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Panic Fest 2023 Interview: Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein

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“Touchdown!” I had such a blast viewing and reviewing the tale of football themed slasher killer Smashmouth in The Once And Future Smash and End Zone 2 I reached out to the filmmakers behind the gridiron gorehound. Talking with Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein gave further insight into such a high concept double feature and then some.

What are your backgrounds as filmmakers?

We both grew up loving film and making films with our friends on VHS camcorders, but then shifted our focus to music. We worked with other directors to make music videos for our bands, which ended up being pretty successful! Michael’s band, The Motion Sick, had the music video for their song “30 Lives” on the smaller MTV networks, and it ended up in several Dance Dance Revolution games. Sophia’s band, Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling’s video for “Episode 1 – Arrival,” was featured in TIME as a best video of the year. 

We realized we wanted to make more videos, so we just bought some inexpensive digital cameras and jumped in. One thing led to another, and within about a year, we were making our first feature film. 

What was the inspiration for The Once And Future Smash and End Zone 2? Which came first?

We are fascinated by the explosion of horror fandom culture. We don’t particularly like going to conventions or collecting signatures, but we think there’s a wonderful and amazing community surrounding all of it. There are also all kinds of interesting politics about the relationships among actors. We had heard stories about disputes about who actually played masked roles that are hard to confirm in certain movies and thought that could be an interesting storytelling entry point into the convention world.

Michael was talking to our friend Neal Jones, who has been doing the Without Your Head Podcast for quite a long time and has interviewed just about everyone in horror. Neal mentioned that one of his former guests complained when he announced an upcoming guest because they had a public disagreement about who deserves credit for the masked role they both played. Michael mentioned to Neal that he had a script concept for a story like that but that he had no plans to write it because it would involve getting access to a convention and other costly production elements.

Neal checked in with his friends at the Mad Monster Party convention, who quickly agreed to allow Neal to film there. Neal and Michael thought about who they would want to cast in the movie, and the first two people that came to mind were Bill Weeden and Michael St. Michaels. Without a script, we asked them both if they would be interested in the concept and in shooting at Mad Monster. This was in late July 2019. We knew we would need to shoot at Mad Monster in February 2020, so Michael got down to writing the script as quickly as possible while Neal started thinking about which of his former guests might like to be part of it. 

We also knew we would have to shoot End Zone 2 before the convention so that we would have stills and other materials for production design, so we planned that for production in December 2019. We wrote an outline for End Zone 2 and then brought in our friend Brian W. Smith to write an initial draft of the actual script. We got that back in early October and shot End Zone 2 in a week in December 2019. 

How did you come up with Smash-Mouth and his design/background as a slasher character? Including his signature catchphrase of “Touchdown!”?

We knew we wanted to do the movie, but we had no idea what the film within the film would be. We wanted an iconic feeling character that could have been hypothetically influential on all of the primary slasher icons. We knew we wanted something really over-the-top in terms of look and personality. 

We brainstormed names with words like “slash” and “kill” in them, and Sophia said, “Smash-Mouth” jokingly. We laughed and then thought it was a funny name, and it also gives a visual characteristic of having a broken-faced look. So, we looked up the origin of the term and learned that it referred to rough, confrontational football playing – smash-mouth football! Everything kind of snowballed from there – broken jaw, football player, “touchdown!”

We honestly don’t like football or really know much about football, but we did a lot of research about the history of football gear and uniforms. We fell in love with the leatherhead look and kind of worked out the story around that. We wanted End Zone 2 to be a “contemporary” 1970 movie but thought End Zone 1 could have been set in a time period when leatherhead helmets were used. We learned they were abandoned professionally around 1950, but we thought maybe a small high school would use them beyond that, and decided we could set End Zone 1 in 1955 and make that 15 years before End Zone 2 chronologically. We pieced together a (fairly expensive) vintage uniform and helmet from eBay and Etsy!

This also allowed us to get out of casting high-school-age people in the film and focus on the kind of survival trauma a lot of slasher “final girls” have in sequels. It also gave Smash-Mouth a kind of ethereal, out-of-his-time quality. The past continues to haunt them all. 

For the mask, we were very lucky to be able to bring in FX artist Joe Castro. We worked with him to really think about what an iconic mask would look like if it were made in the late 60s. It needed to feel alive but also not really have motility. Joe made multiple concepts and tried a variety of materials before settling on the perfect mask, which really is what brought the character alive. 

