Daniela Amavia may have started out as an actress, most notably on Sci-Fi’s CHILDREN OF DUNE miniseries (as Paul “Muad’Dib” Atreides’ sister, Alia), but A BEAUTIFUL NOW shows that her true passion lies behind the camera (read my review here). After making a few short films she finally wrote, produced, and directed her first feature, and it shows a deep understanding of how to depict abstraction and surrealism without drowning in pretension and self-indulgence, no easy feat.
In her story, a ballet dancer named Romy (played by Abigail Spencer) breaks down, locks herself in her bathroom and threatens to blow her brains out. Her friends amass one by one to try and coax her out, but she goes into a sort of internal trance where her memories, her relationships, and the roots of her depression all swirl into a shapeless, time-defying exploration of who she is and what she wants. The film hits notes that I’ve never seen before, and Amavia (along with Spencer) aggressively refuses to let this character off the hook with any easy explanations or motivations for her hysteria. She makes this her film, and it ends up serving as an ideal statement for her ambition and intention as a filmmaker.
Amavia was forthcoming about her efforts getting the film made with a cast and budget that would do the material service, and why she was so passionate about this mortally wounded character and her story:
VINYARD: Let’s get started by talking about the script. You’ve written and directed a few short films before this, but was this your first feature script?
DANIELA: This was my first feature script, yes. I had written three more, so I’m kind of ready to go on my next.
VINYARD: What inspired you to turn this particular story into a feature screenplay?
DANIELA: I wanted to do a story that dealt with how we think back on our lives, how our memories work. I was kind of listening to people telling me stories about what’s happened and I thought it was interesting how they delved into very specific moments and how they’d jump around in time to get to the moment that impacted them. I thought that really warranted a longer piece, and not something like five or ten minutes. So that’s basically why this became a feature.
VINYARD: The themes you were tackling were basically memory, the importance of reminiscing as you’re growing older, and the importance of friendship. Can you tell me which of these themes was most important in your mind and most challenging to get right?
DANIELA: The whole script was challenging, because I wanted to tell something in non-linear way and still have it make sense. So the structure of the script is actually quite worked out and complicated but it took me almost a year to build the framework, because this was my first feature script and I wanted to make sure that it all came together and made sense in the end. So that was really a challenge, especially because I’m telling a story that goes from B to A. It’s sort of like how to tell a story so people can enjoy it without going, “What just happened?”
It’s also important to me to be as honest as possible about friendships, and how complicated they can be. How we remember our past, and how that shapes who we will become, because I think we’re all very impacted by what’s happening all the time.
VINYARD: You also incorporate your own history as a dancer into the script. Why the decision to do that?
DANIELA: I wanted to be a dancer, I never was a dancer. When I was a little girl, I went up that, you know, staircase to the ballet studio, and I was dreaming of becoming a dancer, and when I failed, I suddenly shot up to 5’ 11”, and it was just over. There’s no way you can be a dancer if you’re that tall. But I kept my love and obsession for dance, because I feel it’s such a wonderful, artistic expression of feeling, of stories. Dance without words is almost like a silent film because it transports you without anybody telling you. It just takes you on this journey, and I just love it. So I wanted to incorporate that, and there were films like ALL THAT JAZZ that just really inspired me, because they incorporated dance, and that’s really where that came from.
VINYARD: Another interesting aspect of the script is that not only are you dealing with the protagonist’s memory, you’re also dealing with her friends discussing her right outside her door. Why the decision to split the narrative up like that?
DANIELA: That goes back to what I was saying earlier, how different people remember the same event in a different way. I had this “Aha!” moment where I was listening to friends of mine who had been in a relationship discussing why they broke up, and it was fascinating because they had completely different memories of what had transpired and how that affected them. It was almost like if you had them in different rooms, you wouldn’t know they were talking about the same event. I wanted to physically put a door between the two sides of the memory, and see what happens if one person inside there has her own memories while outside they’re discussing that same past, and see what happens in that conflict, or that tension.
VINYARD: Once you’d written the script, how did you start getting the movie together? Did you approach the actors first? How did it work out?
