Interviews
Smile DP Charlie Sarroff Talks About Parker Finn, Drone Shots and Seeing Smiles | Interview
Sarroff also talks about *that* transition.
Published
11 months agoon

From the moment its viral marketing campaign took the pop culture world by storm and its brilliant trailer, Smile was a highly-anticipated film for me. The experience of seeing it in a full theater was unlike any other film I’ve seen lately, and it’s a film with some real scares.
But the cinematography goes a long way in assisting the scares. Coastal House Media spoke with DP Charlie Sarroff who discussed his relationship with director Parker Finn, the drone shots, seeing smiles in shots and that transition in the apartment.
Coastal House Media: I know it’s been a few weeks since the movie, or actually probably closest to a month now since Smile came out, but congratulations on the film. I missed the screenings for it, but I went to go see it with some family and we all had a blast going.
Charlie Sarroff: Oh, good. That’s the main thing. I think it’s been really cool to watch. I see a lot of people get back into the cinema for it and, and have a good time and sort of laugh, scream, cry and jump. No, that’s cool.
CHM: Before we get into the actual making of it, what were your thoughts on the viral marketing campaign that they did for Smile? I thought it was stellar, but what were your thoughts?
Sarroff: I mean, I cannot complain. I think they did an amazing job. I don’t know if we’d be quite here in the same position if they didn’t do all these extra things. So credit to Paramount for putting a team together and sort of thinking outside the box.
The film was originally intended for streaming and then it tested really well and then Paramount got together and they were like, “You know what, let’s have a go,” you know, releasing this theatrically, I should say, and then with all these different guerrilla marketing and the people at baseball games and stuff like that. I mean, some of it I was a little bit like, Okay, this is interesting, like, you know, are people gonna think it’s a different kind of film? There were a lot of comparisons to Truth or Dare with their smiles and all that sort of stuff.
And I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen Truth or Dare, but our director, Parker Finn knew it was very different — he’d seen it and I think there was a little bit of concern about just all these people smiling and popping up at baseball games and everything; are people gonna think it’s one of those sorts of films? But it is different and I’m glad that people have given it a go. And for the most part, the reviews are good.
I think they definitely did their job, you know? I was so excited when we went to Austin [Texas] for the Fantastic [Fest] premiere to see all the big murals [that] had been painted on side of walls and lots of different billboards and posters all around town.
This was my first studio film and first theatrically-released feature. I shot a film called Relic, but that was affected heavily by the pandemic. It only went to drive-ins and a few little cinemas around the world — where countries were still open — so yeah, to have this response is amazing. So, I’ve gotta let to thank Paramount for [that] as well. So yeah, I’m quite impressed with how they went about it.
CHM: And congratulations on this being your first studio film! I had heard of Relic, but I didn’t realize that was a pandemic film. It felt like it was older than it was…
Sarroff: We were really lucky it came out during Sundance 2020. And that was just before the pandemic really affected the U.S. so everything was still open. That was like the last film festival on the circuit at the start of the year. It wasn’t going to go play at South by Southwest as well along with another feature I did actually called Pink Skies. Unfortunately, the pandemic affected that one and everything went online.
We shot it [Relic] at the end of 2018 and then it was like cut and finished through 2019 and then premiered at Sundance. But [when] it was meant to be released, we all were stuck inside
CHM: How did you get attached to Smile? Did you know the director Parker Finn beforehand?
Sarroff: I met Parker at the same South by Southwest, actually. The event that was put online in 2020. There was a party that they put on, well, it wasn’t really a party, it was like a mixer event in Los Angeles and I think they do it in different cities like New York and stuff where a lot of filmmakers live. It was mainly for the directors, producers, heads of departments like myself and things like that, where [we] would go.
If we were going to attend the festival, it was a good event to go to because they, the people from South by Southwest, would explain how to use their passes and how the festivals run, and they would talk about the different events that were gonna happen there. And Natalie Erika James, who was the director of Relic, was in town at that point and she would ask whether I could come along and meet her there. She was a little bit late, and I got there, and yeah, the first person I sort of bumped into — [it] was one of those awkward events where you don’t know anybody, and it was all bright and not everyone’s sort of standing around sort of waiting to see what was gonna happen — was actually Parker and I said, “Hi,” and, and then yeah, we hit it off and he had a short film playing at South by Southwest and I was telling him about Relic. I think he had heard of it or he may have seen it, but I think he’d at least heard of it, and obviously, him being a big horror fan, was interested and we planned to catch up at the festival.
Unfortunately, the in-person event was canceled due to the pandemic. We kept in touch through the year and I was really happy to see that his short film, Laura Hasn’t Slept — which was the proof of concept for Smile — won a couple of awards at South by Southwest. I think it won one of the Grand Jury awards and another award for its poster design and some cool things like that. And when they started opening up set-up bars and restaurants and things like that, I think it was around September [or] October later that year — I’m sorry, my timeframe’s a little scattered at this — maybe it was the following year actually, which we caught up in-person. We had a beer and we just had a chat and caught up about everything that was happening and he told me that his feature film, Smile, had been picked up by Paramount at Temple Hill and that he was considering me as DP and he sent me the script.
I think it was just one of those chance encounters where I met him and we got along and then I was fortunate enough to receive the script and I responded to it. It was fun, it was gory, it was a page-turner, it had a message and it had some layers to it, you know? It wasn’t like a “full popcorn” kind of studio horror, you know?
You know, a lot of these horrors that are coming out via NEON and A24 and things like that are a little bit more slow-burn. And I love those films as well, but I felt it [Smile] was somewhere in between and I really responded to that.
And he mentioned from the beginning that it was probably gonna go straight to Paramount+, which was fine by me. I was excited to do another feature and he was still involved with the studio and I hadn’t really worked in that realm before. And yeah, fortunately, he offered it to me. I had to sort of get vetted by the producers, but we all got along. Some of them had seen Relic, so that definitely helped. That’s sort of how I got on it.
CHM: I know that you’ve done a couple of feature films, or a number of feature films before Smile, and if I’m not mistaken, this was Parker’s feature-length debut, correct?
Sarroff: Yeah, it was, and credit to him go[ing] from doing a couple of short films that [he] sort of funded himself. I think what you could see in those films — they were great — but I think what it showed were a vision and potential, and I think the producers saw that especially after winning Southwest by Southwest or one of the main awards there for Laura Hasn’t Slept, that caught the attention of different agents and production companies around town. I believe he found an agent through the Southwest by Southwest success and then he was able to present his script and then they helped shop around for him. And sure enough, Temple Hill, to their credit, came on board and they have a strong relationship with Paramount. So they took it there and then that’s sort of how it came about. It was his first feature.