Was anything inspired by your own experiences at horror conventions?

Michael definitely tried to capture as many awkward and funny convention experiences as he could in the script. We wanted the whole thing to feel satirically familiar to convention-goers. We also took advantage of opportunities at the convention that arose. For example, the costume competition was not in the script because we didn’t know about it. We found out that our friend, James Balsamo, was hosting, and we asked him if we could enter A.J. dressed as Smash-Mouth and just have him lose badly. That was really all we gave James.

As you can see in the movie, James REALLY went to town on poor A.J. The thing is, the giant crowd had no idea that it was for a movie, and they really thought James was bullying him. A lot of people went up to James after to yell at him and to A.J. after to comfort him. We had to explain that it was not real. 

What was the casting process like?

For The Once and Future Smash, we had cast Michael and Bill immediately, so the script was really written with them in mind. We had already made plans with our friend, A.J. Cutler, who has a prosthetic leg, to put him in a horror film someday and cut off his leg. Michael had the terrible idea of having A.J. play a role in End Zone 2, where he gets his leg cut off, and then play the son of the actor who also lost his leg in a suspicious way that maybe was related to his father’s iconic role. 

We knew A.J. was talented and funny, but he did not have a ton of acting experience. We talked with him and decided to take a risk and kind of rely on him for both films, which was especially risky because he’s kind of the audience proxy and heart of The Once and Future Smash. We thought maybe we would have to spend a lot of time and energy directing him to get the performances we wanted, but he was absolutely a natural in both roles, and he prepped and brought everything we wanted, so we really didn’t have to direct his performance much at all. Bill and Michael definitely felt a little like A.J. stole quite a few scenes!

For End Zone 2, we knew we were going to shoot the film in a very short time – it turned out to be six days plus one pickup day. We also knew we wanted there to be many very long takes to match the style at the time. In the 1970s low-budget world, they couldn’t have afforded the film stock to do all kinds of coverage. We planned the shoot around renting a house in Lake Arrowhead with everyone living on set. So, this all meant we needed accomplished actors who understood the project and were okay with a low-key, family-type atmosphere on set where everyone pitches in wherever they can with things like cooking and cleaning up. Everyone involved with the film (including us) is also credited under a pseudonym, so it required a full buy-in to the project to want to be part of it.  

We really cast from friends and friends of friends rather than using any kind of audition process. The cast members were all wonderful and knew their lines inside and out, so we could run these 6+ minute scenes without cuts. 

What was it like filming in a convention setting?

Very challenging! It was loud and chaotic, and we really couldn’t control anything. We had permission to shoot, but of course, it was an actual active convention, and we tried to minimize how disruptive we were to everyone around us and at the convention. The folks at Mad Monster Party and the hotel were absolute heroes to us! They really tried to give us anything we needed and to support the endeavor.

We also couldn’t afford to fly people to North Carolina for small roles, so we cast most of the smaller roles at the convention. This was interesting because sometimes it was people we kind of knew or people involved with running the show, and other times, especially with the kids, it was just kind of walking up to people and saying, “Hey, do you want to be in a movie?” 

When writing the script, Michael also tried to minimize the portion that took place on the floor and at the convention in general. We knew we would have access to Bill and Michael for a limited time, so anything that took us away to other characters we could film elsewhere meant more time to get things right with the scenes we needed at the convention. 

We rolled with the punches pretty much. Scenes that didn’t work got cut in the edit, and clowns played a much bigger role than anticipated!

When was each project filmed, and in what order? What went into making the retro style/vibe of End Zone 2?

End Zone 2 was filmed in December 2019, and the convention portion of The Once and Future Smash was filmed in February 2020. After the convention, there was a lot of delay and rethinking due to COVID. We finished The Once and Future Smash in the Summer of 2022.

In order to make End Zone 2 feel as authentic as possible, beyond the careful creation of Smash-Mouth, Sophia spent a lot of time buying vintage clothing and determining wardrobe, styling, and production design. We looked for just the right location to match the era and style as well.

We asked the cast to study a very specific style of acting from the early 70s because we really wanted to have honest, earnest performances, even if the circumstances in the film might feel silly. We didn’t want to take a tongue-in-cheek approach to any of End Zone 2. We sent horror acting references like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Black Christmas, but we also asked the cast to take a look at the early 70s natural performances in Altman and Cassavetes movies. We referenced 3 Women, A Woman Under the Influence, The Long Goodbye, and Klute as examples of what we were looking for. 

