Categories: Exclusive, Film Festival, Horror, Interview, Movie, Sundance |Tags: Addison Hyman, Jordan Gavaris, Lou Taylor Pucci, Marlene Forte, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Touch Me
Touch Me director Addison Heyman and stars Olivia Taylor Dudley, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jordan Gavaris, and Marlene Forte talk about the thriller.
Published Sunday, January 26, 2025 18:48:08 -0600 by Tom Chang
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Article summary
Director Addison Heyman explores deep emotions in the psychosexual horror comedy “Touch Me.” “Touch Me” was inspired by “The Untamed” and explores themes of mental illness and friendship. Olivia Taylor Dudley and Lou Taylor Pucci are deeply involved in their characters’ personal struggles. Jordan Gavaris and Marlene Forte bring empathy to their roles, reflecting Hyman’s personal experiences.
Sometimes some of the deepest, darkest regions of the mind can produce the most striking visuals, and that’s no surprise in writer-director Addison Heyman’s (“Hypochondriac”) latest film, “Touch.” Sometimes, as in the case, it functions as a kind of therapeutic subterfuge. myself. This psychosexual horror comedy follows two codependent friends, Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) and Craig (Jordan Gavaris), as they struggle with anxiety and toxicity when Joey’s ex-boyfriend Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci) reappears. I’m drawing. Brian is an alien who can use his touch to lift someone’s anxiety or depression in a moment of euphoria. While promoting the film at Sundance, Hyman, Dudley, Gavaris, Pucci, and co-star Marlene Forte spoke to Bleeding Cool about Hyman’s inspiration for the film and how his script influenced the cast. He talked about whether it resonated with him.
Cr: Glowing wood film/Rustic film
Touch Me Director & Cast “Movie Empathy”
Bleeding Cool: Addison, what was the inspiration for “Touch Me”?
Hyman: All of my ideas came from a beautiful but sad state of depression. At the time, I was dealing with a sad period of friendship breakdowns. And I was miserable. I saw a movie called “The Untamed” (2016). This was a story about an alien who was in a hut, raping people, and giving them euphoria. I thought, “I want to feel that. I wish I could find that in my life.”
I had recently been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and I was like, ‘What does that feel like? How can I connect that beautiful thought process to what I’ve been through? I’ve been studying Japanese for five years, I thought, “I’m hooked.” Japanese films of the 60s and 70s, Lady Snowblood (1973), House (1977), Female Prisoner 701: Using pink films such as “The Scorpion” (1972), and “Sex and Fury” (1973), these theater sets had a very beautiful theatricality with incredibly saturated colors. So I thought, “This is how I do it,” and created this world with this alien. There are people dancing this hip-hop dance and wearing jerseys, but it’s essentially a story of a broken friendship and two broken people living with mental illness, and ultimately… You need to learn to overcome it.
Olivia and Lou. Did you both develop a backstory for the character in addition to what Addison established in the character’s script?
Dudley: Joey probably doesn’t need to build up much of a backstory. When I read the script, I immediately felt sympathy for her. We have a lot in common. We both have OCD and anxiety and have spent a lot of time around narcissists. I was in a codependent relationship and had a lot to gain from my personal life, which doesn’t always happen with characters. I felt like I was Joey because I already had such a rich world inside of me, but I didn’t build much of a backstory with her. Also, I didn’t have much time to prepare for this, so rather than writing down her favorite music, I thought thoroughly about who she was in my head and soul. Joey made it himself.
Pucci: This is less about the backstory and more about the connection we had on screen now. Because our backstory was this epic two-week experience where you fell in love with how superficially hot you were and thought you’d never get back up. that. For five years, you’ve been running away from me because I almost made your head explode with my tentacles.
The question also applies to Jordan and Marine. Besides Addison’s script, do you have any notes about the characters in “Touch Me”?
Gavaris: I was the last one to participate in the casting process and the last one. I didn’t have much time to prepare. Despite the film’s original and colorful fables and wild situations, the only thing I knew was that the heart of the film was about Addison’s personal story, based on real events that happened to her. It was said that it was a great story. We kind of knew that Craig (my character) was his shadow avatar, so it’s not clear who Addison is as a human, but maybe there’s a possibility of who we could be. It may be part of a deep fear of how we are perceived by others. This also applies to the core of OCD and intrusive thoughts.
At least I had Addison as a resource. Otherwise, there would be no time. Addison had so much faith in Olivia and was so confident in this process with his beliefs and believed in himself and was sure that I was going to do it properly. What bothered Craig more than anything was that he must love this man. Otherwise, the ending of the movie wouldn’t work, and his arc as a character wouldn’t work. You have to love him even though he can be a narcissist and a mess at times. I’ve always had that in the back of my mind, and humor has always been a great access point for me in terms of making sure the characters are represented…I hate those words, but they’re likeable. or remain “relatable.” I was lucky because I thought there was too much going on, but it happened too quickly. I didn’t have time to think.
Forte: It’s so easy to get lost in the dialog in Addison’s scripts and the worlds he creates that…this is my second time working with him. They are so relatable and human, and as Olivia said, “Joey is me.” That’s a strange way. Both of these characters are me. Regardless of whether this is a genre or not, I can go crazy and bang someone’s head on the bed with my inner voice. We all think about doing it at certain moments in our lives, but we don’t do it. We answer politely, but when it comes to his characters, especially when it comes to Laura (my character), who I think is a monster in this script, it’s fine as it is.
Touch Me, which also stars Paget Brewster, will premiere at Sundance on January 28th and run through February 2nd.
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