Robin McLeavy Tells Us Five Things About The Loved Ones

Out today on UK DVD and Blu-ray is Sean Byrne’s The Loved Ones, a film that proved to be one of the best, and most popular, films at this year’s Frightfest. It’s the story of Lola, a socially awkward young girl (to say the least) who after being spurned by her Prom date of choice is now looking to make things go her way for once, no matter what measures she has to take.

I was lucky to have a good long chat with Robin McLeavy, who plays Lola. I’ll let her take it from here, talking us through Five Things of interest.

1. On Horror Films

I’m a complete wimp with horror, which is ridiculous, but I have been cured of my fear of blood. Now I understand how prosthetics and special effects work all their magic and I really appreciated the artistry that’s involved in creating convincing effects like that. I underestimated how difficult it is to create a scary story, especially with the editing. I didn’t realize how crucial that s to setting the pace and the suspense of the film.

I’m starting to understand the knifes edge that horror sits on, this sort of pseudo-sexual energy that’s implicit within horror films because they are so physical and so visceral and are so often about people holding power over someone else.

I think I totally underestimated the amount of interest this role would generate. I keep getting e-mails from my friend who lives over here now who says “Have you read this blog?” and “Have you read this review?” I guess it’s a good thing to work in a genre that has such a big fanbase. The next film I do will have to be very genteel and completely different.

2. On Lola

What appealed to me about the character was that it was a female character who was in control. I would never play a victim role because I think women are too often portrayed in a passive way, and I don’t like to see women being sexualized unnecessarily either. It was a really unique opportunity to portray a character whose on the verge of a sexual awakening but the way she’s operating is distorted. She’s been raised in a violent household so the only vocabulary she has for being intimate with someone is through violence and intimidation.

The kind of twisted upbringing she’s had is completely hinged on being mentored and instructed in violence by her father, yet there’s this intense love and familial relationship between them that starts of teetering on the edge of taboo. I’m glad we didn’t go any further than we did. When you look at other films that explore that subject… we’re just adding another dimension rather than focusing on it, but I know that people find it disturbing.

My key choices, I guess, were that she’s quite shy and withdrawn but then as soon as she gets her own way and she’s in the comfort of her own home she tries to emulate something very other from herself. She’s deeply discontented with who she is. When she gets the dress she becomes this other person, there’s this kind of flamboyance enabled. It was good to be able to have that scope of flowering into this princess.

3. On Director Sean Byrne And His Style And Approach

I thought Sean was wonderful. He’s so detailed, his preparation was so thorough, and he’s full of energy and seems like he’s had ten coffees a day. We had to move really quickly, so that was perfect.

He was very open to ideas. I’d come to him with ideas and he’d be responsive. We had three days’ rehearsal in which we did a lot of the blocking, and we had fight sessions with our fight guy, and then the entire film was storyboarded. When you’re working within a framework or a really specific style you know what kind of limitations you have and then can make the most of it.

I think the film almost has a kind of arthouse feel to it, because some of the sequences are so still and allow a strange atmosphere… and the colours…

4. On My Super Sweet 16 And Youth Culture

That kind of show is kind of indicative of the youth culture we have which is really materialistic and focused on branding and teenage sexuality being made really explicit. They were something that Sean and I discussed from the outset. I could have based my character on someone like Paris Hilton or something, but I wanted Lola to be a really regular girl who struggles socially but draws all of her inspiration from mainstream culture so she wants to be like Paris Hilton or Britney Spears but she can’t quite do it. Partly because she’s too young, partly because she’s been made to be more masculine by the way she’s violent.

5. On Australian Film

I guess Australians have a bit of a callousness to us because we’re still a young country. I feel that we look to America a lot in terms of genre, but in terms of our own style, we’ve got a sense of isolation and we stick it out for ourselves, a bit, so I think there’s a kind of roughness to what we create. I think that’s good for horror.

Sometimes I watch the film and I think when other countries watch it… it has a kind of overworldliness. I wonder what they must think of it. The funny thing is, the director is from Tasmania, and I grew up in Tasmania, but we shout it in Melbourne and wanted it to be non-specific, but the road-kill scene, where we get the Opossum, that’s quintessentially Tasmanian. And the sense of isolation and strange people.

John Brumpton’s accent is very Australian, a bit broad, and I chose to use a slightly broader accent than my own. She’s come from a working class family and I think that’s important in how she functions – or doesn’t function – socially.

I’m making a little film when I go home called Hollywood Ending, it’s a comedy that a friend of mine, Josh Lawson, has written it and he is directing it too. It’s an inversion on what a stereotypical Hollywood ending is. It starts with that ending, and then the credits roll and then the film keeps going and you see what happens.

Just judging from the fact that London has a horror film festival I think the film will do well here. There’s no Australian horror film festival that I know of, you should come over and show them how to do it. The Loved Ones has played really well in festivals in the midnight slot but on a Sunday night at 11.30 here we’ve almost sold out a 1000 seat theatre.