For the technical elements, we did a lot of research about what kind of camera and film stock would have likely been used for a low-budget, regional film of this nature. We thought about actually buying the specific camera and closest stock to shoot the film, but after pricing it out, we realized we would need to shoot digitally. Sophia was the cinematographer for End Zone 2. She chose the BlackMagic Pocket 4K because it has a wide enough dynamic range to capture a filmic look and a small sensor that is closer to a 16mm frame than just about any digital cinema camera. We bought a lot of vintage 16mm lenses and did some test shooting, but ultimately chose to buy a DZO Parfocal Zoom. The lens wasn’t available for purchase until less than a week before the shoot. Thankfully, we happened to be in New York and were able to actually pick up the lens from the showroom. 

While shooting, Sophia was intentionally limited to hand zooming to capture the imperfections of low-budget camera work of the era. We didn’t want anything to be intentionally shot badly, but we wanted to create the same kinds of obstacles and limitations that filmmakers would have had at the time. To create a more filmic look, Sophia also used strong Black Promist filters to enhance the glow and bloom of lights and highlights in the image.

For post, we bought a wide variety of film grain scan packs and ultimately decided to blend our own grains using multiple layers of grain scans. There was no looping and no simple plugin solution that would work for us. While editing, Michael broke down the structure of the film and decided where reels ended and where elements might have been damaged. He put different grains on different reels and added damage to the ends of reels and other areas most likely to have gotten scratched. Michael built cue marks and placed them with the frame timing and spacing that was used in the era. For the audio, Michael also recorded the final sound mix to cassette and digitized it back, and blended it with the source to control the amount of noise, wow, and flutter. 

Michael also occasionally made intentionally imperfect edits and placed Foley that would have matched the era. There were also a couple of Foley cues that were intentionally muted in the final film, like they were missing. We thought these kinds of imperfections helped match the film to the era and budget.

How did you assemble the filmmaker/actor/talking heads portion of the mockumentary interviews?

When Michael wrote the script, he assigned lines with specific types of people in mind, but with the knowledge that some might not say yes to doing the film. So, we had “characters” like “Melanie Kinnaman type” or “Mark Patton type” in the original script. Our other producer, Neal Jones, was really integral to casting this portion. The three of us brainstormed a list of people who we thought might be a good fit. We focused on the pool of guests Neal had on his podcast and people he knew from hosting panels at conventions and other similar types of things. Neal started reaching out to people. He explained the concept to them and what we would be asking them to do. Some were nervous about how they might come off in a mockumentary, but many jumped right on board! Neal was very well-liked by these people, and they trusted that he was not trying to portray anyone in a bad light or anything like that. 

Once individuals were booked, we went through the script and determined which lines might be good fits for them. The three of us also brainstormed additional material referencing their specific work and personas. We shot these from 2019 straight through the last days before delivery to our festival premiere in Summer 2022. As we got closer to the end, our editor for The Once and Future Smash, Aaron Barrocas, also suggested material for the interviews that could fill gaps, add jokes, or enhance context. It was quite helpful to be able to look at rough cuts and then shoot additional talking-head bits to solve problems and fill gaps. 

We only had a short time with each of the talking heads, but they really all did a wonderful job committing to the concept and celebrating the project. We were very excited to get to share the film with many of them at the LA premiere. We were nervous about how they might react, but really happy that they all seemed to enjoy the film and feel good about how we portrayed them. That was always our goal – to celebrate these people, we grew up watching and admiring. 

There are a lot of horror franchise in-jokes and references in The Once And Future Smash. How did you thread that all together?

We are huge horror fans, and we really wanted this to be a celebration of horror history! When Michael was writing, he tried to find the balance between jokes that would work for a broad audience and deep-cut jokes that would reward viewers who are really knowledgeable about horror.  Someone asked us how many references there are in the two films, and we definitely lost count, but it’s a lot! 

When Aaron was editing, he also did a great job controlling the tone and cutting jokes that didn’t work or felt too obscure. Aaron also added some visual jokes – things like chyron timing as a punchline. 

Will there be an End Zone 3? Will we see more Smash-Mouth someday?

We’ve got so many ideas for films we would like to make, so we don’t tend to return to projects, but there is something special to us about the End Zone universe. We have thought about making the remake of End Zone 1 or doing End Zone 3D, but it will all depend on the financial success of the current films. In short, if there’s a demand for more that justifies the budget, we’ll make more!

