Lucky was originally due to premiere at SXSW, but unfortunately due to world events, the festival was cancelled. SXSW’s loss was Fantasia’s gain though, as the film played to a brilliant reception. Written by Brea Grant (After Midnight) and directed by Natasha Kermani (Imitation Girl), Lucky sees a novelist, May (played by Grant herself), stalked night after night by a masked man. As those around her try to belittle the situation, she realises that she’ll have to save herself, or die trying. The film offers a brilliant metaphor for the female experience and straddles the tonal line between horror, humour, and drama beautifully. Starring alongside Brea Grant are Dhruv Uday Singh (Good Trouble) as May’s husband Ted, and Kausar Mohammed (Great Pretender) as May’s sister-in-law.
Shortly after the screening at Fantasia, we caught up with director Natasha Kermani and cast members Dhruv Uday Singh and Kausar Mohammed to learn more about how Lucky came to life.
Lucky screened at Fantasia last week, what has the reaction been?
NATASHA KERMANI: It’s been amazing honestly. It’s a little bit funny trying to gauge it because we’re all getting used to the virtual world, but it’s been really amazing. I think the movie really swings for the fences, so there’s always the question – are people going to respond to it? Is it going to be too crazy? Too out there? But I think the Fantasia audience especially is really open to really whatever you throw at them. It’s been really awesome to see the response. I’m just super thrilled to be playing Fantasia, it’s been a dream to play Fantasia for a long time. We honestly couldn’t be happier.
So what drew you all to a career in the film industry, it’s not the easiest way to make a living?
NK: It’s certainly not. For me, I come from a family of artists so I think it was always on the table for me. My dad is actually a huge cinephile. So it was a combination of growing up around creatives from a very young age and then falling in love with cinema through my father who is not an artist. I’ve been working for a long time, I worked in branded content, commercials, making short films, and this was just an opportunity. I had just finished up my first feature film, and was looking for my next project and I read Brea’s script, and I just saw potential to do something really unique with a really powerful perspective.
DHRUV UDAY SINGH: I agree with your thesis that it’s not an easy life, or definitely not a regular life. It’s sort of like running away with the circus in some ways. Which also comes with it’s own benefits in that if you’re someone that doesn’t love a lot of outside structure, but like making your own structure. I think the lifestyle of this industry is good for that. I think I came into it from a similar perspective of I was always obsessed with movies. I always loved all kinds of them. Then I came out to LA to study film and creative writing at USC, which really cemented that love of movies because you’re being exposed to so many different genres and decades of film history and stuff. I really got into acting when I started doing improv comedy out here in LA. It’s this very loose hybrid of writing, acting, and directing all at the same time, but you’re doing it on the fly in front of an audience. I think maybe on some level there’s an insecurity maybe that I wouldn’t be any good at anything else so maybe that’s part of it also.
KAUSAR MOHAMMED: Just to add to everything that they’re saying, I think for me it started similarly in that it was comedy that cemented it for me. It was wanting to make stupid sketch videos when I was in middle school, but only could be done through video or film-making. So I think that’s where it started. Then I think a big driver at this point is representation and wanting to see our own faces in the media and have our own stories told. I think it’s tough, but that’s what keeps me in.
You’re also the co-founder of Shifting the Culture, can you talks a little about that?
KM: Absolutely. It was about 2017 when #MeToo went down and I’d been in spaces for gender justice and for sexual harassment prevention. I think I was on set that day when all the news about Harvey Weinstein dropped and just saw a big need to have discussions about consent. So from there we started shift, which now we do racial justice and gender justice training, discussions of equity and sexual harassment prevention.
This film has a strong female team, and culturally diverse team, in front of and behind the camera. I’m guessing when you got the script you were keen to get involved with the project?
KM: Yeah. I think for me I read it and I was, ‘I get this metaphor, this is so smart, it makes so much sense.’ Absolutely it’s systems that we can’t see, and I think it does what Get Out did so well. You take this thing… this inequity we can’t grasp, and put it into a story form and that’s how you know how horrifying it is. I thought it was genius.
NK: Beautifully said.
So Natasha, is that what hooked you in as well? It’s a very different film to Imitation Girl, but does have some similar themes around sense of self.
NK: I really responded to her [Brea Grant’s] clarity of perspective that she brought to the script and there’s also something really wonderful that she did. You’re sort of experiencing this woman’s journey through her perspective the while way through, and then there’s this moment in the script when the world broadens out and you start to understand the scope of what the movie is about. So it’s not just this one person’s experience, but it’s also acknowledging the breadth and scope of the problem. That for me became a really interesting challenge as a filmmaker. For me, it’s like you don’t want to make the same movie twice right? I already made Imitation Girl, I’m not going to make that again. This was different. This was actually a challenge, it was a difficult thing to do. Tonally, you’re riding a very thin line. You have to really understand at which point are we playing satire, at which points is it drama, at which points is it horror? Tiptoeing around all of those things was really interesting to me.