DANIELA: It took a very long time, Vincent. it took about eight years. What happened is I, at the time, was still acting, so I had done a movie with a producer named Keith Kjarval. I loved him, and so I gave him the script and told him that I really wanted to tell this story. Unusually, he kind of turned around, read it, and came back to me and said, “I’m going to help you make this movie.” I don’t think he knew how hard it was going to be, because it was not what you’d expect a first-time filmmaker to do. That was very, very hard convincing actors or agents or people with money to even consider it.
VINYARD: What do you think made it hard?
DANIELA: Because it was not a “normal” script. It wasn’t about two people walking down New York and talking about…something, or something you’d expect from a first-time filmmaker. This is a very complicated endeavor. It’s a story that has to be told on a few levels, and with incredible actors and all that. That was a very hard sell to get people to trust me to do that. And in the end, I feel like the people who ended up trusting us are essentially the people who are part of this film. Without them- the actors that came onboard without a lot of support from representatives, they just loved the story, and they trusted me. I’m grateful to everybody.
VINYARD: Let’s talk about the lead performance by Abigail Spencer. Like you said that was a crucial aspect that the whole movie rests on. How did you end up deciding on her?
DANIELA: My other producer is Lynn Kressel, she’s also my casting director, she was the one who found Abigail’s reel and sent it to me, and said, “You should watch this.” As soon as I turned it on, I think I watched five seconds of it, and I was like, “That’s her.” Which was a very strange moment, because I had dreamt up this woman, and there she was. That was very strange. I asked to meet her, and we did, and it’s kind of an odd situation because it’s almost like a blind date. It’s very, very intense. We just sat next to each other, and kind of didn’t speak for a very long time. She said something quite beautiful to me. She said, “Thank you for trusting me with her. I’m going to protect her.” At that moment, I just knew she was going to rip her heart out and throw it on the screen, and she did. I’m just in awe of what she did, and that she offered it to me.
VINYARD: It’s a very intimate, open performance. How did you get her to be in that place on set, that very expressive, abstract mental state?
DANIELA: Pat Scola- who was my D.P. on this and who I just think is amazing and so, so talented and I think is going to be a massive D.P.- he and I sat down, and we broke down the script over three-and-a-half weeks. We had basically every scene broken down by shots. We handed that to everyone on set so I could have the time- we didn’t have much money, we shot this in 18 days. We knew we wouldn’t have much time on the set to work on what we were going to shoot, so I wanted to do that first, ‘cause when I came to the set I wanted to have ability to not have to think about all of that stuff, to have it already done, and I’d have time to work with Abby and the rest of the cast. It was mostly about pushing them to not act. I don’t know how else to describe it. I didn’t want them to play beats, or play emotions. I just wanted them to be in the space, and let themselves be impacted by what is happening to them so they stay open to what’s going on with the other actors. I’ve seen actors who do a very laid out performance that they planned before, and then they’re kind of not open to what’s actually happening on the set, so I didn’t want that to happen. I kind of pushed them very hard to not act- that’s the best way to say it- just to take in what was happening and what was being said to them and to let it impact them.
VINYARD: Was there any improvising done on set?
DANIELA: Not really. A couple of small lines. It was more or less all scripted, but I wanted it to stay fresh and real.
VINYARD: Abigail does a lot of dancing in the film. Did she have experience as a dancer, and was there ever any use of body doubles or things like that?
DANIELA: Nope. Not at all. This is all Abby. Isn’t that amazing?
VINYARD: Yeah!
DANIELA: She’s actually dancing in every scene of the movie. We didn’t have the budget for a double, so she had do it all! (laughs)
VINYARD: Does she have background as a dancer?
DANIELA: Yes, I think she studied dance. Our choreographer, Andrea, is also a performance dancer. She’s a stunning blonde. She was so happy when she met Abigail, she almost cried. She was like, “Oh good,” ‘cause she was afraid we’d get an actress and she couldn’t really choreograph anything. Abby can basically do anything, and that’s incredible.
VINYARD: I’m Iranian-American, and I was very curious why you made the decision to make her character half-Iranian. I don’t think you have Iranian heritage, do you?
DANIELA: No, I’m actually fully Greek. Here’s why: I’m fully Greek, but I grew up in Germany, and then all over Europe after that, and I’ve always had this feeling of being an “other.” Wherever I went, I basically wasn’t one of them, and I wanted Romy to have this quality that she was sort of from here but also from somewhere else. I wanted the feeling of disjointedness with her environment. I also have a lot of Iranian friends, and I love the culture, and I thought it was the perfect background for Romy.
