I’ve always enjoyed talking to someone up-and-coming in the film industry, whether they be new filmmakers or fledgling actors rising up from local theater or fifth billing on a struggling cable series who have found a way to make a mark in a new film and show a spark of creativity and talent that gives them and us hope for a long and interesting career. That doesn’t always happen, but the aura of excitement and enthusiasm these folks have is infectious, and that is absolutely the case with actress Lydia Hearst.
If the name sounds familiar, that’s because Hearst is the great-granddaughter of publishing mogul William Randolph Hearst and daughter of Patricia Hearst, who earned her own notoriety in the mid-1970s after being kidnapped by a left-wing terrorist organization. But in a strange turn of events that only a certain Baltimore filmmaker could dream up, Patricia’s brush with acting came in the more recently films of John Waters, the first being CRY-BABY, and Lydia was often right by her mother’s side on these warped sets.
She started her career in entertainment in the early to mid-2000s as a model, and she quickly became one of the most photographed supermodels of her generation. It wasn’t long before her passion for films (especially in the horror genre) got her interested in acting, and she began popping up in smaller supporting roles in such films as AMNESIA, 2 JACKS, DELIRIUM, and CABIN FEVER: PATIENT ZERO.
This month alone seems to be a banner one for Hearst, with sizable roles in this week’s #HORROR; the WE tv series “South of Hell,” executive produced by Eli Roth and Jason Blum, which premieres next week; and the film that brought us together recently CONDEMNED, from writer-director Eli Morgan, a nasty bit of body horror set in a run-down building filled with colorful and infected residents. In it, Hearst plays as junkie named Tess, a truly beautiful mess of a woman, and the film is easily one of the nastiest things I’ve seen all year.
Another highlight of Hearst’s year was her September engagement to King of the Nerds and host of all shows and panels, Chris Hardwick. When I spoke to her recently, we got into both her love of horror and her seeking out more dramatic roles (like her upcoming THE DOWNSIDE OF BLISS) and other non-horror outlets. She was incredibly personable and seemed absolutely committed to pursuing acting as her full-time career, and it was a real pleasure chatting with her. Please enjoy my talk with Lydia Hearst…
Capone: Hey, Lydia. How are you?
Lydia Hearst: Hello. I’m well, thank you. How are you?
Capone: Good, thanks. First of all, congratulations on the engagement.
LH: Thank you very much.
Capone: Chris represents all of us nerd types quite honorably. So that seems like a fun match.
LH: Yes, he’s amazing! [laughs]
Capone: Are you into the geeky stuff as much as he is, or is there really only room for one?
LH: I am. I am obsessed with BACK TO THE FUTURE. I’m more of a horror/sci-fi geek, if that makes sense. I’m an avid horror movie buff. I watch them day in, day out. I think ARMY OF DARKNESS is one of my all-time favorite movies growing up, and still is. I’m so excited about the new series coming out. I saw the pilot, and it was brilliant. So we complement each other nicely.
Capone: It’s been a couple of years since I’ve seen Chris, probably at a Comic-Con. He’s usually busy there, weirdly enough.
LH: Yeah, doing all those panels.
Capone: Back in the late 2000s, when you first started getting into acting, did you do anything special to get ready for that transition from modeling into acting, just to make sure people took you seriously and to make sure you took the whole practice of acting seriously?
LH: Acting was something I always wanted to do. It’s been my passion. I just got extremely fortunate with my career in fashion. I did a few short fashion films and a guest spot on “Gossip Girl” before really taking the plunge and making the transition to make sure it was something I thought I truly would be capable of and to really know what I would be getting myself into. I’ve been working with coaches. I still have a coach that I work with.
Every time I get a script, I read it about 100 times before getting to set, and I break down my character line by line, word for word. I really put in a lot of effort just to make sure every line is marked, every line is highlighted, it’s all color coded. That might be the Virgo in me. I always like to be extremely prepared and know the ins and outs. Not even just my lines, but other people’s lines too just so that I know the scene breakdown, and what’s happening and really taking place. That was one of the things that I sort of learned from an interview that Anthony Hopkins gave, where he says he reads the script anywhere from 100 to 200 times before hitting the set. I think it’s a really amazing method and practice.
Capone: It’s great to hear you’re so devoted to it.
LH: Yeah, I pretty much eat, sleep, breathe the art.
Capone: This like has become a full-time gig for you.
LH: It has, yeah.
Capone: Weirdly enough, the day after I watched CONDEMNED, I got the pilot of “South of Hell,” which I didn’t even know you were in it.
LH: Oh, that’s so great. Yes, yes! I’m in seven out of eight episodes.
Capone: I’ve only seen the first one, and it certainly looks like you will be in more based on that one, but I wasn’t really sure.
LH: Right. It’s a little bit of a teaser. Yeah, I’m in seven out of the eight episodes. It’s so much fun.
Capone: So this is your job now. This is the thing you’re going to devote your time to.