Being a mockumentary, what was the level of improv vs scripted dialogue?

As we mentioned, the costume contest was completely spontaneous. Otherwise, there is actually very little improv in the movie. We did tell all of the talking heads that they were welcome to riff on the lines or rephrase them, so a little bit of that happened here and there. As some examples, Jared Rivet came up with a few of the football revenge film titles that made the cut, and James Branscome had fun adding Vietnam jokes to just about all of his lines.  

Is there a distributor/release date for TOAFS and End Zone 2?

We have been having distributor conversations for nearly a year now, and we’ve gotten many offers, but we’ve been looking for a guarantee upfront that covers the small budgets of the two films. The market is such now that most distributors are afraid to take on risk, especially for an unusual project like this. So, we will most likely work with an aggregator and do a self-release of the film this fall. This has been a successful path for us in the past, and we have no apprehension about taking this approach. It also means we will really be able to control the film and determine the best way to share it with the world. No date is set yet for the release.

What are you both working on now?

Sophia will be the cinematographer on multiple genre features shooting between now and the end of the year that have not yet been publicly announced, and Michael has been writing for the upcoming feature films, Manicorn (dir. Jim McDonough) and A Hard Place (dir. J. Horton). We have also both been working crew on Matt Stuertz’s new film, Wake Not the Dead, which is going to be a blast! 

We are also always juggling our own projects to see what resources surface to bring the next thing to life. With fingers crossed, we can say that we have been developing a murder mystery that we hope to make this winter with Sophia directing and Michael writing and producing.

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[Interview] Director & Writer Bo Mirhosseni and Star Jackie Cruz Discuss – ‘History of Evil.’

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Shudder’s History of Evil unfolds as a supernatural horror thriller filled with eerie atmospheres and a chilling vibe. Set in the not-so-distant future, the film features Paul Wesley and Jackie Cruz in leading roles.

Mirhosseni is a seasoned director with a portfolio brimming with music videos he’s helmed for notable artists such as Mac Miller, Disclosure, and Kehlani. Given his impressive debut with History of Evil, I anticipate that his subsequent films, particularly if they delve into the horror genre, will be equally, if not more compelling. Explore History of Evil on Shudder and consider adding it to your watchlist for a bone-chilling thriller experience.

Synopsis: War and corruption plague America and turn it into a police state. A resistance member, Alegre Dyer, breaks out of political prison and reunites with her husband and daughter. The family, on the run, takes refuge in a safe house with an evil past.

Interview – Director / Writer Bo Mirhosseni and Star Jackie Cruz
History of Evil – No Available on Shudder

Writer & Director: Bo Mirhosseni

Cast: Paul Wesley, Jackie Cruz, Murphee Bloom, Rhonda Johnsson Dents

Genre: Horror

Language: English

Runtime: 98 min

About Shudder

AMC Networks’ Shudder is a premium streaming video service, super-serving members with the best selection in genre entertainment, covering horror, thrillers and the supernatural. Shudder’s expanding library of film, TV series, and Original Content is available on most streaming devices in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Over the last few years, Shudder has introduced audiences to groundbreaking and critically acclaimed films including Rob Savage’s HOST, Jayro Bustamante’s LA LLORONA, Phil Tippett’s MAD GOD, Coralie Fargeat’s REVENGE, Joko Anwar’s SATAN’S SLAVES, Josh Ruben’s SCARE ME, Kyle Edward Ball’s SKINAMARINK, Christian Tafdrup’s SPEAK NO EVIL, Chloe Okuno’s WATCHER, Demián Rugna‘s WHEN EVIL LURKS, and the latest in the V/H/S film anthology franchise, as well as the fan favorite TV series THE BOULET BROTHERS’ DRAGULA, Greg Nicotero’s CREEPSHOW, and THE LAST DRIVE-IN WITH JOE BOB BRIGGS

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‘MONOLITH’ Director Matt Vesely on Crafting the Sci-Fi Thriller – Out on Prime Video Today [Interview]

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MONOLITH, the new sci-fi thriller starring Lily Sullivan (Evil Dead Rise) is set to hit theatres and VOD on February 16th! Written by Lucy Campbell, and directed by Matt Vesely, the film was shot in one location, and stars only one person. Lily Sullivan. This basically puts the entire film on her back, but after Evil Dead Rise, I think she’s up to the task! 

