Zoë Kravitz Reveals Why She Decided To Direct 'Blink Twice'
‘Blink Twice’ Exclusive: Zoë Kravitz Talks Critical Casting Choices, Queen Bey Blessings And The Trailer Clues You May Have Missed
Are you having a good time? That’s the question that’s asked repeatedly in Zoë Kravitz’s debut film Blink Twice. In some ways, the characters are having the best time of their lives, but in all honesty some of them are also having the worst time ever.
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Both visually stunning and viscerally disturbing, the film has a terrifying secret, a secret that too many people share, and that hidden truth is bound to strike a chord with audiences everywhere. BOSSIP’s Sr. Content Director Janeé Bolden spoke with Zoë Kravitz about making her directorial debut, casting the film with both notable actors as well as newcomers, the importance of having a Black woman lead and the way the film takes aim at the mythology of Adam & Eve.
Before we get into that interview, if you haven’t seen it yet, you MUST watch the trailer below:
The stunning and talented Naomi Ackie stars as Frida in Blink Twice. Kravitz opened up about her decision to tell this story from the perspective of a Black woman.
Source: Courtesy / Amazon MGM Studios
Zoë Kravitz Was Excited To Watch Naomi Ackie Do Things Black Actresses Don’t Usually Get To Do
“Well, I wrote the film and so it’s written from my perspective and so of course I never saw anything different,” Zoë Kravitz told BOSSIP. “I always saw Frida as a Black woman and then finding Naomi too, a dark-skinned Black woman and being able to celebrate her and watch her do so many things that Black actresses don’t usually have the opportunity to do.”
“She gets to be dramatic, she gets to be funny, she gets to be fierce,” Kravitz continued. “It’s like everything and so I was excited by that. In general, I think when it comes to art there’s so much made and I don’t want to repeat things. I want to see what I’m hungry for, and that’s what I’m hungry for is a bada** Black final girl in the movie.”
Source: Carlos Somonte / Amazon MGM Studios
Zoë Kravitz Knew She Should Direct ‘Blink Twice’ Once She Realized It Could Be Made
Kravitz also opened up about her decision to direct Blink Twice, revealing that her original intent was only to write the story, but said when the time came to find a director she knew that she was the right person for the job.
“I think as soon as we found out we could actually make this movie,” Kravitz said of her decision to direct. “I think a lot of the writing process was more like a therapeutic thing for me where I just wanted to get this emotion out,” Kravitz recalled. “ Yeah, not really sure if it would get made and that not really being the point. But as soon as we were told you know ‘This can get made.’ I just thought ‘Okay, I see this so clearly in my mind and I don’t feel comfortable trusting someone else to do this for me… I think I got it!”
Source: Courtesy / Amazon MGM Studios
Kravitz assembled an incredible ensemble cast for Blink Twice, which also stars Channing Tatum in the leading man role as Slater King. There are quite a few familiar faces among the male cast members, including Christian Slater, Haley Joel Osment, Simon Rex and Kyle McLachlan, while most of the female supporting cast are relative newcomers to the screen. The dynamic actually draws a powerful parallel to the plot of the film.
“That was definitely part of why I casted that way,” Kravitz admitted. “I felt like the more we felt comfortable with this group, the more complicated it would be when the rug gets ripped from under us.”
“For the women, it was a combination of yes wanting that power dynamic, but also honestly just the best actress for these parts, and I auditioned lots of people, watched lots of tapes and particularly the two women I think you’re talking, about Liz [Claribel] and Trew [Mullen], the lesser known actors, they just knocked it out of the park in this undeniable way. That was very exciting for me. I think also as an actor myself, when you see talent that hasn’t been exposed to the world yet, you want to do everything you can to get that out there too. So I feel very lucky that I got to kind of bring them out into the world and hopefully people will continue to hire them because they’re so talented.”