[Compared to] the films that I had shot before, Smile [was] a little bit smaller on budget and scale. Relic was sizeable for an indie [film]. The other two I’ve done — Pink Skies Ahead and Broke, which hasn’t been released yet, hopefully, [it] will be out next year, [was] was more of a neo-western drama, actually, it’s very different — they’re all sort of different but quite a bit smaller. So yeah, we had some small[er] resources than what I was used to, and it was a slightly bigger scale, so that was cool.
With that, they’re all kind of similar in a way where if you’ve got all the resources in the world, or just a camera on the shoulder and an apple box, it’s the same principles. I think you’re still trying to find a language and just tell a story. I think that was the main thing I got out of doing a studio film that was a bit bigger [is that] it wasn’t as intimidating as I thought it might have been. You’re all there for the same reasons. You might have some more tools and there might be a little bit more bureaucracy that you have to sort of work through, but at the end of the day, it’s a similar thing [and] looking forward to doing many more, hopefully.
CHM: The biggest thing that jumped out from Smile was the drone shots.
Sarroff: Oh, cool [laughs].
CHM: And I first wanna ask: Did you have any inspirations for them? When the movie was finished, my cousin, who’s not like a big movie person, turns to me and goes, “The drone shots felt like a Christopher Nolan kind of thing,” and I was thinking of The Dark Rises, but did you guys have any visual aids? Was Christopher Nolan perhaps an influence at all?
Sarroff: I think probably, even on a subconscious level, filmmakers like Christopher Nolan are our idols. Parker and I are both big fans of his work and we have seen drone shots that are being flipped around, or on Dutch angles, or upside down before. I’m sure there are quite a lot of influences there. There was an old film, damn it, I’m sorry, I can’t remember it. I think Parker really just showed me for its drone shot. It was like an old seventies film that had this sort of sweeping drone shot. I think it was over one of the freeways in LA and then it sort of zoomed in and yeah, he definitely had a vision for a lot of these and then he’d show me references and then we’d sort of discuss how best to kind of go about ’em.
But essentially, the drone shots, when they flip upside down and rotate and things like that, they’re essentially resembling Rose’s life [being] turned upside-down. It’s quite simple in that regard. You know, everything’s falling. So we thought it would just be some added language to having that sinking feeling of everything turning, not understanding everything that’s going on around you. And she was becoming more and more unhinged and hallucinating and maybe things are real. We sort of toed the line between what is real and what isn’t and I guess just rotating the camera like that gives you a bit of an uneasy feeling, a sinking feeling, I guess.
But I would say there are quite a lot of influences. There have been some different genre films — I mean, even in The Shining, Stanley Kubrick was famous for those opening helicopter shots when they’re driving to the hotel. I think all of that sort of has an effect on you. And, you know, they’re all just different tools now. I think drones can sometimes be overused, but we wanted to use them with a purpose. It came from wanting to do something a little bit different with it. When I say different, I know things like that have been done before, but it was just our take on it.
CHM: So now you’re gonna have to answer this burning question I’ve had since the movie ended. There are a couple of shots I wanted to ask about. I know you just said what the upside-down shots were supposed to represent, but I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to represent smiles because there are times when they kind of look like them.
Sarroff: Oh sure. I mean, maybe. That’s funny. I personally haven’t really thought about that. Maybe Parker has, [and] maybe other people have, but that’s great. I think that works as well.
CHM: There’s one shot in particular where you see like woods and trees as far as the eyes can see, and you flip it upside-down and it looks like smiles and I wasn’t sure. Another one, I don’t know if you’ll remember this, but when you guys show the abandoned house where the film ends, I think it’s the first time we really see it and there are two trees behind the house and they kind of look like they’re a smile. Was that intentional?
Sarroff: I mean, there were some times, no doubt, where we were looking at things and seeing smiles. I couldn’t quite see it as well as Parker, but I remember we were in the color grade and there’s the scene where Sophie Bacon — who’s playing Rose — was sitting in the car and there’s the red light on her from the diner and she’s eating the burger and there’s a profile shot and there are all the car headlights in the background. And there was a moment we were sitting in the color grade and [they] were like “I could see a very clear smile,” and I could as well, but maybe not as much.
There have been a lot of times when friends or different crew members have seen things and gone, “Oh, there’s a little bit of a smile there,” so, you’re right. I don’t know if that was necessarily intentional with the trees, but there were definitely comments and we were definitely looking at things that sort of had that for sure. So I’m glad you’re seeing that in different things. If that’s coming through, that’s great.

CHM: I’m glad to have that put to rest now cause that’s been bothering me for a few weeks now [laughs].
Sarroff: I mean, of course there are blatant shots. I remember she [Rose] was buying the toy train set and the camera’s looking through the window of the hobby store and then we boom down to that old kind of 1950s, nuclear family-kind of photo, and they’re all smiling with these sort of sinister kind of looks on their face. And that was a bit of an opportunistic thing, to be honest.
Lester Cohen, our production designer, and his amazing art team definitely threw things like that in. But you know, that was more of a, “let’s see it on the day and find a place to put it and just try and bring some smiles out in different areas,” [thing] and maybe it’s a bit funny, maybe it’s a bit creepy, whatever.
But we were looking for little opportunities to kind of bring those things in. That sign might have just ended up in the back of the set somewhere and we would’ve really thought about it, but when we would see things like that, we would often put them in.
CHM: I just have two more scenes I wanted to ask you about. The first one is that first scene with Rose and Laura (Caitlin Stasey) in the medical center. I wish I took notes; I didn’t actually take notes since it wasn’t a press screening, so I don’t remember what it was, but there was something so distinct about your work in the scene. Do you remember what it could be?
Sarroff: We wanted things to be kind of empty and minimalist at having an oversized room like that. We wanted to make people feel uncomfortable. Like, it’s a very big room, right? I’ll let you in on a little secret that your audience will find out about: It was quite big because we also knew that we needed to fit quite a lot of camera equipment in there, even though we could remove walls and stuff like that. Size sort of came into play because of the different things we needed to do there throughout those scenes. Like when she [Laura] had cut her neck open and we had a shot pulling back from her and rotating around 180º to Sosie and into her eye and things like that. We knew we needed a bit of space for all different sorts of things, but at the same time, that wasn’t the prime reason at all. We wanted things to be empty, minimalist [and] uncomfortable. Quite often those rooms, through research that Parker, Lester and myself did, we know that [in] a lot of those sort of examination rooms and interview rooms, there are no sharp objects. Well, there shouldn’t be. Obviously, there is once the flower vase breaks, but those chairs are actually kind of a very real thing for those sorts of places. They’re rubber and they have rounded edges and they’re designed for people that [are] quite unwell and we don’t wanna see them do harm to themselves.
So in a way, minimalist kind of coverage like the eye-lines when we would cut into the conversation that happens between them before Laura sees the entity. I think Elliot Greenberg, our editor obviously had a massive role in this too [in] really figuring out the pacing and timing of making people uncomfortable, like cutting into these really front-on, intrusive kind of close-ups where the eye-lines would just be straight over the top of the camera, not really left or right of it.
There’s the movement and then really trying to create tension when Sophie stands up and she wants to look behind her the first time, and we kind of sweep the camera around to be like, Whoa, what’s going on there? but we don’t quite get far enough to actually see that there’s nothing there. We talked about this scene a lot, and this was one that Parker had in his mind before we even met. And I remember he had kind of talked about wanting to create this because essentially, it’s the intro — it leads into the title of the film and that was quite fun. I love how we did that. Like going in through the eye and then having this intense title come up and it was a group effort.

