Writer-director Jeff Baena is back with his fourth film as Horse Girl arrives on Netflix. Baena got his start in Hollywood co-writing I Heart Huckabees with director David O’Russell in 2004, but it wasn’t until recently that he branched out on his own. He’s spent the last several years making a name for himself in the indie movie world with films like Life After Beth, Joshy, and The Little Hours. Through these projects, he’s found Aubrey Plaza and Alison Brie among his most frequent collaborators.
Baena’s latest film pairs him with Alison Brie once again, as the two co-wrote the mental health drama and Brie plays the lead role of Sarah. In the film, Sarah is a socially awkward woman who loves her horse more than just about anything else but otherwise seems mostly normal. However, when Sarah begins having bizarre dreams, she begins to question if her family’s history with depression and schizophrenia is catching up with her. Amid this ambitious story told by Baena, he captures a memorable performance from Brie.
During the promotional tour for Horse Girl, Jeff Baena spoke to Screen Rant about his new movie finally being released and why Netflix is the perfect home for it. We also discuss what it was like having the lead of his film also be a writer, how a hike helped bring Horse Girl to life, and his unique directing style that is heavy on improv. Jeff also reveals whether or not Sarah’s arc changed dramatically during pre-production, what moments from Horse Girl could inspire fun internet challenges, and his thoughts on marketing a movie.
Horse Girl is now streaming on Netflix.
Horse Girl just debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and it’s now arriving on Netflix about a week later. How does it feel to finally have people seeing this movie and have it out in the world?
I thought Horse Girl was a very ambitious film and it raises a lot of questions. So when I first ended watching it I immediately thought to myself that I needed to watch it again and it may be a different experience on a second viewing. I think that kind of makes Netflix the perfect home for a movie like Horse Girl.
It’s a relief. I mean, it’s just become sort of academic and theoretical for two years and then to finally unleash it, I mean the whole point is for an audience so it’s not just an insular experience so it definitely feels good. I’m excited for people to see it.
This is also your third collaboration with Alison Brie. It seems to me that you guys have a great working relationship but this one’s a little different because she is also the co-writer of this film. How different was that relationship then in pre-production but also on set and in post.
Yeah, I agree. I mean of all my movies this is the one that I think almost requires repeat viewings to sort of parse through I guess the layers of meaning and sort of come to conclusions.
It’s my understanding that this was a personal story for Alison and that she brought the idea for Horse Girl to you. How quickly did you know you wanted to be involved and then ultimately direct the film?
I almost think it was like an invaluable help, mainly because having written every movie that I’ve done so far by myself, it’s my job to sort of communicate the vision and to get a performance that I feel is tonally appropriate. Having Alison writing it with me, not only does she understand the story and the main mechanics of the narrative on a deeply cellular level but she also understands the character on a quantum level and so by having that sort of access to the character and the overall tone and what we’re going for, I’ve never had anything like that so it was such an incredible collaboration. So much of this is about trust and actors have to trust the director, directors have to trust the actors and crew, and having your man on the inside, there’s really nothing like it. And so I can focus on a lot of other things at the same time when normally I’d be focusing primarily on her performance as she’s the lead and then everything else, so I was able to basically have - it’s almost like I wanna say a spy. She’s sort of an extension of myself. It got to the point where it felt like we were sharing a brain, we were finishing each other’s sentences. We were so in sync and in line with each other that I think it served the ideal scenario of a true collaboration where almost the lines of identity are kind of blurred and that allowed us to go to places that I don’t think I’ve ever been in before.
That’s pretty amazing. Just based on what you’ve already said, I’m a bit surprised based on how collaborative you and Alison were throughout the whole process but then also on set and everything and then all of the different questions and answers and theories that this movie plays with, I heard an interview between you guys that she said that most of the actual film and dialogue was improvised. Is that true?
That’s funny because we both sort of brought each other two ideas that weren’t as disparate as they seemed. She came to me, we were on this hike, and she sort of outlined her family history with mental illness and her grandmother’s paranoid schizophrenia and how she thought it would be something worthwhile to investigate and create a movie around a character who is going through something similar and then also experiencing things that are potentially supernatural or science fiction-ey and she has difficulty discerning what’s real and what’s not. I had this idea of a woman who had grown up around horses and then sort of lost it all when she was like a late teen and how that trauma sort of played out over time and we realized that those two ideas were completely complimentary. And, I also have experience with some mental illness in my family, so I saw the movie the second she said it and was already pitching scenes. Once we sort of agreed that these were the same idea, these two movies, it just flowed out of both of us. It just unlocked this thing that we were able to kind of just run with, which was really fun.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that sort of style before but that sounds pretty cool.