 Recently, we had the chance to chat with Matt Vesely about directing the film, and the challenges behind its creation! Read our interview after the trailer below:

Monolith Official Trailer

iHorror: Matt, thanks for your time! We wanted to chat about your new film, MONOLITH. What can you tell us, without spoiling too much? 

Matt Vesely: MONOLITH is a science-fiction thriller about a podcaster, a disgraced journalist who worked for a big news outlet and has recently had a job taken away from her when she acted unethically. So, she’s retreated to her parent’s home and started this kind of clickbaity, mystery podcast to try and claw her way back to some credibility. She receives a strange email, an anonymous email, that just gives her a phone number and a woman’s name and says, the black brick. 

She ends up in this strange rabbit hole, finding about these weird, alien artifacts that are appearing around the world and starts to lose herself in this possibly true, alien invasion story. I guess the hook of the film is that there’s only one actor on screen. Lily Sullivan. It’s all told through her perspective, through her speaking to people on the phone, lots of interviews holed up in this palatial, modern home in the beautiful Adelaide Hills. It’s kind of a creepy, one person, X-Files episode.

Director Matt Vesely

What was it like working with Lily Sullivan?

She’s brilliant!  She’d just come off of Evil Dead. It hadn’t come out yet, but they had shot it. She brought a lot of that physical energy from Evil Dead to our film, even though it’s very contained. She likes to work from within her body, and generate real adrenaline. Even before she does a scene, she’ll do pushups before the shot to try and build up the adrenaline. It’s really fun and interesting to watch. She’s just super down to earth. We didn’t audition her because we knew her work. She’s extremely talented, and has an amazing voice, which is great for a podcaster. We just talked to her on Zoom to see if she would be up for making a smaller film. She’s like one of our mates now. 

Lily Sullivan in Evil Dead Rise

What was it like making a film that’s so contained? 

In some ways, it’s quite freeing. Obviously, it’s a challenge to work out ways to make it thrilling and make it change and grow throughout the film. The cinematographer, Mike Tessari and I, we broke the film into clear chapters and had really clear visual rules. Like in the opening of the film, it has no picture for three or four minutes. It’s just black, then we see Lily. There’s clear rules, so you feel the space, and the visual language of the film growing and changing to make it feel like you’re going on this cinematic ride, as well as an intellectual audio ride. 

So, there’s lots of challenges like that. In other ways, it’s my first feature, one actor, one location, you’re really focused. You don’t have to spread yourself too thin. It’s a really contained way to work. Every choice is about how to make that one person seem on screen. In some ways, it’s a dream. You’re just being creative, you’re never just fighting to get the film made, it’s purely creative. 

So, in some ways, it was almost a benefit rather than a drawback?

Exactly, and that was always the theory of the film. The film was developed through a Film Lab process here in South Australia called The Film Lab New Voices Program. The idea was we went in as a team, we went in with the writer Lucy Campbell and producer Bettina Hamilton, and we went into this lab for a year and you develop a script from the ground up for a fixed budget. If you’re successful, you get the money to go make that film. So, the idea was always to come up with something that would feed that budget, and almost be better for it. 

If you could say one thing about the film, something you wanted people to know, what would it be?

It’s a really exciting way to watch a sci-fi mystery, and the fact that it’s Lily Sullivan, and she’s just a brilliant, charismatic force on the screen. You’ll love spending 90 minutes sort of losing your mind with her, I think. The other thing is that it really escalates. It feels very contained, and it has a kind of slow burn, but it goes somewhere. Stick with it. 

With this being your first feature, tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from, what are your plans? 

I’m from Adelaide, South Australia. It’s probably the size of Phoenix, that size of a city. We’re about an hour flight west of Melbourne. I’ve been working here for a while. I’ve worked mostly in script development for television, for the last  like 19 years. I’ve always loved sci-fi and horror. Alien is my favorite movie of all time. 

I’ve made a number of shorts, and they are sci-fi shorts, but they’re more comedy. This was an opportunity to get into scarier stuff. I realized doing it that it’s all I really care about. It was kind of like coming home. It felt paradoxically so much more fun trying to be scary than trying to be funny, which is painful and miserable. You can be bolder and stranger, and just go for it in horror. I absolutely loved it. 

So, we’re just developing more stuff. At the moment the team is developing another, kind of, cosmic horror that’s in its early days. I just finished up on a script for a dark Lovecraftian horror film. It’s writing time at the moment, and hopefully getting onto the next film. I still work in TV. I’ve been writing pilots and stuff. It’s the ongoing grind of the industry, but hopefully we’ll be back really soon with another film from the Monolith team. We’ll get Lily back in, the whole crew. 