My contribution was hopefully bringing in tension, just with pacing and camera movement; keeping things very locked down and composed at the start and then sort of building a bit more movement into it as things were sort of happening and just really not wanting to really try to direct the audience to certain areas of the frame, but not kind of giving them enough and holding on things a bit too long. When Sophie’s at the phone, she’s not really looking around, it’s really just holding on to these compositions where we’re seeing the back of her head and just really trying to create tension. I think. Hopefully, that answers your question, but that was one that we really wanted to sort of build in tension and sort of start out quite slowly on it as well.
That was a fun shoot. Like that was a combination of VFX obviously, like we would shoot these different plates at different lens lengths and we did track the camera right into Sophie’s eye, but then after a while, lVFX will sort of take over and it was fun working with our VFX team [and] trying to give them the ingredients that they need and then they would go back and then would sort of rebuild things. It was a good experience.
CHM: The last scene that I really wanna ask you about is my favorite in the film. I know you just mentioned the editor, so maybe this was a combination of teamwork between the two of you, but there’s that scene where Rose is in Joel (Kyle Gallner)’s apartment and it transitions from the house and then we go back into the apartment and it’s kind of dark. So I wanna ask you about blocking and filming kind of in the apartment in that scene. I imagine you were working closely with the editor because that transition is so seamless.
Sarroff: I mean, it’s a combination of all teams on that. So I will give a lot of credit to, again, our construction and production. Well, first off, Parker, he wrote the script and like that’s basically having Rose running — she’s in [what ] you [can] call it a hallucination, or she’s in a psychotic kind of state where things are real and reality’s bending in on her and all that sort of stuff — [and] she finds herself back at Joel’s apartment. We think everything’s settling down; we think it could even be the end of the film and that she’s found some peace and destroyed this entity that’s been infecting her and things like that. So we’re in that space, and then she has to run out of that apartment — that real apartment was in Jersey City, I believe, or Newark — and she runs out and she has to find herself back in the field at her childhood home [that’s] in a field like literally an hour away from Newark in a kind of a parkland, swampy kind of area.
So the way we kind of did that was all departments on deck. She’s in the real apartment, but when she turns, we actually rebuilt a part of that apartment [onto] the exterior on the field out in the parkland in the New Jersey swamp lands, if that makes sense. So when she turns around, they actually constructed a part of that set and we matched the lighting. We had to do a lighting transition and then with the help of our colorist, David Cole — he really shaped that — and then as she ran out, we built that on that dilapidated kind of set environment out in the parklands. So yeah, it’s a stitch essentially. So they replicated the apartment twice if that makes sense. I hope that explains it. And then it was just matching lighting to the moonlight that she ends up running out into and all that sort of stuff. That was a fun one.
And it’s one of those like scenes where at the time you’re like, “Geez, I hope this all works,” and everyone’s like, “We hope it all works.” And then to Elliot Greenberg and Parker’s credit in the edit, they made it work. It was cool — I really like that, too. I think they did a good job with the soundscape and having her run out and then everything, just being peaceful and hearing the trees and the wind and stuff like that is quite creepy.