LH: It is, yes. I have been extremely fortunate in the last year and a half, two years. I basically have gone from one set to the next, which is very surreal but incredible at the same time. The projects that are coming out now—“South of Hell” which premieres at the end of the month, #HORROR, CONDEMNED—then I also did a romantic comedy that premiered at one of the festivals—the International Film Festival in Manhattan—and I won best actress in a feature for that, which was amazing. We filmed it last fall in New York. It was my first leading role, and honestly I’m so grateful and honored that the director read me for the part. We had the conversations, and he saw something in me and was willing to take a chance. It’s a big decision to chose someone to be your leading lady. It’s an incredible honor.
Capone: What’s the name of that film?
LH: STEALING CHANEL.
Capone: I noticed another title that I think you shot already. It’s called DOWNSIDE OF BLISS, which looks like a straight-up drama for you.
LH: That is a straight-up drama, yes. I play someone with leukemia. Yeah. It’s much more heartfelt and a little more depressing.
Capone: Are you going to make us cry?
LH: It’s definitely a tear jerker. That’s for sure, yeah. There are also some humorous moments in it, but it is a very serious drama. But then I do have a few more romantic comedies coming out as well. I did one a couple of months ago called TWO FOR ONE. In December, I’m gearing up to do another movie here in Los Angeles called SWING STATE with Sean Astin.
Capone: You mentioned that you have these roots in the horror genre, and a lot of what I’ve seen you in to date, starting with CABIN FEVER: PATIENT ZERO, which was probably the first time I remember seeing you. Aside from ARMY OF DARKNESS, what are some of your other touchstone horror films?
LH: I literally watch almost any and every horror film that comes out on iTunes or On Demand or in theaters. I love everything that’s coming out of Blumhouse right now. I like all those SAW movies, THE SHINING, MISERY—basically any adaptation of a Stephen King book I love and have seen. I really do. I love it all.
Capone: CONDEMNED is such a whacked-out film with crazy characters, and there’s an appalling amount of goo and body fluids covering every surface. It looks like the most disgusting set I’ve ever seen. Was it really that gross when you were shooting it?
LH: [laughs] It was really dirty and gross. We really were in that set and on location, everything you see; it’s pretty real in a sense. We were all right there, day in and day out filming. It’s funny, because I think we all knew that we were dirty and gross, but when you’re filming, you’re more focused on the situation and the scene, and I don’t think you realize just how bad it is. So when we all watched it, it even grossed me out, and I was there during the filming. I saw it. But really seeing it up close through the lens and on the screen, it adds a whole other level of gore.
Capone: Let me back up a little. How did this particular film come to you?
LH: Well, my manager and my agent know that I’m obsessed with horror. That was one of the first fields that I really wanted to break into. It’s almost like a right of passage that every big actor and actress, they start out in the horror field. George Clooney, Renee Zellweger, even Matthew McConaughey, weren’t they all in a TEXAS CHAINSAW movie?
Capone: Yeah. THE NEXT GENERATION.
LH: So it was something I really wanted to do. When they found this script, they sent it to me, and I fell in love with Tess. She’s so different from me, and she’s a victim of circumstance and poor life choices, and she just winds up squatting in this building. I felt sorry for her, but I wanted to be the person to give her a voice.
Capone: She plays a junkie who doesn’t seem to understand she’s a junkie until someone actually says the word. What was the key for you for opening up and capturing that?
LH: Well, the sad reality is there are people out there who don’t realize they have addiction problems. And a lot of the time, it takes somebody saying something to them to even acknowledge it themselves. Maybe they do know it somewhere in their deep subconscious, but there’s always that hitting rock bottom and something happening to someone to finally wake up. So it was about thinking along those lines. I watched a lot of episodes of “Intervention” to try and understand that mindset. It was a lot of fun to play with her. She was a true character piece.
Capone: I won’t lie, it was a little unnerving to see you in this film and then seeing you in “South of Hell” back to back, playing drug addicts in both. Lots of needles in your life.
LH: [laugh] I know. I think because I’m like super petite, but also have really long limbs, I don’t know. I guess there’s something about that that people just say, “Drugs!” I guess. I don’t know. But you get to play those more fun roles, which again it’s so different from who I am. It’s a lot of fun to play with those things that in real life would never happen.
Capone: Speaking of that, was it important to you to bury your looks to a degree to sell this side of her?
LH: That was actually a conversation that we had. Originally, they thought they’d maybe put some makeup on and make me look dirty, and I actually went out and I bought from a costume specialty store the rot and the nicotine that I would paint on my teeth every day. So I added this layer. And I dyed the underpart of my hair black. You can’t really tell. It was a subtle pickup on the camera, and I actually brought in like oils and powders. So alongside the special effects team, I was also adding more of my own vision, because it wasn’t enough to just have a pretty girl with a couple of track marks still looking pretty. I really wanted to get the point across that she truly had fallen from grace and was a true victim of these circumstances.
