She’s like 22 years old. It’s her first movie. Now she’s crying. I’m like, “Fuck, now it happened.” I went over. “How are you? Are you okay?” She just like, [crying] “Yeah, it’s just so hard for Elvira.” She was just feeling with her. Oh, what an actress!
AVC: This movie is meeting a moment of renewed sexism and remakes of fairy tales. It’s a hard-edged approach where not even Cinderella gets off easy. She’s not evil, but she’s also not perfect. What was your approach to writing her?
It goes back to your earlier question. Making sure each of them was a fully rounded character. When Disney redoes a movie or retells a fairy tale, there’s not one person’s perspective on it. It’s more like everyone should agree on it, which is one of their problems right now. No one’s behind it, saying, “This is why I want to tell this.” With my story, I understood that this is very universal. Many people, hopefully, will go see it because they know the story, but they will also need and want my perspective on it.
Cinderella was the hardest for me to relate to. Shocker. Because she’s the ideal. Very few of us are that kind or pretty or whatever, and I was trying to figure out what’s my Cinderella? What’s her Cinderella quality? I didn’t want to make her just blonde or stupid, although a little part of me did. “I’m talking to mice.” I put that in there a little bit.
AVC: But that’s too easy.
EB: Right, it’s too easy, and it’s not interesting. What’s my Cinderella quality that will still make her a Cinderella, but in an interesting way? It took a lot of rounds and workshopping. I found this idea that she’s a natural beauty, right? Everything comes naturally to her. Everything’s easy. Her sexuality. Her emotions. She just does it. She has no shame. She has so much self-love. With Elvira, everything is hard for her. She’s clumsy. She’s naive. I related so much to that in my teenage years. You know, when some of my friends were starting to have sex, I was like, “What are you doing? How are you doing this? How can you have this self-confidence and do these things? I don’t understand.” But it just came to them, right? There’s a truth in that, and also a class perspective in the film about how Cinderella is like a nepo child. If you’re born with money and good food and a good upbringing and love, yeah, a lot of things are going to go well for you. If you don’t have that, it’s a harder climb.
AVC: You get a sense of how young they are when Elvira catches Cinderella with the stable boy. Her reaction is total fear and disgust—
EB: And a little aroused.
AVC: And a little aroused. But she’s like, “I didn’t realize that was on the table.”
EB: It surprised me when I got this idea, and it led me to understand her, somehow. In this tale, they’re told as women. There is no reality to fairy tales. There’s no body. There’s no sexuality. It’s just these dolls that are moved around. It was important for me to put some human life into these characters.
AVC: There is a ticking clock with the tapeworm. It drives suspense for the rest of the movie. How did that idea evolve?
EB: I wanted eating and weight to be a part of it because, for many women, that’s a big part of trying to fit within the ideal. Then I found the tapeworm thing. I thought just swallowing it and being skinny doesn’t feel so cool. If it must go in, it must come out. I thought, “Oh my god. That’s my ending.” As I was writing it, I got this idea: I wanted her to be pregnant with a secret and have a relationship with it, like it’s her pet. That’s where the growling came from, so it could talk to her. I thought that’s a great way to remind people of what’s happening inside her, how it’s almost like a monster inside her eating her up, and she thinks it’s great because it’s helping her. But we all know that this is the recipe for disaster.
AVC: Was there any debate over whether to include magic?
EB: Absolutely. The magic part was hard for me for a long time because it’s Cinderella’s part of the story. But I didn’t want her to just show up at the ball. No, I had to say something about why she was able to get there and get the prince. I leaned into this idea. For the Grimm version, it’s at the dead mother’s grave where the doves give Cinderella the dress, so it’s already there. Her heritage gives her the magic. I took the ripping of the dress from Disney. Then she ran into the father, and he was already rotting, with the worms. I got the idea that the silkworms would start crawling on this beautiful blue dress. I thought, “Wait, a second [laughs], what if they were the mice!” Everything is just playing with a different version.
One last detail about the fantastical element: It carries meaning because class is the magic. Nepo babies have a magic that the rest of us don’t.