CHM: That’s amazing. I didn’t realize that they went to such extreme lengths…
Sarroff: Yeah, a lot of the things we did were in-camera, which is really cool. Even the puppetry at the end with the creature and stuff like that. There is a lot of VFX, but there’s also a lot in-camera and that was mostly in-camera (that transition). Building the two sets and stitching it, it’s just in the edit where she’ll run around, I think it’ll cut to Joel — who starts sprinting towards her — [and] when it cuts back, she’s like, “Ah!,” screams and then like runs out but that’s actually not in Newark anymore — we’re out in the countryside [laughs].
CHM: So from your perspective, do you think it’s easier to do it the way you guys did it on Smile where you guys built parts of the set again? Or do you think it would’ve been easier just to film both scenes and have the editor transition between them?
Sarroff: I do think this was probably the best way to do it, to be honest. I don’t know, like, there are other ways that you might have been able to do stuff with green screen and there might have been some more VFX kind of stitches and things like that when she runs out. If the camera stayed inside and we just saw her leave and then ran out and maybe you could have had some green screen and actually stayed in Newark and then we could’ve cut outside with her, but I don’t think that would’ve been as cool [or] as an effective, and I think Parker definitely would’ve fought to not do that because it then it becomes a little bit cheaper. It’s a bit like, “Okay, cool. Some VFX have happened there; she runs out, finds herself out there in that environment,” so we really wanted to create that feeling of like, she’s in a dream, or, we call it a “dream,” call it a “psychotic” kind of state or whatever. She’s not well, so we always wanted to really be in that world with her.
You’ll notice a lot of the lensing and things like that that we did, where [we’re] very close to her, it’s like wide-lenses in very close, we wanted to be in her journey the whole way, so by doing these sorts of things, I feel like we stay on her journey. So rather than having cutting points instead of using camera trickery — I mean, I guess this was a camera trick, but you know what I mean, more VFX and more cuts, I think it sort of takes the audience out a little bit. We wanna be with her so that’s the reason we kind of did that stuff.
I guess it’s the right way to do it for what we needed. There are a million different ways of doing all sorts of things, but this one felt right for us.
CHM: That’s fascinating and I really now wanna go re-watch the movie. I appreciate you giving me a peek behind the curtain for me.
Sarroff: Please do! Take some friends [laughs].
CHM: One last fun question for you that I’m sure you’ve been asked in your interviews for the film: After you were done shooting the film, did it take you any time to get adjusted to people smiling in the outside world? Because for me, after watching the movie, it took me a little bit [laughs].
Sarroff: I mean, look, personally, I’d love to say yes, and I’d love to say that everyone that was smiling at me for a year after freaked me out and I’ve got like PTSD from it and everything, but to be honest, not really, because when you’re in the process of making these things and you are like with the characters that, even with Laura — played by Caitlin Stasey — she’s actually an Australian as well, and we had a bit in common, so it was like a quite a fun day at working with her.
She had the most horrific scene where obviously she c**s her neck open. It’s this really, really horrific kind of graphic thing, but there was a lot after in between, and she’s a very funny person. And even though she’s doing these evil smiles that became the face of the poster and the face of the movie. I don’t know. To me, I just see her having a chuckle and a laugh and you know, it was like a good environment. So not really, it hadn’t affected as much because I know that it’s Caitlin and that she’s really funny and cool [laughs]. So yeah, it didn’t really freak me out as much as I’m sure it does with others.
And I’m glad it does with others because that’s the whole point. But you know, I think when you’re there and even with the creature and things like that, seeing how the puppetry is working and there are people with rods working outside of the frame and everyone’s doing their job, it takes a little bit of the fear away.
Don’t get me wrong though, if I watch other horror films or other scary films, yeah, I do forget that I work in film and that I’m a DP and I can easily get absorbed into those films and get scared and stuff like that as well. But when I’m on them and I know them, like even with Relic and things like that, I just think about what happened that day and when people call “Cut” and the different things [like] make-up artists are running in, and [the] lighting’s changing and things like that, it does sort of take a little bit of that fear out of it for me.
It’s funny, I get asked that a lot. I’ve done a couple of horror films now and people often ask me, “Are you really scared on set? Did really freaky things happen?” and personally, to be honest, it’s usually no because I’m really close to it all and you’re doing different takes, you’re seeing things that aren’t quite finished, whether it be makeup and VFX and all that sort of stuff, I can kind of see through it a bit. It’s quite funny, half the time.
Smile is in theaters now.
Andrew is an entertainment journalist and film "critic" who has written for the likes of Above the Line, Below the Line, Collider, Film Focus Online, /Film and The Hollywood Handle among others. Leader of the Kaitlyn Dever Fanclub.

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Interviews
Ginny & Georgia Composers Lili Haydn and Ben Bromfield Talk About Their ‘Eclectic’ and ‘Sensitive’ Score
Season 2 of ‘Ginny & Georgia’ is streaming on Netflix now.
Published
8 months agoon
January 25, 2023
From the opening scene of the second season of Ginny & Georgia, I was welcomed with an amazing musical score by Lili Haydn and Ben Bromfield. Whilst this show is not generally my cup of tea, the music was just so interesting. How does “Welcome Back Bitches” nail such a modern sound akin to LCD Soundsystem’s “oh baby”? How do they manage to shift between that tone and more of a somber, piano-driven number like “Not a Murderer” or the Americana guitars on “Childs Play (Hunter’s Song)”?
I had the pleasure of speaking to both Lili Haydn and Ben Bromfield about their latest work. We talked all about their fantastic score, but more importantly, we began by talking about cats. Yes, you read that right.
Be sure to check out the second season of Ginny & Georgia on Netflix now, and you can hear Lili Haydn’s latest single, “Woman Life Freedom,” here.
Coastal House Media: I have a sort of fun question for each of you to start. Ben, I’ll start with you, I was looking at your website and I saw a picture of a cat on your website, so I was curious, what’s their name and age?
Ben Bromfield: You know, we have a couple of cats in my family, so that’s Cammy. She’s now, I think 14 or 15. She’s going strong. She’s heavily medicated at this point, but she’s a sweet, happy cat. We’ve got another named Oscar who has rapidly gone from being a kitten to a pretty chunky guy. And then we’ve got our dog Jones, who is the light of my life.
Lili Haydn: [laughs] Well, the fact that you’re showing us pictures of your cats — you’re speaking my language because I am obsessed with my cats and I have the best cat treat in the world. And my kitten is gonna rear her head, and both cats are rapidly approaching. Both of them are circling the den [laughs].
You gotta get your cats this [shows package to the camera] — they’re chicken breast tenders. They’re really good for them and they go crazy for them.
CHM: Since you’re both cat people then can I ask you guys each, what’s your favorite thing about having a cat?
Haydn: Kissing them. Kissing cats is like my favorite thing to do in the world, I think more than anything else, to be honest.
CHM: Even more so than playing the violin?
Haydn: More than anything in the world.
Bromfield: I’m always amazed by how smart they are. There’s this thing called a puzzle box. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that, but it’s more of a dog thing where like you put a treat inside a cardboard box, and then you just leave the dog [to] go for it. And then they rip it apart and it’s fine.
I made one and Oscar just absolutely hijacked it. But my other cat, Cammy, does this thing, and I love old cats because they have so much character at this point, but when you pick her up, she wraps her arms around your neck and we call her a koala-cat and she just sort of like hangs on to you and it’s the sweetest thing. She really is the sweetest cat.
CHM: Aw, that’s adorable. Well, both of you guys have adorable cats. Lily, I was listening to your cover recently of “Kashmir,” I found it on YouTube, and I was just curious cause I know that you also opened for Robert Plant and Jimmy Page a few years back. I don’t know when that was recorded in relevance to that, but did they ever hear your cover of that song, and what were their reactions?
Haydn: I don’t know if Jimmy Page heard it, but Robert said he loved it. And I got their blessing before I did it because they’re real artists. I mean like they’re not just some pop sensation, as you know, and they’re not just legends that have let their golden days pass them by. They’re people that seek out new music that excites them. That’s why they were open to having somebody like me open for them. They really are curious and I wanted to honor the seriousness with which they approached their music when I covered it. So getting their blessing was really important.
CHM: Well, it’s an amazing cover, and you guys are both real artists as well. I don’t know if you guys have worked on any other projects together, but how were you guys paired up for Ginny & Georgia?
Bromfield: I’m gonna start this [and then] I’m gonna throw it to Lily this time. My career in scoring started in a typical way where I was a composer’s assistant before I was a composer, and I got to work on a bunch of shows and I got to know the process really well. And the majority of that work was done for this guy, Tree Adams, who’s a dear friend and mentor — I call him my sensei. Tree is a great TV and film composer, and I [have] worked for him for five years now. He plays with his band sometimes and they were playing a gig [and] I came out to support him and sit in a little bit on keys. Lili was also there because she had her own relationship with Tree.
Haydn: I used to play violin and sing for him a lot, and then I actually reached out to him when I was trying to pitch on a show that I thought that I was right for. But I knew I wouldn’t get taken seriously as a television composer having not done TV before without somebody who was a veteran, so I reached out to him and he was generous enough to say he would pitch with me. We didn’t get that show, but he kept me in mind so that when Ben, who I actually did get to meet and jam with at Tree’s gig, when Ben reached out to Tree for recommendations for a woman composer for this show to pitch, Tree recommended me and then we had remembered that we played together. It all kind of happened very quickly. And I was actually on my way to India for a performance and I was emailing and putting my reel together at the airport, and to this day we still communicate on WhatsApp because most of our initial conversations were done internationally.
So we just threw it together. We had a sense that we would work well together because we had jammed and Tree felt like we would, and we both work on the same platform, same program — Pro Tools — and we pitched and it just came together.
But I have to say [about] our chemistry, you never really know how you’re ultimately gonna work together with somebody in a pressure situation. And it’s just been magical [and] very lucky collaboration because we complement each other’s skillsets. While we’re both very fluid improvisers, and that has allowed us to create some music that neither of us would’ve created on our own.
CHM: Ben, you’ll answer for Lilly and vice versa. What is it about the other person’s style that attracted you to them and what did you think that they brought to the table with this score?
Bromfield: Great question. There’s a lot of things I could say about this, but I will just say [that] this is not the first time I’ve done a co-composer thing with somebody, and I think that in general, one of the things I like about it is that you get to learn from the other person. Now Lili has a very different way of thinking about music to me than me and I feel like I’ve just learned a lot from working with her about that mindset. I’m going to simplify it a bit and call it “quality over quantity,” which is great as somebody who has more experience spending a lot of time on less minutes of music than me because come from having to score and doing so much music so fast. There’s a sense where it’s not that it’s not quality, it’s just that you can’t really focus on anything [for] too long.
So I think from collaborating with Lili, as somebody who has done those deep dives into music, even if we don’t always have time to do that for Ginny & Georgia — because it’s a TV show — I think that I’ve gotten a lot out of that influence from her, which is something that I feel like you either need to find within yourself or you need to get inspired by somebody else.
And just to round that out, I’m now doing for the first time in my career of about 12 years or so, I’m creating music as art or not for score. I’m writing [and] releasing albums and creating music that’s just for people to listen to and I don’t feel like I would be as comfortable doing that now if it wasn’t for the influence of working with somebody who has so much experience doing that.