Awesome. We really appreciate your time, Matt. We’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for you and your future endeavors! 

You can check out Monolith in theaters and on Prime Video February 16th! Courtesy of Well Go USA! 

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Unveiling ‘Lisa Frankenstein’: Interview with Director Zelda Williams and Writer Diablo Cody

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Lisa Frankenstein

Focus Features presents a coming-of-RAGE love story from acclaimed writer Diablo Cody (Jennifer’s Body) about a misunderstood teenager and her high school crush, who happens to be a handsome corpse. After a set of playfully horrific circumstances bring him back to life, the two embark on a murderous journey to find love, happiness… and a few missing body parts along the way. Lisa Frankenstein hits theaters just in time for Valentine’s Day, on February 9th, 2024.

Director Zelda Williams and Screenwriter Diablo Cody on the set of their film LISA FRANKENSTEIN, a Focus Features release. Credit: Mason Novick / ©Mason Novick

 iHorror had the chance to have a quick candid conversation with Director Zelda Williams & Writer Diablo Cody, where we discussed the challenges of directing, writing inspiration and the planning, the collaboration process, and whether there is a sequel currently planned for Lisa Frankenstein.

Interview: Director Zelda Williams & Writer Diablo Cody

ZELDA WILLIAMS – Director

Zelda Williams, a multifaceted artist, is making waves across the entertainment industry as an actress, director, producer, and writer. Her journey of diversification and evolution in various facets of her career is evident in her upcoming feature-length directorial debut, Lisa Frankenstein.

Lisa Frankenstein In Theaters February 9th, 2024

Previously, Williams showcased her talents in Acting for a Cause’s live performance of Julius Caesar, where donations benefited amfAR. She also made her mark in the drama short film A Disagreement About Flies and demonstrated her directorial skills in the comedy/horror short film Kappa Kappa Die. In 2016, Williams lent her voice to and co-produced Freeform’s The Letter and graced the screen in the Lifetime drama Girl in the Box and Freeform’s drama/horror series Dead of Summer. Her recurring role in MTV’s Teen Wolf and her contribution to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series added to her diverse on-screen portfolio.

Williams has left a lasting impact in the world of film, starring in productions such as “Never,” the award-winning gay satire Were the World Mine, and various independent films like Don’t Look UpDetentionLusterThe Frankenstein Brothers, and A Beer Tale. Her cinematic debut at 14 in David Duchovny’s House of D marked the beginning of a promising career, sharing the screen with Tea Leoni and Robin Williams.

Beyond acting, Williams is a talented singer and artist, showcasing her creativity in 2015 by directing JoJo’s Save My Soul music video, which garnered nearly 4.5 million views on YouTube. In addition to her artistic pursuits, Williams inherited her father’s knack for accents and impressions, being conversational in French. Currently residing in Los Angeles, CA, Zelda Williams continues to captivate audiences with her diverse talents and creative endeavors.

Kathryn Newton stars as Lisa Swallows in LISA FRANKENSTEIN, a Focus Features release. Credit: Michele K. Short / © 2024 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

DIABLO CODY – Screenwriter & Producer

Diablo Cody stands as an accomplished and award-winning screenwriter whose debut film, Juno, secured prestigious honors such as the Academy Award® for Best Original Screenplay, the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay, the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay, and the Writers Guild Award for Best Original Screenplay. Her illustrious career extends to several critically acclaimed films, including Young AdultTully, and the now-cult classic Jennifer’s Body.

In collaboration with Steven Spielberg, Cody co-created the Emmy Award®-winning series United States of Tara, which enjoyed a successful three-season run on Showtime. Additionally, she contributed to One Mississippi for Amazon alongside Tig Notaro. Cody’s versatility extends beyond screenwriting, as evidenced by her Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Jagged Little Pill, a compelling adaptation of Alanis Morissette’s seminal album of the same name. Her remarkable achievements underscore her position as a creative force with a diverse and impactful body of work.

Kathryn Newton stars as Lisa Swallows and Cole Sprouse as The Creature in LISA FRANKENSTEIN, a Focus Features release. Credit: Michele K. Short / © 2024 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

Feature Image Credit / Description: Director Zelda Williams and Screenwriter Diablo Cody on the set of their film LISA FRANKENSTEIN, a Focus Features release. Credit: Mason Novick / ©Mason Novick

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