Ahead of Lockjaw, Four Time Film School Dropout spoke with writer-director Sabrina Greco and star Blu Hunt about the film’s unusual premise, finding humor within uncomfortable situations, Hunt’s experience performing with her character’s jaw wired shut, and finding humanity in a deeply flawed protagonist.
Where did the original idea of telling a story about a woman with her jaw wired shut come from? What was the inspiration behind that?
Sabrina Greco: I knew that I wanted to make a movie about a mental loop that someone is in and has a very hard time getting out of, no matter how hard they try. A tool that I thought would be useful in doing that was having someone go out while dealing with a physical impairment.
Eventually, I came to the idea of the jaw wiring. First of all, it was something that I hadn’t really seen in a movie before. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a movie where someone has their jaw wired shut the whole time. I could be wrong, but I thought it was also a really great tool for allowing Blu to have this big, bold performance while giving her something interesting that she would have to fight against throughout the whole movie.
Especially because it became a movie about miscommunication—how hard it is to say what you’re feeling and how the people around you aren’t always saying what they’re feeling—I thought it was very apt for that.
Blu, what was your initial reaction to Rayna, and what made you want to play her?
Blu Hunt: I really liked her on the page. Honestly, I really related to her. I remember being very curious about why Sabrina wrote a character like this, and I feel like I spent the entire production trying to figure it out completely. Now I understand.
I really related to her, and I felt like I could imbue her with a lot of myself. Sometimes you just read a character and you’re like, “Oh, this is a perfect fit.”
I was also really excited about having the prosthetic on and having a challenge like that. I really enjoyed shooting with it. Rayna was a lot like myself, I guess, for better or worse.
The film moves between uncomfortable drama, awkward comedy, and sometimes these almost absurd moments. How did you find the balance between those tones?
Sabrina Greco: In trying to depict this mental loop, I also wanted to depict how funny and crazy it feels once you come out of it and how you’re able to see how ridiculous it was. When you’re in it, it feels like, “Oh, I’m never going to escape this.” But then when you’re out of it, you’re like, “I could have probably just snapped myself out of it if I really tried.”
I wanted to approach it from that perspective. The movie takes place in the present, so how do we show that feeling as it’s happening? I decided that a good way to do that was through humor, but also through the balance of the characters around her, which helped provide that humor.
I wanted to make sure that Blu’s character always felt very honest. You could easily read the way she was feeling, and you could understand why she was feeling so bad in all these different situations. But there are different people around her poking and prodding her and trying to help her, and she’s rejecting all of it.
I think comedy is a way to help show a true, holistic view of something. Bringing that into this situation wasn’t just fun; it also really gets to the core of how it feels.
Blu, what was it like performing with your jaw essentially wired shut by the prosthetic? How did it change the way you expressed Rayna’s emotions?
Blu Hunt: Luckily, I feel like I’m quite expressive with my face. I can’t really have a feeling without someone knowing what I’m feeling, which is a hard quality to have in life.
When you’re doing a movie like this—a lower-budget indie, especially when your friend is making it—there’s a lot involved. I had to know that I could do this and do it well to confidently tell Sabrina, “I can play this role.” It’s a huge undertaking because you have to do what’s best for the movie.
I knew I was a pretty expressive person. I think I have good control over my face as an actor, which is an important thing. A lot of acting is being able to control the muscles in your face to evoke certain things, and that’s a skill on its own.
It was really fun being able to work on that. This whole movie felt like a huge acting exercise for me, too, and I think I left it a much, much better actress.
Working with the prosthetic was what it was. It’s holding my mouth shut for the most part. There were times between takes when I would try to say something to Sabrina or someone else in the cast and I’d get so frustrated that I’d have to take it off. Sometimes I just left it on for the entire night because I couldn’t even deal with taking it off.
But the movie wouldn’t be the movie, and the character wouldn’t be the character, without it. I just let it drive all of my impulses physically. I really tried to get what I needed from every character, and I think that’s a really important thing to be able to do as an actor. This really helped with my ability to do that.
Before the accident, the camera feels much looser. After the accident and the six-week jump, the framing becomes noticeably tighter. Was that change intentional as a way of capturing Rayna’s feeling of being trapped?
Sabrina Greco: That’s an interesting thing to notice because the beginning of the movie was shot mostly handheld. We were actually stealing a lot of shots on the street, so it was partially practical.
I tend to gravitate toward less handheld camerawork, so when we were in the house, I was able to actually get more things on a tripod or use the little dolly we had.
But I think you’re right that it creates this feeling of being really free, loose, and crazy versus feeling much more structured and trapped within these very set rooms.
Even though that maybe wasn’t exactly what I was thinking at the time, I think that result is evident in the movie, like you said.
Blu, Rayna is funny and charismatic, but she can also be cruel toward the people who are trying to help her. How did you approach the performance in a way that allowed the audience to connect with her without softening those qualities?
Blu Hunt: It’s funny because I don’t know if I ever thought or understood that Rayna was cruel to people, which is probably not a good thing.
I never understood anything that she did as being a bad thing. That was a funny thing when talking with Sabrina. I’d be like, “Why is everyone so mad at her?” Even with Annabelle, I was like, “Well, she just doesn’t like Annabelle. Why does she have to be nice to her? If I don’t like someone, I’m not going to be nice to them.” And Sabrina was basically like, “Yeah, just keep that.”
There were a lot of things where it wasn’t until I saw the movie and heard what people were saying about the character that I realized Rayna was a bad person. I kind of thought the movie was going to be finished and, when I finally watched it, I’d be like, “See? I told you all. Rayna never did anything wrong.”
I understand her plight to have the funnest night ever because I can get into that headspace. I can be quite self-destructive. Sometimes, at least when I was in my twenties, I would get into self-destructive loops that I didn’t even realize were self-destructive because I believed I was just trying to have fun.
In my quest for having fun, if someone got in the way of that, I was like, “Well, that’s on you. I’m not doing anything wrong. You’re kind of in my way right now.” That’s obviously something about myself that I understand now.
It was really hard for me to necessarily think of her as being a bad person, which probably helped a lot with the performance. Even if I had understood her as being cruel, it’s so important to never judge a character.
Once I’m playing a character, I don’t think there’s ever been a point where I think they’re doing anything wrong. That comes from an intense place of trying to relate to them so much that I can’t judge them for a second. Otherwise, where is there to go from there?
You shouldn’t play a character while thinking negatively about them, even if they’re a really bad person. I think you just have to put yourself in a place where—at least for me—it’s, “I am this person.”