Haydn: Oh, that’s nice — thanks! I think it’s relevant to just say what our specific backgrounds are. I come from playing classical music as a kid and growing up with that, but I also started making records when I was 20 — and I’ve made a bunch of them. I started scoring and being a part of other people’s teams as a player and singer, so I didn’t have experience in television. But I think that the production skills [of] record making has been [useful], and there’s a melodicism that I come to the table with as a violinist and singer.
But what Ben brings to the table, first of all, just his incredible virtuosity as a player and composer. He’s a really smart problem-solver and also has an incredible work ethic — [he] just knows how to get shit done. And his experience as a consummate composer’s assistant, as a person who just knows how [to] get from A to Z just expertly, and politically, I’ve learned a lot from him in that way in terms of how I approach things more as an artist and I will sometimes speak my mind when it’s not necessarily the best political move [smiles], so I’ve learned to [say] like, “Hey, Ben, are you cool with it if I say ‘x, y [and] z’?” and he’ll say, “Why don’t you just dial that back a little” [laughs].
But just on a musical tip, I think he’s just so fluid. He’s got a can-do attitude so that there’s nothing that can’t be done. And so it’s like the sky’s the limit and we can do anything together. It’s really fun.
Bromfield: I will just say that your “squeaky wheel-ness,” while that maybe at one point I thought was a liability, has also been a good influence on me because now I’m a little bit of a “squeaky-ier wheel.” Sometimes I have a tendency to be a little quiet and let things just go along. Now I’m a little more comfortable just generally asking for stuff, because if people say, no, it’s not the worst thing, and so being a squeaky wheel can be sometimes good, I think, being somebody who just says what they feel. I think I could use a little more of that. And so that’s also been a good influence. Thank you, Lili [laughs].
CHM: I’m gonna put you guys on the spot again — I don’t know who wants to take this first, but I like to ask composers this question because you guys know the work better than anybody, but if you had to describe your score in three or fewer words, what would they be?
Haydn: I’ll start with one word; I don’t wanna do all three, I wanna pick some wisely — quality over quantity [laughs] — eclectic.
Bromfield: I thought of that too — [that’s the] first thing I thought of. I’m trying to think if I can think of another one. Eclectic; see, that one makes it hard because I could say another one, but it only applies to some of the music, right? Is it weird for me to say female? I mean, I think that the female aspect of the show is an important thing in the music as well. Sometimes [it’s] signified by Lilly’s voice, the way we use it in the score. I dunno, it’s hard [laughs].
Haydn: I think about the role of feminism or the female gaze in the show — most of the creative team are women — and they wanted a female composer to be a part of it. I don’t think of myself as a woman composer — although I am on the board of the Alliance for Women Film Composers — but I think that what is relevant about that is that because this show is very much from a woman’s perspective, being a woman, I pick up on subtle emotional threads.
In college, I had an eating disorder [so] I know what that looks like and they’re dropping subtle hints in the show. So there are moments [that] I’m attuned to, certain dramatic moments that I might not be if I hadn’t lived it, and that allows me to have a sensitivity to certain things that allows me to bring a little bit more sensitivity in the music to that moment. I think maybe the word is sensitive as opposed to female. But it’s really about being sensitive to the female gaze.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with that concept of the female gaze, but so much of what we’ve been inundated with in our Western culture has been from a male perspective. So when you get something that’s done from a female perspective, it’s a different lens and they call that the female gaze.
Another word that I’m gonna steal this from Sarah Lampert. I think she once described “Georgia’s Theme,” which is the first or maybe the second track of our Season One soundtrack, is used throughout the show and it’s represented in the season two soundtrack with some sort of remixed versions. Anyway. Sarah once described that piece as sardonic — and I really like that. I don’t know if that applies to all the music, but I think it’s a great word. And I think that there’s a sardonic element to this show that is winking at you a little bit, and I like to think that our music is helping with that and has some of that same quality. So we can say eclectic, sensitive and sardonic.
Bromfield: I like those three.