Capone: Without spoiling it—I don’t think it is spoiling it to say that pretty much everybody in the film dies—but you have a particularly magnificent death, which I’m guessing, as a fan of horror, you probably insisted on that.
LH: Right. It was a lot of fun.
Capone: You might as well go out like a rock star if you’re going to die in one of these things.
LH: Right. I loved it. From getting knifed in the face to that crazy tangent I go off on, then having my head chopped off. It was spectacular, and it brought it back to the EVIL DEAD/grindhouse-type feel when my head gets chopped off and the tongue is there and blood is squirting out. I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I could not have died in a better way.
Capone: It’s a true ensemble production. It seemed insanely chaotic—lots of scream and running around. Was it like that when you were actually shooting it?
LH: It was funny, because we all got along really well, so it was one of those interesting situations where we go from sitting around, talking, laughing,. Even with the rehearsals, because there was so much screaming, that when we did the rehearsals, it would be a lot of tip-toeing around. We’d lightly say the words of what we were saying and vaguely act out what was going to happen. Then it would go from this very light-hearted, no one screaming, no one raising their voices—we’re almost whispering—to the second they say action. Cut to everyone screaming, everyone’s running, there’s blood and goo and explosions everywhere. It was a bit of an organized chaos. But I think that added to the excitement on set.
Capone: So you mentioned #HORROR. I just watched the new trailer that just came out yesterday, but I know nothing about it. The trailer actually seems deliberately vague about what’s going on. Can you talk a little bit about the premise and what your role is in it?
LH: Yeah, my role in #HORROR is a much smaller role during the opening sequence of the film that sets up the premise of the rest of the story. I compare it to Drew Barrymore in SCREAM. Actually, it’s a really terrifying film because it’s very possible that something like this could happen. Tara [Subkoff, writer-director] put a very artistic spin on the story, and it’s so beautifully shot, and it’s also very psychologically traumatizing. It has a lot to do with teens and bullying and the games that they play. It’s really interesting that a lot of young kids don’t think that trolling on the internet as bullying in a sense. This plays on that aspect, where someone says something, they start picking on somebody online, and then it takes a turn for the worse, and it’s no longer online. It’s happening in real life and reality. It’s like a bit of a loose cannon when you poke a bear.
Capone: And with “South of Hell,” the pilot was directed by Eli Roth, so that probably crosses that off your bucket list.
LH: Right. Eli’s amazing. I’ve known him for years. So I was very excited when I found out I was doing that show.
Capone: What do you learn from working with him? What do you learn about filmmaking, and about making horror specifically?
LH: You have to be ready for anything and everything, especially when it comes to that show. It’s so dark and so twisted, and I think one thing the fans don’t know is there’s actually no blood in the show. There’s a lot of other stuff, but there’s no blood. There’s a lot of goo and there’s a lot of demons and effects.
Capone: Insects.
LH: Yeah! But no blood. So I think that might actually be a little bit of a change for Eli.
Capone: That’s true. It seems like in this short time acting, you’ve gotten to do a fairly wide variety of roles, but are there any types of films or roles that you’re still looking to tackle or actively seeking out at this point?
LH: My next project, as I said, is going to be another romantic comedy. But yeah, honestly, I’m hoping “South of Hell” comes back for another season. I loved Charlotte. She was so much fun to play. I’m not ready to say goodbye to her yet. I really hope audiences watch that show, and we get to go back to Charleston.
Capone: Well, I guess that means she doesn’t die. So that’s good news. We know that now.
LH: Oh yeah, I might have given too much away. [laughs]
Capone: There are plenty of other people in the show to die, don’t worry.
[Both laugh]
LH: Right. It’s a big cast.
Capone: Are there any other creative outlets that you’d still like to explore in your life?
LH: For creative outlets, I’d love to keep doing everything that I’m doing. I think if I were to branch off into other movies. Who wouldn’t want to be in a superhero movie, a Marvel movie? That’s definitely one of my dreams. I would assume it’s everybody’s dream in this business. Those projects are incredible.
Capone: That being said, do you dig doing these lower-key things, where you probably do have a little bit more input into the creative process? Once you start doing those bigger films, you might lose some of that.
LH: True, but I think you find a balance. If you did a big project, I don’t think that would exclude you from doing another smaller-budget film on your downtime. Because the smaller-budget films, one benefit of those is they film over the course of 18 to 24 days, so it’s a relatively quick turnaround. I’m a firm believer that there are 24 useful hours in every day.
Capone: So you want to use as many of those as possible?
LH: Exactly. I would go non-stop and keep working all day every day if I could. And hopefully I get there.
Capone: Lydia, thank you so much for talking.
LH: Thank you so much. I’m glad that you watched and liked CONDEMNED and “South of Hell,” and I hope you like #HORROR too. It’s actually premiering in New York November 18 at the MoMA, and then it hits theaters on the 20th.
Capone: Cool. It was great talking to you.
LH: Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your day.
