Stella Schnabel previously appeared in two films directed by her father, Basquiat and Before Night Falls, but in Ry Russo-Young’s You Won’t Miss Me, Schnabel makes her debut as a leading lady. And it’s a hell of a debut; I concur with Michael Tully, who recently confessed, “I cannot figure out how she manages to make Shelly so excruciating, so tender, so pathetic, so brave, so weak, and so hilarious all at once.” The magic of the performance is that Schnabel’s acting is invisible: you never see the gears turning, you never see her do anything that looks calculated.
Shortly before the festival began, I spoke with Stella (who is also credited as co-writer on Miss Me) about acting as catharsis, the attraction of a challenge, and why no one should hire her just because she’s Julian Schnabel’s kid.
How did you meet Ry? You guys went to school together?
Yes. I met Rye because she was my sister’s best friend growing up, since Kindergarten. She’s known me since we were like six years old.
Did you ever collaborate with her before this?
Ry? No. [But] I have always been interested in films. I was making little films as a child. I had a very cheap, small camera that I would film different things together with when I was a kid. But with Ry, we have known each other since I was very small. She said, “Oh, I am making movies.” She put my best friend growing up, Lily Wheelwright, in her last film. I said, “Well, I have been studying for the last three years. I would love to make a movie with you. Let’s just try it out and make something together.”
I read that you guys shot a test of you in character before you made the film?
Yes.
Why start there?
Well, that was what Rye wanted to do. She was the director. She wanted to do an interview because she didn’t know fully what she wanted to do, I don’t think. I can’t really answer for her, “Why start there?” because that is not a question for me. It is a question for the director.
But, as co-writer, did you come into that situation with your own areas?
Originally, I was just going to work with her as an actor. It just evolved into me writing it separately and then bringing things to her, and collaborating further in the project as she started developing the character and as I gave her ideas about who I thought this person was, or what the dynamic should be, or what was more interesting.
I thought this character would be fun to portray and it would be a journey, and there would be some kind of battle. Any character that has conflict, inner conflict, is interesting to me. I don’t feel related to Shelly Brown; Ry neither. .
Maybe it is because I haven’t seen you do a lot of acting, but Shelly feels so real, and it feels really like you have created a whole person. I am interested in the process you went through to get to know this person that you were creating.
Stella: I think, when you are writing something you have to think it out before you just put things down on paper. To make it realistic, you have to really think out, “What would the reactions be? Why is she doing this? What are her motivations? What is the story that you want to tell?” For sure the character has things…I think you bring things of your own to somebody that you know if you are creating them. What was the question?
And also what makes it so realistic is that it was shot in so many different textures in film and video.
I was doing some Googling of you and I found two things that I thought were interesting in contrast to the film. One was a photo shoot of you and your friends, in a spread about socialites and their entourages. Another was a caption calling you a “scenester.” These things seem really different from the person that you are portraying in the movie. One might argue that if somebody just knew you from seeing your name in a magazine or something, they might be really surprised by this character. Was that intentional, to shake up other people’s perceptions?
Definitely not. Those people who write things about me in magazines and don’t know me, they can write whatever they want because they are not basing it on anything. I mean, I go to a party or because I like to dance…they just actually write that I am dancing just because I am my father’s kid, not because it is something different than another girl dancing at the club. So, it doesn’t really matter. I don’t even go to clubs. I go to underground Cuban places in Harlem.
Definitely when I was writing this thing, I didn’t think, “Oh, what is as far away from me as possible for me to show anybody anything?” I just thought, “What is the thing that I want to do most that I don’t really do in my real life that is going to be challenging and that’s going to actually add to my own character?” It is not really fun acting if you are acting yourself. That is not acting.
There is that line in the movie where you say something like, “I think it helps to be somebody else for a while.” Do you consider this process, in this film or acting in general, to be cathartic?
Acting is definitely cathartic. I definitely enjoy it for that reason. I think, there are a lot of things I can work out on screen or on stage or when I am in a class that you can express and go through certain emotions. You can’t really do those things in real life. You have to control yourself. You have to be a certain way, in a bubble a little bit. Acting is the art form that I feel most drawn to that makes me feel good at the end of the day.
You go through some pretty intense stuff in this.
It was very difficult and I had a really good time doing it. I don’t like things easy. I didn’t ever think when I was writing the character about… I think, a lot of those things are related to me, but also are a lot in my own imagination and sometimes are what I wish could be happening or what is happening. But, you can’t really show those things. That is what acting is really about, is to go through different things that are not like me that are the most fun.
You were saying that you get a certain kind of attention, in magazines and what not, because you are your father’s daughter. Is that…
No, I mean, I get attention because I dress differently and I do whatever I have done. But, I think people, they just have a kind of generalization. My friend Jane, she created Visionary magazine. So, we did that photo shoot with me and my friends. I thought it was a beautiful photograph. Did you like it?
Yes, it is a beautiful photograph. One of the guys in the film [Simon O'Conner] is in it as well. You have a really interesting chemistry with him in the movie.
Correct. He was my best friend since I was eight. It was very much fun working with him. We had a really good time. Also, we are not uncomfortable with one another. We are very close to each other, and onscreen we were put in these situations where it made both of us extremely uncomfortable. You are making a movie and all of a sudden you are acting with somebody, and you feel like you don’t even know them anymore.
Moving forward as an actress, are you interested in making films like this, that are more collaborative and experimental, or would like to do things that are more traditional?
I would like to do both. I like any project that can show me something. There are lots of people I would love to work with. I would love to make movies traditionally. The way Harmony Korine makes a movie — I don’t know if you call that traditional, that is his way, Danny Boyle makes a film and that is his way. Everybody does it their own way. But yes, I would like to make a movie with a script written, and things that I don’t write. I would like to be involved in things in which I might not actually have the same power as when you are a writer, or you have such a small budget that you actually control things a lot more.
Just because you do have a public persona, it is interesting to me that you would make a film like this that does allow you to have so much power creatively, rather than just take the route one might assume you could take, using your father’s connections to do something safer, more Hollywood.
I don’t really think those are connections because if you are not talented, then you don’t get work. So, it doesn’t matter who your dad is. Maybe you get one movie that way and then you do a shitty job, nobody is going to hire you. I never really took the easy way in any way of my life, whether it was school, or working, or whatever it is. Personally, I do it my own way. If I am going to make a film in the future it is because of what I have done. Whether people think, “Oh, she can do this just because of who her dad is…” I think, it is probably a lot harder just because so many people are so bitter, negative, or whatever it might be. Who knows? Some people might really like it. But then, if they want to use me because they like my dad, then they should cast him. They shouldn’t cast me!
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