CHM: There are parts where, to me, your score sounded more modern, like in the first episode — I think it might be even the first time your score comes in — and then there are other times where it’s more of a traditional, orchestral sound. I want to focus on that opening modern track and ask about composing that specific track because to me that sounded so unique.
Haydn: Is that the “Welcome Back Bitches”?
CHM: Yes.
Haydn: Well that’s fun because we often divvy up the work, but there are times when we get in a room and just play and fun things happen. And that [“Welcome Back Bitches”] was one of those instances where we were in the room, playing with keyboards like two kids in a sandbox, really. So I’m glad you like that one.
I think what makes it unique is that we employ a lot of the pop elements of the song licenses that they use because we wanna keep the energy. It’s a modern show, so we need that aesthetic, but we also need to employ the kind of dark, more emotional elements and we also need to employ some of the more traditional scoring techniques. So this [“Welcome Back Bitches”], it’s [a] blend of all those things that turn into this kind of really interesting stew of sorts. And also the way that I use my voice, — without lyrics — I think also lends itself to having a sense of a pop hook without it actually being that, and then it becomes more like an instrument.
So I think it’s the eclecticism that helps it be unique and uniquely suited for this show, which is its own eclectic blend of influences. And what I love about the show and what I’m also really proud of with our score is how with all of its eclecticism, it’s cohesive. It could very easily be a hodgepodge of, okay, and now we’re gonna do this, and now we’re gonna do that, but it really feels cohesive and there really is a sound of show, which to me, doesn’t sound like other shows. even though obviously, we’re not creating in a vacuum and there are obviously other influences. But, to me, it sounds like our show, and the more television and film I consume, the more I can hear when somebody’s borrowing from another.
I don’t know if you know what temp music is, but where they put in a temporary piece of music to sort of mark the spot where they want music. a lot of times in television I know exactly what they temp with because it sounds like that show or that sounds like that, and to hear those elements, it doesn’t come together as cohesively. And I feel really happy about what we’ve created.
Bromfield: It really is like [an] instrumental song — it’s [in] a song form. When we get together, we like to make music like that for the show. You know, we did that one before season two, and then we sent it to them. We wrote it together as a thematic track to be used in season two, and then we all found a place for it together. And I think a lot of the stuff we did in that session was similar — it’s kind of like its own genre of pop music. It’s pop music-influenced and it’s song-influenced, but the fact that it centers around Lili’s voice doing more of “ooh” [vocalizes notes] thing, I think is part of what makes it unique in the pop music world.
CHM: You just mentioned that when you guys jammed together and made that song on keyboards. I know a lot of songs sprout from the keyboard or piano, but were there any unique instruments you guys used throughout this score at all?
Haydn: Actually, the keyboard we used on that song is a fancy new keyboard that I just got — it’s a Hydrosynth, which is a really fun synthesizer. Ben has a lot of great synthesizers and he’s like “Keyboard Guy,” but I had been lusting after this keyboard for a couple of years and somebody had told me like, “You have to get this.” And it has this ribbon controller where you can do this portamento thing; you can slide from really low to really high and it gets that kind of weird, like your stomach is turning inside out kind of vibe, which I love [laughs]. That was the keyboard on this track.
We also incorporate rock and roll stuff. We have some different instruments [I] play a lot of my string instruments and we do a lot of sound design as well. For some of the modern influences we pulled in a programmer friend of mine who works with Kesha and Kanye West and like some big pop artists [because] we wanted to have authentic beats. So we used a couple of those beats in the show.
There’s like an instrument in the upper register that’s sort of going and that’s like [volcalizes]… I forget what it’s called…
Haydn: Ribbon Controller.
Bromfield: Yeah. And then you can also hear it in the piece called “George’s Theme (Dark).” It’s happening with the bass in that one [and] it’s a very cool effect. And each time you get a synthesizer like that, they all have their individual quirks, and that’s one really cool quirk of the Hydrosynth. And other than the fact that the sounds and the effects on it are really cool, the Ribbon Controller is really neat and it’s a fun way to do that — not every synth can do that.
Haydn: It’s modeled after a classic synth from the seventies called the [Yamaha] CS-80, which I had the pleasure of working with on my first album, and then sound design where you’re basically messing [around when] you’re creating sounds, you’re recording yourself doing this kind of stuff and tapping on your face and scratching things.
[In] episode eight, where we did the musical, the episode [is] mostly in the style of the musical, which was sort of classical music-influenced. I got out my violin and started doing all my little classical tricks. But one of the cues was influenced by my cat, actually, who’s not going to meow on cue, unfortunately, but she does meow [on cue] a little bit. She’s kept her little “Pixar kitten meow,” and you can hear that in one of the cues. I just did a little reel on my Instagram if you wanna hear it. It’s on the soundtrack also called “Max and Bracia Backstage” — please check it out.

