Interview with Producer Nathan Hertz
and writer Avra Fox-Lerner
about Thinestra
Interview by Louise Cannon
Welcome Nathan and Avra to Bookmarks and Stages to talk about your film and more…
Thinestra is a horror film that takes on the hot topic of diet pills where the type shown is like the popular one taken in the real world known as Ozempic that as a topic in the film and the answer is very personal to them and honest about mental health, diets and more…. We also talk about the film itself, classic horror like Jekyll and Hyde, how they celebrated the success at premiering at Raindance Film Festival, being picked up by Deadline and much more… The answers are in-depth, honest, personal and fascinating.
Without further ado, here is the synopsis and then we will get on with the interview, where you will also find links to where you can watch it…
Synopsis
A miracle drug delivers the overnight weight loss you’ve always dreamed of. But will it turn you into a walking nightmare? It’s a sweltering Christmas in LA. Penny—plagued by body dysmorphia and cycles of binge eating—impulsively takes Thinestra, a mysterious Ozempic-like drug. That night, she violently expels masses of fat in a painful and grotesque purge. But her discarded flesh returns… and like the Hyde to Penny’s Jekyll, PENELOPE is born. As her ravenous dopplegänger wreaks bloody havoc, Penny struggles to regain control. Can she overcome her hunger before it’s too late?
Styled as “The Substance” on Ozempic, “Thinestra” imagines a world not dissimilar from today in which quick weight loss drugs are readily available, but there is a price to pay. The cast also features Mary Beth Barone (“Overcompensating”), Brian Husky (“Veep”), Annie Ilonzeh (“SWAT”), Gavin Stenhouse (“Black Mirror”), and Shannon Dang (“Kung Fu”). “Thinestra” is produced by Alexandra Lubenova’s Dogplayer & Kelly Parker’s Mary Ellen Moffat, alongside Hitmaker’s Media and Stay Lucky Studios. Hertz, Joe Wesley, and both Macedo sisters act as executive producers.
- What attracted you to the horror genre?
Nathan: I watched The Shining too young, and it kind of rewired my brain. I love the horror genre, but it encompasses a lot for me; I don’t make much of a distinction between horror movies and just… scary stories in general. I like to joke that Thinestra is Bridget Jones’s Diary meets The Fly.
Avra: I actually came to horror later, in high school. I was sick one summer and my dad had the entire Cronenberg canon on VHS. I spent a week sitting in a dark bedroom watching my way from Shivers to Dead Ringers and I’ve never been the same since.
2. The film covers the hot topic of weight loss pills, especially a fictionalised one called Thinestra, an Ozempic-like pill. What research did you do to make this believable and then credibly turn it into horror?
Nathan: I guess my research was mostly first-hand experience. I’ve struggled a lot with body image and weight loss—so when I heard about the new drugs hitting the market, I jumped at the opportunity to try them. Unfortunately, my body had a really bad reaction, and I was sick for over a week! I was left asking myself the same question that Penny, the main character in our film asks, how far am I willing to go to lose weight?
Avra: It’s funny I first wrote this script before Ozempic was even an idea in the world. Like Nathan, I’ve struggled with body image issues. I grew up in LA, a heavy set teenager and the daughter of a heavy set mother. I watched my mom go through starvation diets and early diet pills that had pretty nasty side effects and was also friends with girls who had full blown eating disorders. I remember being angry at myself in high school for not having the discipline to be anorexic because I always got hungry and ate something. At some point I began to fantasize about a pill I could take that would just make the fat melt away, but I also understood by that point in my life that nothing comes without a price, and so Thinestra was born.
3. The film looks at mental health and body dysmorphia. How important is it that films portray these issues, and why did you choose to explore them as a main theme?
Nathan: I think we’re living in a time where people are performing “wellness” while secretly falling apart. They’re posting ‘body positive’ platitudes while scrutinizing their own reflections in private. So I think we’ve all become a bit too isolated in our issues on this subject—me included. Nothing brings people together like a common enemy… And when the villain is a distorted version of yourself—the part you’re desperate to escape—big bad body horror becomes the perfect genre to externalize that inner fracture.
Avra: I think there is a privilege of beauty that people don’t like to talk about or admit is real, but we are all subject to and affected by. It’s a knife that cuts both ways. In my opinion it isn’t doing great things for anyone, even those seen as “beautiful.” I believe, especially when we are young, we think – if I could just fix this one thing, everything in my life would be better. And especially for a lot of young women, that thing is the way we look. So it becomes an unhealthy fixation that is a stand in for everything we don’t like about ourselves. As Nathan says, body horror is a gift that allows us to externalize the internal. What is more horrifying than living inside your own worst enemy – your body?
4. There’s a Jekyll and Hyde theme with Penelope and her doppelgänger. How did you approach that without becoming too derivative, while still nodding to Stevenson’s novel?
Nathan: No mustaches! And… Jekyll and Hyde inhabit the same physical structure, whereas Penny is completely physically separated from Penelope (evil doppelganger formed from Penny’s discarded fat) yet linked psychologically. Penbelope is a physical manifestation of Penny’s binge state.
Avra: I think when writing horror, and especially monster horror, you’re essentially building off a collection of classic archetypes. There’s always a moment when a writer wants to reinvent the wheel and come up with a monster no one has seen before but … it never really works! I’ve learned to embrace the archetype monster as a base and then figure out what my personal take on it is from there. And I don’t feel like I see enough Jekyll/Hyde influenced stories! And it’s so scary!!
5. Congratulations on premiering at Raindance and being picked up by Deadline and others! What was that like and how did you celebrate?
Nathan: With a trip to London and one too many pints!
Avra: With a lot of dancing around my apartment and telling everyone I know!
6. Where can people follow you and where can they watch Thinestra?
@nertzzz
@thinestra
www.thinestra.com
@avra.jr
And we are just starting our festival year, so we have lots of exciting screenings on the horizon.
7. What’s next for you?
Nathan: I’m developing a new feature called The Green. It’s a 1950s-set horror film (subgenre: people hunting people) that takes place on a golf course. It’s got mid-century Americana, humor, and plenty of blood in the sand traps!
Avra: I’m working on a folk horror script called Safe Haven about the cost of safety in an unsafe world and directing a play in New York City this summer called Transgression that is only horror in theme, not in genre.
Bookmarks and Stages by Lou 