Since we have the cast here, I also want to mention one of the earliest things I proposed to Brea Grant… because Brea herself is very funny. She works really well in the world of comedy ,so I pitched her, ‘what if we look at comedic actors? What if we look at actors who have a background in improv and that space? Because we need someone who has the capacity, not only to play the dramatic parts, but also the satirical parts. Who would have that imagination and that dark comedy space that they feel comfortable inhabiting.’ I feel so grateful that we were able to find these guys. They came in and understood the dramatic beats, but understood not to hit those dramatic beats too hard. We’re really coming in and it’s just a little tap and then you let the film do the rest. The whole thing would just drown if we were super heavy the whole way through. I though that that was also an interesting challenge tied into this larger ethos of it; it starts as a satire and ends very serious, right. You can really understand the gravity of what we’re talking about by the end of the film. To take the audience on that journey was appealing to me.
As cast members, was it daunting knowing that your co-star knew all of your lines as well?
DUS: It was a little daunting only in that I was constantly concerned about doing justice to Brea’s vision, and of course Natasha’s vision. But yeah, since she had written those words, I constantly asked questions about, ‘is this in the pocket of what you want? Am I helping with my performance to shuttle that metaphor across the finish line?’ There was a little bit of trepidation, but then when we were in the scene, Brea is such generous performer and actor that it felt like we just got to be in the moment and play. I think from what Natasha just said about specifically seeking out people with an improv experience or background, I think even the way you directed helped us tap into that a lot. There was a looseness and a groundedness to all the scenes that it felt very much I could get out of that place where I was questioning whether I was doing Brea’s work justice or not. It was intimidating, but not in a way that hindered us. The moments between action and cut always felt like the most fun playful spirit, which was great.
KM: Exactly, and I think that Brea is so kind and so – as Dhruv said – generous, and just fun to work with that it didn’t feel any pressure. We were very much there to play, and Natasha’s direction supported that.
Natasha, were there any films that you guys looked to for influence or inspiration? I got an odd mix of Happy Death Day and Scream.
NK: It’s interesting, I have never actually seen Happy Death Day, which is terrible to say because it’s such a popular movie. But the comparisons are definitely there. Scream for sure was subliminal. We definitely didn’t set out to reference Scream. But I think it’s very much in the DNA of Brea’s writing. That self-referential, self-aware tone. I love Scream. I think Scream is absolutely brilliant. In the edit, it was funny, as the editor and I were sitting there, we would have these scenes put together and we were like, ‘wow, this feels so much like Scream!’ Dhruv would have one of his strange lines, or a moment with Brea on the phone, and it’s totally there.
In development, no, we honestly didn’t really [have anything]. Because it’s so different we were just going at it logistically. Looking at our resources. Looking at the cinematography and the scene work and how we were going to put that together to express what the script had. It really all came from the script, we weren’t really trying intentionally to reference anything else to be totally honest. I know references are often fun, but for us it really is uncharted new territory, this movie, so we were just setting out and choosing what we thought was best to tell this story.
Colour seems to play a really key part of your films, can you talk a little bit about the colours used in Lucky? For example, there’s a lot of the colour blue for May.
NK: Yeah, so it’s pretty simple. May’s colour is a light blue. Sort of a clear blue. That’s not really based on anything except I just wanted Brea to have this…she kind of reminds me of a Bergman actress. Like somebody who would be in Persona or something. So I wanted her with the frosted blonde hair, and just frost her up. That was an instinct I had. So you’ll see her in a lot of those pale blues… never goes too pastel. There’s always some sharpness to it. Frosty was the word that we liked.
Then the man is of course the opposite, he’s this deep red. Even his coat. Our wardrobe designer, brilliant Brianna Quick, was able to find a coat that actually isn’t black or brown, but a very, very deep maroon, so the red is in all of his outfits, even when it appears on screen as black or brown. So it was really that simple delineation that we had blue for May, red for the man, and then as we move into the third act of the film, you start to see the colours really juxtapose against each other. Of course, the most extreme is in the parking garage where you just see blue and red. There’s no white light at all in that third act sequence, all the light is either blue or red. A very simple concept that we just tried to bring into all the elements of the film.
It’s like the walls in Sarah’s kitchen are also blue as May moves into Sarah’s area too, and starts to take over that.
NK: I was so happy to find that kitchen. That’s was actually just in the location and I was so happy. It was exactly the colour that we wanted. Some times fate lends a helping hand.
[To NK and DUS] When you read the script, what was it about your characters that stood out to you?
DUS: Ted is not one, but it’s always fun to play a villain. What I loved about it was that you were never sure really where he was on that. There was something even more fun about the uncertainty of this. The metaphorical part of the film made me really excited about playing him and what his role was in that, as someone who walks around all day as a man. There’s so many things. You don’t really internalise about the female experience, and I feel like a genre movie especially… it’s like an empathy machine almost. You’re now seeing her in these situations and I feel like Ted is both comforting, because he loves this person, but is also completely blind to parts of her experience and doesn’t want to actually believe her at the most important moments or just glib about this man. I think the scene that made me most excited was the scene where the man shows up outside and he tells her very casually, ‘that’s just the man who shows up to try and kill us every night,’ there was something so fun about that to me. It spoke to this grey area of this character where you just couldn’t get a grasp on who and what Ted was. I don’t know, but I imagine that’s what it might be like sometimes dealing with men as a woman, where you just don’t know if this is someone who really cares and is comforting, or maybe the most dangerous person in your life.