CHM: Since you both live in LA that makes it a bit easier — I know some co-composers I’ve spoken to were in separate areas of the world, so that made it a little harder — but I was curious what the day-to-day kind of thing looks like. Were you guys always working together or were you guys, you know, separately and then collaborating over Google Drives and stuff like that?
Bromfield: [Are] you familiar with the [concept of a] spotting session? [It’s] the meeting that we have with the showrunners, so when we first watched the show down and we figure out all the cues and we might use this one thing, or this might be a licensed song or whatever, and then we’ll figure out how much music we need to write and what scene.
So from there, Lili and I will typically divide it up and we’ll each take a first pass separately in our own studios. Also, I should mention, we started working on this show right when the pandemic broke out. So season one, we didn’t get together at all—
Haydn: We had one session together!
Bromfield: Before COVID, yeah.
Haydn: It was like pre-COVID and then before our next session, he said, “You know, I don’t think we should be in the same room anymore [laughs]; we probably should isolate.” So, yeah, we only had one session, but that one session was very fruitful.
Bromfield: Yeah, we got our company cue out of that session that gets used all the time and reused all over the score. But yeah, we generally work in different places, but also it’s funny to mention that we work at different times. Lilli is a total night owl, and I’m typically — if things are going right — up at 7:30 trying to work out and then start my day and in bed by like 11 or 12, she’s working all night. And so that sort of signifies our yin and yang-ness that we have. I think with our creative approaches as well.
We didn’t have to do this much with season two. Season one was, I think, a bit more hectic, mostly because of COVID, [and] if we got something that we had to turn around [or] we got notes back at the last minute, she [Lili] probably was gonna be up anyway, so that that kind of works. There’s obviously all sorts of stuff going on in the morning and I’m willing to do that.
So we work in different places, [and] we sometimes work at different times, but we do work on the same pieces of music because we send stuff back and forth to each other. We’re both working in Pro Tools as Lili mentioned, and we’re on Dropbox. We don’t share any videos on Dropbox because we’re all very careful with that. But what we do is we’re sending a Pro Tool testing back and forth, forth, and we’re adding stuff to each other’s cues. Typically, we’ll both try and complete a cue as much as we can on our own and then send it to the other person to add stuff. And then they might send it back. And then a lot of the time with the music before it gets approved, we end up having a live session over Zoom with the creators.
This is a thing that I’m usually driving at this point — it’s usually on my rig. We’re all in on this session and I’m sharing the screen and Lili and I are solving problems in real time. It’s challenging but very fun and we make great music that way.

Haydn: But it would not be possible if Ben weren’t such a rockstar on the technical side of it as well. Without each of our skillset sets, this would not be possible. It’s a unique show to the show’s credit, the show creator Sarah Lampert, has a vision and also Debra [J. Fisher], her partner, both have a vision. But Sarah, in particular, has an exacting nature and she doesn’t stop until she gets exactly what she wants. I have the same exact kind of OCD as her [laughs] — that’s why I step out often because like I don’t stop until I’ve exhausted every possibility and however long it takes.
It can be challenging because we know that we’re not gonna be settling for anything less than something that is magical. And the funny thing is, we’ll be watching — I don’t know if you have this experience, Ben — we watched it, my husband and I, and cues that are you can barely hear, they’re almost subliminal [and] like, yeah, that took us a week.
Bromfield: I can relate to that, sure [smiles].
Haydn: We do wanna just talk about the musical before we all part ways, of course. The musical was really important this season and it’s really kind of a subplot [that is] mirroring and representing character evolution and character development and the relationships that are in the plot.
Ben and I have different backgrounds that allowed us to do that. Ben’s musical theater background and my songwriting background, as a recording artist, and the confluence of that really just lent itself to something that we’re both really proud of.
The second season of Ginny & Georgia is streaming on Netflix.
Interviews
Florian Zeller Talks The Son and the Interesting Way Hugh Jackman Landed His Part | Interview
Father, Son… Mother? Florian Zeller discusses his new film, ‘The Son.’
Published
8 months agoon
January 18, 2023
In my family, a good metric to measure how good a film was is how quickly me or my dad — the physical media buyers in the family — purchase it when it hits shelves months after its theatrical run. If we liked the film, the time ranges usually vary between immidetly upon release, wait a few months in hopes of Target or Best Buy putting it on sale, or the classic “wait until Black Friday” strategy (if it’s Criterion, we wait until July or November). But as our collections have grown and wallets have emptied, buying new releases — no matter how much we loved them — upon release is a rarity.
The one to buck the trend was The Father, Florian Zeller‘s first film adaptation out of the trilogy of his plays — The Mother, The Father and The Son. While I enjoyed it personally, the film hit way too close to home with my own grandmother who had dementia similar to Anthony Hopkins‘ character. That grandmother was my father’s mother, and despite my own belief that it’d hit even closer to home, he enjoyed it and made an effort to buy it once it went on sale.
All of that is to say, The Father is held in such high regard in my family. The Son will hold a special place in my heart as the casting of Vanessa Kirby was one of the first news pieces I wrote for the first outlet I interned at, so it feels like this film has come full circle for me. That’s why it was such an honor to speak with Zeller ahead of the nationwide release of The Son. I picked his brain on adapting his stageplays for the big screen while also finding out the interesting way Jackman landed his role. Oh, and I finally got clarification on the continuity of Hopkins’ characters in The Father and The Son (which has bothered me since seeing The Son).
Coastal House Media: I just wanted to start by talking about how out of your plays/films that I’ve seen, they’ve talked about such human emotions and situations. For example, The Father was very relatable for me because my grandmother had dementia towards the end of her life and it was hard to watch as a result, but it felt so real. So I was just curious if your plays/films are born out of experiences that are personal to you.
Florian Zeller: I would say yes. I don’t know how it could be something else than personal, but it doesn’t mean that these [are] my stories, you know? It means that [these are] emotions that I’m familiar with — territories that I’m no stranger to. When I did The Father — as you said, it’s about dementia — I knew a bit [about] what it was to go through this kind of process and to be in a position when you want to help someone and you cannot do it because I [was] raised by my grandmother and she got dementia when I was 15 or something. But when I was writing the script, I was not really thinking about her; I was thinking about emotions that I knew, and for The Son [as well].
The Son is about [a] father trying to help his teenage son going through depression. And again, it’s coming from a personal place, but I very quickly realized that so many people are concerned by this kind of situation, so many people have experience as [a] father or as [a] mother, you know when you are in a position where you do not know what to do anymore to help your son or your daughter or anyone else, and it was the reason why I wanted to make a film. I mean, it’s not enough to want to tell your own story to make a film, it’s because you wanna share emotions and you feel like you could be relevant for everyone to share these emotions.
CHM: And from a more technical standpoint, I’m curious about what it’s like for you to get to adapt your plays. Of course, you have more space to work and you can show more than just what you’re limited to on a stage, so do you ever feel like with either The Father and/or The Son that your plays get to be even more realized or explored through that medium?