VINYARD: It was a very interesting touch.
DANIELA: Thank you. I’m glad you picked up on that.
VINYARD: I want to talk about the music. The soundscape of the movie in general is very intricately designed. You have a lot of original tracks by Johnny Jewel in the film. Can you talk about working with him and how you directed those cues and those moments?
DANIELA: That was kind of a magical coming together moment. I was having lunch with a friend of mine, and I was deep in post, editing the film with Adam (Mack), and he was saying to me, “What are you going to do about music?” I thought, “Well, there’s one person I would love to get the script to, but I don’t know how to get to him, and that’s Johnny Jewel.” He started laughing, ‘cause he’d actually met him. He said, “Well, let me get him the script.” And he did, but I thought nothing would come of that. A couple of weeks later, I got an e-mail from John, and it was so intense and intimate. He had read the script, and had watched the rough cut, and it was almost like he was the other side of my brain. He was sending me these notes on the story, and asking me these questions that were very personal, but also very insightful.
But it was funny, because for the first few months we worked together, we never met each other. He was on tour and I was sitting in a basement somewhere editing sound, so all we had was e-mail. We had these very, very personal conversations by e-mail at 3 ‘o clock in the morning, and he would send me music. He would send me music that he felt represented certain moments of the story. I would say 95% of what he sent me is what’s in the film now. It was that eerie and wonderful, and I feel like this is our angelic baby in a way, because he basically put into music what I was trying to express, the emotions I was trying to express. I am in awe of what he did, and I feel like, like you said, it’s such a big part of this film.
We finally met four months in, but most of the work had been done by e-mail.
VINYARD: You mentioned editing the movie. I can’t imagine it was an easy job compiling all of this into a coherent narrative, especially given what we learn at the end. Can you talk about the editing process?
DANIELA: When I did a short, I was lucky enough to have as my editor Donn Cambern, who is a very experienced editor. He did EASY RIDER (also THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, HOOPER, ROMANCING THE STONE). I remember the first time I walked into the editing room for my short, and just kind of being in awe of him. He looked at the script as I was sort of clutching it in my hands, and took it and threw it in the trash, and I just stared at him and I said, “What did you just do?!” And he said, “You don’t need this anymore. Now, we’re gonna tell the story again. You wrote it, you directed it, and now you’re telling it again. This is the third time the film’s gonna get made.” And I never forgot that. So when Adam and I went into the editing room, I tried to be conscious of that: that nothing I wanted to do mattered anymore, now it was just a question of “What does the film want to be?” Adam was very, very instrumental, and he helped me find that in the actual footage (as opposed to the script).
Later, Valdis Oskarsdottir came on with a second set of eyes, which was invaluable. Adam and I were very close to the story, and we needed somebody to look at it from the outside to tell us about reigning it in, and kind of put us on a different track.
VINYARD: One thing you achieve in the editing is a very specific presentation of time. We see a lot happen, but then we check back in with Abigail, and only a minute has gone by on the clock in the bathroom. Can you talk about the significance of that, and why you wanted to express the relativity of time in that way?
DANIELA: I just feel that time is relative. Our lifetime feels very long to us, but it’s really just a blip, a millisecond- it’s not even that, if you think about the history of time. We’re not even a speck of dust in this space. I wanted to talk about what time actually is. A minute can feel like a lifetime, or a lifetime can feel like a minute. I wanted to try and see what would happen if you told a 90-minute story, but it’s really in 5 minutes. To explore the value of self-time, the relativity of time.
That goes back to memory, too. When we have memories about moments- when you ask people who have an accident, they will tell you they felt like they were in slow-motion, and that it took forever, but people tell them, “You know, it took five seconds for the car to crash.” In their minds, it was half-an-hour of them flying. That kind of phenomenon is very interesting to me.
VINYARD: Were you worried about getting that across in the editing?
DANIELA: Yes. It is a very abstract concept, time. Yes, I was worried about it. Adam and I had these cards on the wall in the editing room, like “7:00”, “7:01”, “7:02”, and we had all the story points that we wanted to get across just to try and keep us on track and not literally lose time as we go through this.