KM: (Laughs) The grey area.
DUS: Not to say I was excited about that, in an awful way.
KM: Yeah, what’s wrong with you (laughs)?
DUS: I just meant I was excited to explore that murky territory.
KM: It was those moments that I didn’t necessarily get right away that I was excited and challenged by. The version of that for Sarah is those moments where it dips in and out of reality as to whether she’s playing into all that’s happening with the man, or whether she is a place of security and safety. On the acting end, I just loved those moments of going in and out and finding those beats with Natasha. I remember we had a conversation like, ‘so when the lights might dim a little, those are moments that the world is warping between the two, finding that and being able to go in-between was so much fun.
NK: Both of these roles demanded a lot of subtlety. I think that that was actually really fun for all of us, because we’re working in this really heightened horror world where there is blood and fighting and all this crazy shit. There’s also these moments, these very, very still quiet moments. So again, it’s being able to do both ends of that.
Have you found that men and women have responded differently to the film?
NK: Yeah, our test screening was almost a perfect gender divide. The questions that were coming from the men in the audience and the questions coming from the women were almost exactly split, which was so interesting and so cool. It wasn’t necessarily negative, it was just the experiences that they were having [were different]. For example, a lot of the men were saying exactly what Dhruv said, ‘I walk through my life presenting this way and now I’m asking myself all these questions’. I remember somebody said, ‘I remember once my girlfriend didn’t want to take the garbage out late at night, and I was laughing at her. Now I feel guilty about it’… or whatever. He went back to that memory and saw it from a different perspective, which I thought was really interesting; whereas the women in the audience were laughing. They immediately got the satire of it, they were immediately on board with the metaphor.
So I think it’s just two very different experiences. Which of course makes sense because we experience the world around us differently. Not especially surprising, but I will say off of that test screening, it was really valuable for us. We want to make sure that this is a movie that everyone can watch. It’s not just a movie for women presenting viewers, it’s for everybody to watch. We wanted it to be accessible in that way, so I was grateful for the feedback.
The film has just been picked up by Shudder, do you have any release details yet?
NK: It’ll be early next year, exact dates to come. We are super super happy, and it’ll be everywhere Shudder is. I think that Shudder audiences are also just..it’s kind of like the Fantasia crowd, they’re looking for something unique and different and unexpected.
Have you used your pandemic time wisely, have you started to think about what’s going to be next?
DUS: I would say a mix… wisely is one way to describe it (chuckles). It’s been a mix of 25% wisely, 75% red wine and cheese. But I go back to work in like ten days. We start shooting on the show I’m on and then I’m starting a new job at the end of September. I’m a little bit anxious about that. I’ve been doing a lot writing, or as much as I can. I started learning the tabla, which is those Indian hand drums. I could not have picked a more challenging instrument to try and master in five months. Then yeah, going back to work feels a little daunting, but I’m excited to be around people, even though it’s going to be strange, and we’re all in masks and spread out. But we’ll see how it goes.
KM: I think that resonates. I spent the first few months of quarantine watching a LOT, a LOT, like a LOT, too much horror film, (laughs). That’s weaned off a little bit. But since then I’ve been gardening, kind of, sometimes. And writing more, which has been nice. I think writing has been the greatest and happiest productive thing that has come from quarantine.
DUS: You’re part of a sketch team that’s been making really funny videos this whole time…
KM: Yeah, thanks Dhruv. I’m part of an all South Asian sketch comedy team called The Get Brown. So that’s continued, which has been nice. We’ve essentially turned into a writers room because we’re shopping around our TV sketch show right now, so that’s true, we’ve been spending the time in a six month writers room, stocking up on sketches.
NK: And there’s your voice-over animation work…
KM: Yeah, I turned my closet into a voice-over booth, so that’s my office now.
NK: I have also been writing. I think that’s the silver lining of everything else slowing down. We were supposed to be on the festival circuit this summer with this movie, so I would have been on the road pretty much through March to September. So in a way, maybe that time is a blessing. I’ve been writing and pitching and bringing some new work out, which is important. At the same time, it’s a little bit bittersweet. We worked really hard on this movie and it would have been nice to celebrate it all together. But I think it’s going to have a great release and we’ll celebrate it at that point…and I did a full re-watch of The X-Files, which I think is a wise use of my time.
Natasha, the pairing of yourself and Brea felt very much like a dream team. Are you hoping to work together again?
NK: We would love too. We’re always scrounging for some new projects and looking at potential stuff to work on together, so absolutely!
I think she’s busy directing at the moment right?
I think she might have just wrapped, but yeah, Brea Grant doesn’t let a pandemic stop her from working. That woman will work come Hell or high water.
Lucky screened at Fantasia 2020 and will release on Shudder in 2021, date TBC. You can read our review here.