Zeller: No. Just to shoot a play is not very challenging and it’s not very meaningful, so you have to find a way to find a cinematic language that would add something, you know? And for The Father, the conviction started like that, whereas the idea that [something] on-screen could be done that couldn’t be done on stage. And it was about trying to create this very subjective experience for the audience, to really experience what it could mean to lose your own bearings and as if you were in the main character’s brain, somehow.
And for The Son, I also felt that there was a reason to do it on screen, but it was a completely different strategy and it was not about trying to put you in the main character’s brain. My intention was to tell that story from the parent’s perspective — those who are around someone who is suffering and they do not know [what] to do to help. They have questions that they have no answers [for]. They are trying to open the door to help, but they have no keys, in a way. And because I really wanted for the audience to experience this feeling of being important because I know that there [is] so much shame and so much guilt and so much ignorance on this topic that I really wanted to raise these questions and to open a conversation — and my way to do that was to make that film.
CHM: I haven’t seen the play version of The Son, but I was curious because The Father, the film, felt like a play because most of it takes place in Anthony Hopkins’ character’s apartment whereas The Son jumps a little bit in scale. A lot of it still takes place in Peter [Hugh Jackman]’s apartment, but was this jump in scale similar to the play at all?
Zeller: I mean, it [was a] decision, but every story requires something different. When you started thinking about adapting a play into a film, the first advice you get is always to try to write new scenes outdoors to go as far as possible from the stage and most of the time, it’s probably good advice. But this is not what I did in The Father, because I really wanted to use the set as an abstract lab where you would be lost as an audience.
And if I had written a single scene outdoors, it would’ve broken this convention. So it had nothing to do with theatre, it has to do with cinema [and] the idea of being in an apartment and to use the apartment as a way to tell the story of being lost. And for The Son, I wanted to have something more straightforward, very linear and as simple as possible and try [not] to do a gimmick about that topic (depression) but to try to dare to be very simple in order to reflect my approach, which was to try to face this pain without shying away and also without trying to explain it or without trying to justify it. That’s the difficult and slightly uncomfortable thing about it.
There is no simple explanation about why sometimes you are in pain, and it takes a lot of courage to accept [that] there is no meaning, no justification when you’re going through such a pain [and] you need someone or something to blame for because it’s unfair when you see that it looks so easy for everybody and for you, everything is so difficult.

And in [this] story (The Son), this is divorce. The characters are talking a lot about the divorce and Nicholas [feels as though] this is because my parents got divorced and the father feels so guilty that he feels maybe [it’s] all my fault. But that’s not my perspective. To me, there [are] so many layers, psychological, but also chemical, biological reasons why you can feel in pain. So it was not to try to simplify things to say [that] because of divorce, it could lead to this situation.
It would make no sense, for example, to blame anyone for having a heart issue or stomach issue — and I think it’s the same for mental [health] issues. It makes no sense to blame anyone for experiencing this pain. And the more we could see mental health issues as we see physical issues, meaning without guilt, the more we could help people to go through these kinds of situations.
CHM: You have a lot of established names and a younger actor as well in The Son — can you talk to me about the casting process for this film?
Zeller: Yeah, the casting process started with Anthony Hopkins. We did The Father together and it was such an emotional experience, to do a film together, [that] I really wanted to see him again. Also, just after The Father, there was COVID and so we hadn’t seen each other for two years or something, and so when I finished the script, he was the very first one who read it and he told me, “Okay, I really want to be part of it.”

And I was really happy about it because I do adore him and also, so many people came to me after The Father saying, “Is he okay?” as if he was going through dementia. And I was like, “Yeah, he is. He is in great shape. He’s just an extraordinary actor,” so it was funny for us to do the exact opposite because in The Son he’s so cruel. He is not losing the situation, he’s controlling the situation so well.
And then I’m starting [to] dream about the cast and that’s all I knew about it. It was Anthony involved and that’s it. And I received that letter from Hugh Jackman. This is unconventional, but this is how it happened: He knew the play, The Son, he knew that I was working on the adaptation [and] he knew The Father. And so he wrote this letter to me saying, “If you’re already in conversation with someone, please forget my letter. But if you’re not, I would love to have 10 minutes to let you know why I should be the one to do this part.”
And of course, when you receive this kind of letter, you wanna meet that person because it’s really something special for an actor to be brave and honest enough and humble enough to do this. And when we met, we talked a lot about many things, but it’s not something he said; it’s more something I felt about who he is. The fact that he was not trying to be this actor looking for a part, or he was not detracted by the performance that could be done here, it was just a man, you know? And I felt that he was as a father and as connected to that issue that he knew what it was about. He knew these emotions and that it would be the opportunity for us, through the camera, to allow himself to be himself and to try to reach something that was truthful and honest. And that’s something very difficult to do, I think, for an actor. And I was really impressed during the shooting to see him daring [and] exploring all the time the true emotions that he has in himself. And I think that’s why, in my opinion, his performance is so honest.
CHM: I’m running low on time with you, but this question has been bothering me since I saw the film, so I gotta ask you of all people given that this is your baby. So I had heard that The Son is a “prequel” to The Father, but this confused me with Anthony Hopkins’ characters. I know in The Son he’s in America, but I think in The Father, he’s in England. Can you just explain the continuity to me?

Zeller: To me it’s not a prequel. [They’re] not the same characters. It’s the same actor, but you’re right — One is American [and] one is British, so it’s already different. And what [is] meaningful to me is that to have similar stories that are not [with] the same characters, not the same stories, but somehow they are connected, you know? The themes and something [is] connected in between these stories, and so as a viewer, you have to question the connections, the conversation almost between these pieces, and I like what it brings to the table, meaning that as a viewer you have room to question the meaning of this.
For example, as a viewer, I remember that I really loved this Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski, who did the [Three Colours] Red, White and Blue and it’s three different stories. They have nothing to do with each other, but it’s just you trying to understand the layers, the conversations, and that’s it. Nothing more. [They’re] different stories.
CHM: My last question for you is: Are you going to adapt The Mother and would Anthony Hopkins be a part of that?
Zeller: I dunno. I really don’t know [laughs]. We did The Mother in New York, on stage, right with Isabella Huppert, and she’s one of the greatest actresses — I love her very much. But I don’t know. I don’t know yet.
The Son was released for an awards-qualifying limited run on November 25 and will be released nationwide on January 20.

If you are a fan of investigative crime dramas, then look no further than Amazon Prime’s latest show Three Pines based upon the books of Louise Penny. We follow Chief Inspector Gamache investigating various cases across this small town in remote Quebec, unraveling Three Pines hidden past.
I sat down with Sarah Booth (Law and Order, Star Trek: Discovery) to talk about her character Yvette Nichol in the series Three Pines and how she became involved within this project as well as a possible teaser as what is to come in the rest of series 1.
Make sure to check out Three Pines streaming now on Amazon Prime with weekly episodes.
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