“I’ve always been interested in how good people do bad things.”
To some people, before this month, Emerald Fennell may have been a complete unknown.
Then along came THREE Oscar nominations – for Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Picture (she was also a producer on the movie) – and all of sudden, it is difficult to imagine a hotter property than Fennell right now.
Previously probably best known as portraying Camilla Parker Bowles in some of the later seasons of The Crown – or, for those more familiar with her career, as one of the writers of hit show Killing Eve – but that is definitely about to change thanks to Promising Young Woman.
The movie was also nominated for Best Actress for Carey Mulligan, and Best Editing. Five nominations on your first movie is a pretty fantastic starting point in your career!
It has already become one of the most talked-about movies of the last decade or so, dealing with the hot-button topics of consent, toxic masculinity, rape, misogyny and a lot more, all through the lens of a DARKLY comic thriller, with a brilliant turn by Carey Mulligan at its centre.
We were lucky enough to see the movie ahead of talking to Fennell about the project and mentioned that another movie it really reminded us of was Get Out, with parallels drawn between the apparent “woke-ness” of the “good guys” who actually ended up being the worst of the worst.
And, having said that, was Fennell ready for these fake woke guys to actually use liking Promising Young Woman as a chat-up line??
“Oh God! That had never occurred to me!” Fennell tells us.
“I think the thing that was so brilliant about Get Out was that not only was it such a thrilling, brilliant masterpiece in its own right, but it is just satirised something this, as you say, woke culture.
“I think it really drew a curtain back on behaviours that, honestly, lots of people had never realised or hadn’t thought deeply enough about it before. That was why Get Out was so brilliantly effective.
“I think, for me and with Promising Young Woman, I’ve always been interested in how good people do bad things. How, as a culture, we participate in cruelty, because is it sort of tacitly allowed. That stuff is so interesting to me.
“So that is a sort of roundabout way of saying that if “woke guys” watch the film, and it at least made them think twice about some of this stuff, then I’ll be really glad.”
You can check out our full interview with Emerald Fennell, where she also discusses a particular Irish film that influenced here work, right here:
Or you can listen to the interview in full right here:
Promising Young Woman is coming exclusively to Sky Cinema and streaming service NOW from Friday, 16 April.
Clip via Universal Pictures Ireland
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