That’s absolutely true, yeah. So the last three movies I’ve made have been working in this process where we do a detailed outline, so when people say improvised they tend to think it’s just anything goes and inventing things on the fly. This was intricately developed to the point where there wasn’t a lot of room narratively to change anything and the majority of the dialogue was beated out, it just wasn’t expressly stated. This is how I generally work, except for my first movie which was completely scripted. I found this to be a really helpful way of getting performances that are present and fresh because the actors know what the scene is, they know what their objectives are, they know what they’re supposed to say but it’s in their own words. There could be some curveballs so that they have to react and they constantly have to be aware and present, but generally after the third or fourth take, whether its a wide or if its a two-shot or a three-shot, I pretty much just lock in the dialogue and then we’re just in a cover. So it’s not like every take is completely different it’s more like honing it in and then sort of locking into it.
I also thought you did a really nice job balancing the various tones that are in Horse Girl. There’s romance, comedy, drama and a lot of other elements that are in this film. Did you ever consider, between you and Alison, leaning further into one specific genre or tone or was this kind of evolution of the film pretty clear early on?
Yeah, I think its just sort of like the way I’ve come around to it. I came up as a writer so as I’m watching the scene evolve I’m pitching lines and sometimes I’m editing and getting rid of stuff for the sake of efficiency or clarity. So a lot of times when you see A Woman Under The Influence or I guess some other improvised movies, sometimes it feels like the scene is purely trying to capture verisimilitude and sort of like elliptical conversation and I’m trying to be efficient with it so I am trying to maintain the narrative thrust. But at the same time, I do want it to feel a little bit more grounded and natural than if it were completely scripted and everyone is saying the perfect thing with the perfect response.
Yeah, that makes sense. Without getting into spoilers too much cause this film is just coming out, but Sarah has a lot of different ideas about what is happening to her or has happened to her as Horse Girl kind of progresses. Were there any other alternate ideas that you guys considered giving her throughout the film or again did you guys kind of know this sort of track for her right from the get-go?
I don’t think I ever think of movies in terms of genres. I think its almost like really good movies create the space for other movies to exist and then I think that sort of echoing creates a set it fits within that becomes, ultimately, a genre. But I never think of movies in terms of genre, I think of it just as you experience it. Clearly this has a set up that feels reminiscent of other let’s say other Sundance dramedys and then it starts going off the rails, but that mainly is just shorthand for filming communication in general. I never set out to subvert genres, its more just I’m trying to tell a story and I think there are certain ways that we communicate filmically that I think are a little bit more comfortable and understandable and digestible by audiences. So you do sort of have to play within those guidelines a little bit before you start I guess going outside of them. It was never intentionally subversion of genre.
Yeah, so like she has an evolution of what she thinks happened to her. Did you ever consider giving her some other theory or something to latch onto instead?
I’m sorry, the first part I wasn’t totally clear on. So you’re saying the character’s arc?
I’ve got two questions here as we wrap up, one is a bit of a fun one if you’ll indulge me for a second. We’ve seen Netflix films quickly gain a following online through sort of random challenges or memes. I think the best example of this is the Bird Box Challenge that happened a few years ago. Is there anything in Horse Girl that you think could generate some sort of similar viral response?
I think there were scenes we didn’t shoot just do to like scheduling stuff, but for the most part, I think the overall trajectory of her explanation of events was pretty consistent from our inception till the production. It had to be relatively, I guess, trackable because, especially since its dealing with some elements of the supernatural, some elements of time travel, some elements of delusional thinking and fantastical thinking. I think there wasn’t a lot of room for there to just be anything goes because then I think you start devolving into the marvelous and then as a main character she is to some extent an unreliable narrator, this sort of overall experiential quality of this movie sort of necessitates that we are trusting her to some extent as she’s experiencing these moments so that we’re only experiencing this movie through her eyes and so we have to know that as we’re watching it that there has to be some amount of trust that we place in her perception, otherwise it just becomes anything goes and the marvelous which I wanted to avoid at all costs.
You drive with a blindfold on or do something with a blindfold on.
What was the Bird Box Challenge?
People did do that for a very short period of time.
Oh, Jesus. People are doing that?
Probably. But, I was thinking something like the Identical Relative Challenge, like if you look really similar to your grandparent or some distant relative.
And then they all died.
Okay yeah, I like that! The last thing I have for you, as far as I can find you’ve yet to kind of reveal what’s next for you after Horse Girl, but I imagine there will be people who see this film like myself who want to know what you’re doing next. Is there anything you can sort of tease about what you’re planning to do?
Oh, that’s cool. Yeah, that’s a really good one to sort of track your features from people and say potentially you’re like them or their clone. Or I guess maybe like a craft challenge or maybe like an impromptu expository rap challenge inspired by Jake Picking.
MORE: Netflix’s Horse Girl Ending Explained
I’m not really a fan of saying what is coming up. I mean I’m not a fan of people knowing what’s coming even when it’s coming. Like marketing in general to me is kind of a nightmare because it kind of blows your load, blows your wad. I think to serve that sort of calm before the storm, so I’d prefer not to talk about it.
- Horse Girl Release Date: 2020-02-07