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Source: Courtesy / Amazon MGM Studios
Zoë Kravitz Says ‘Blink Twice’ Speaks To How Society Has Normalized Certain Behavior Among The Sexes
Part of what makes watching Blink Twice such a riveting experience is the way the women on Slater King’s island find themselves uneasy — not because they can actually remember anything unsettling happening but just because of certain feelings they have. Without revealing any spoilers, we asked Zoë Kravitz about the way she attempted to show these intuitive moments, before ultimately providing the evidence that presents itself in the film.
“I think it was infused into my experience, you know what I mean?” Kravitz told BOSSIP. “And so much, it’s so interesting now trying to talk about the project in this way, I wish it was more organized like, ‘I’m going to talk about these things, like this, this, and that!’ Really it’s so emotional that you’re just kind of like ‘Blegh!’ I was just kind of writing about my experience and what it feels like yeah and then you realize later what you’re saying and how it works and you kind of fit it all together but I really did feel like I wanted to highlight how absurd what women are asked to do and expected to do, and we’ve normalized it you know and so the fact that so many women watch this movie and go ‘ ohh yeah we do that ‘ yeah but when you see it in this context you it’s highlighted how crazy it is that we have to do that, you know. but of course you know female intuition is so strong and it was actually one of the harder things in the film to do to keep the audience on board with this feeling which is what our experience is, you know and kind of wait for it to be revealed that we are you know the feelings there for a reason.”
Source: Courtesy / Amazon MGM Studios
Powerful stuff. Powerful stuff like this requires powerful music — and this film required clearance from none other than Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter herself to provide the soundtrack behind the biggest scene in the movie. It also turns out that Zoë Kravitz is just as scared of Queen Bey as everyone else. She expressed some trepidation about recently mentioning that Bey extended her a “friends and family” discount to Kravitz to use her song “I’m That Girl.”
“I hope she’s not gonna be mad at me saying that,” Kravitz told BOSSIP. “And by the way, it was expensive and it should be but it was the only song selection. It was something that we were able to get it together and pool our money together that we had. I think we spent the majority of our music budget on that song, but you know ,just having her blessing and knowing that she really did want us to have the song, was I mean blessed by the Queen.”
Three Important Clues About Blink Twice That Appear In The Film’s Trailer
A blessing from Bey is just one of the queenly things about Blink Twice. One of the film’s key players is a character referred to as “Bada** Maid” on IMDB. As anyone who has ever watched Downton Abbey knows, a maid is never just a maid.
“María Elená [Oliveras], a wonderful actor Mexico City where we shot,” Kravitz told BOSSIP of the actress who flawlessly executed the role. “That character was important to me.That idea of — an older woman that has experience — but also a local woman, a native woman from this place, that really understands the medicine of this place and how things work. Slater and people you know, the colonizers, come and they take and they decide how things work and she really understands, like the antidote, like how this all works. Then also of course she’s a maid there at the compound and the idea of just, I’m not going to clean up this mess for you, you guys have to figure this out yourself.”
Source: Courtesy / Amazon MGM Studios
Another beautiful touch from the film, which briefly appears in the trailer, is Frida’s attention to her nails — which culturally is something that is so important to Black women.
“I think it develops slowly throughout writing but… so many of my favorite films and mystery films are so male centric and so I wanted to have that same element, but of course make it as feminine as possible,” Kravitz told BOSSIP. “So I love the idea of you know Frida being a nail technician and her talent and finding ways to like weave things into that, so it was just, I thought of it and I was like that’s fun.”
Source: Carlos Somonte / Amazon MGM Studios
On a final note, we wanted to ask Kravitz about the snakes that appear throughout the film on Slater King’s compound.
“I love snakes, I also could be afraid of them,” Kravitz said. “I’m not so afraid that I won’t hold them or whatever. The reason for the snakes in the story, you know I’ve always thought about the story of Adam and Eve, and the snake, the serpent representing knowledge and transformation and the fact that we see them and we’re afraid of them and we’re afraid of what they represent as well and it’s always been told for example in that story, that Eve wanting knowledge is a problem and I have a problem with that.”
Brilliantly stated Madame Director. If it’s not clear enough we’ll make it abundantly clear that this is a very important film that everyone should see.
Blink Twice is in theaters August 23.