VINYARD: We spend most of the film in the bathroom. We keep coming back to it, it’s the primary location of the film, and it’s a very tiny, mundane bathroom. How did you practicalize art directing and shooting that?
DANIELA: Pat and I knew that we would have to build this, because there was no way to shoot a real bathroom because you can’t move any walls, plus it would be a bit boring visually if you only have on angle. So the set was built, by the grace of god, by Unified Pictures, our producing company. There were these two ladies, Cindy Chao and Michele Yu, who did our production design, and I showed them pictures of interesting-looking European bathrooms, because I didn’t want it to look like a specific place. This is a journey into the mind of a woman, and the bathroom is the center of her story, so I wanted it to be dreamlike. There is reality, and it looks like a real bathroom, but there’s moving walls, and we’re shooting from above, and we’re shooting from the side, which is not “realistic,” but it’s filmic.
So yes, it was all built by the ladies, and I think they did a phenomenal job getting that across.
VINYARD: I want to talk about the supporting cast for a second. Every role is very clearly defined and very specifically written. How did you go about finding actors for the rest of the roles?
DANIELA: I think it’s funny, ‘cause I kind of feel like they found us. Once I had Abigail, her agent sent the script to Cheyenne (Jackson). Cheyenne and I met, and he sat down, and the first thing he did was kind of stare at me, and he looked at my feet, and asked, “Why are you wearing white socks?” And I just had to laugh, because it was such a David thing to say.
I feel like they all came together like that. Cheyenne came through Abigail’s agent, we met and it was instant love. Sonja (Kinski) came in an audition, and had this really awesome quality where I didn’t know from one minute to the next what she was gonna do. At that point, I’d heard the scene, I dunno, 80 times, and she came in, and she was wonderful and had a very interesting quality. Elena (Satine), I think I saw a reel, and she had this kind of snappy, cool attitude with a heart behind it, which was how I’d seen this character. Patrick (Heusinger) came in, and he’s just a phenomenal actor. He sat down and did the part, and he walked out, and it was, “That’s him!” Same thing for John Patrick Amedori, who plays Chris. Guy (Burnet), i just knew through friends, and I’d seen his work.
Finally, Collette (Wolfe): I was actually stalking her, because I’d seen her work, and I really, really wanted her to play Ella. We didn’t get anywhere with her representatives at first, and I made lots of phone calls, and my producers and casting directors did as well, and finally they gave her the script, and she did like it, and she called me, and she said, “I’ll do it.” And I was just so happy, because I think she’s such, such, such a great talent. I feel like all of them are exactly what I was dreaming of without me knowing it.
VINYARD: You mentioned you’d written two other scripts since A BEAUTIFUL NOW, and I was curious if they were at the same level of ambition and intimacy as this one, and how far along are you in getting them made?
DANIELA: I just wanted to be ready to make the next movie, because I don’t want to have 8 years pass until I do the next movie. I really sat down and I thought of the stories I want to tell; they’re not personal, in the sense of like personal stories, but I think that any story, as a filmmaker, you have to find a personal connection to it.
One of them is an ALICE IN WONDERLAND story, but a modern version set in Berlin, with an American girl going there and falling down the rabbit hole and what she experiences. Another one is about four guys in Humboldt County that grow weed and live on the fringes of society. They’re not personal stories directly, but I have to have that kind of connection to all of them to make a good movie, and I will. They are different, but in the same token, they are just as personal.
VINYARD: Do you have any concrete plans to shoot them in the near future?
DANIELA: The one that I’m shooting in Berlin, it looks like we’re going to shoot next summer, which is great, because it’s set in August in Berlin, so that’ll be perfect. Then, the one in Humboldt County looks like it’s going to come together after that, and then there’s a third one called MINNESOTA NIGHTS set in Duluth, Minnesota. That one’s coming together for this fall. So hopefully I’m gonna be quite busy, and I love it.
VINYARD: Last question- would you ever want to act in any of your films?
DANIELA: No. Back when I was acting, I was always a storyteller. I was always the one loitering by the monitor and watched what people were doing, because what I was really interested in was telling stories, and that’s what my true love is. There are better actors for me to direct.
A BEAUTIFUL NOW is encoring at the Regal L.A. Live in downtown L.A. today at 3:55 P.M.
