Audrey screenwriter Lou Sanz and director Natalie Bailey on creating their debut feature film together.
Find this episode of the Screen Australia Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Pocket Casts
It was at a speed networking session for producers and writers that screenwriter Lou Sanz first introduced then-producer, now debut director, Natalie Bailey to the dysfunctional family at the heart of Audrey.
A shared love for irreverent comedy brought them together, and for Bailey, it was the strength of the script and Sanz’s vision that piqued her interest. “She’s a rare beast in that she has the ability to be able to write dialogue that sings,” she says.
“I always start with character,” Sanz says. “And then they just tend to tell me where they’re headed. And then once I get all that out on the page, I go back and really start to figure out the story.”
Both had extensive experience in television across sketch shows and comedy drama – Sanz in writer’s rooms for Life Support, The PM’s Daughter and How to Stay Married, Bailey on shows across the UK and Australia such as The Thick of It, Retrograde, and Bay of Fires, – so, Audrey would be their first feature film.
In Audrey, Jackie van Beek stars as the self-proclaimed mother of the year and forgotten soap star Ronnie, who, after golden child and emerging star Audrey falls into a coma, assumes her identity and the spotlight. The film features an ensemble cast including Jeremy Lindsay Taylor as her put-upon husband, Hannah Diviney as oft-ignored younger daughter and aspiring wheelchair fencer Norah, and Josephine Blazier as the obnoxious ingenue Audrey.
Throughout the latest episode of the Screen Australia podcast, Sanz and Bailey share their love for comedy and dislike for the term ‘unlikeable female characters’.
They also talk about getting the project to the big screen, creating compelling characters, the differences between writing for television and film, and the importance of finding the black comedy balance – or “balancing the sweet and sour”, as they call it.
“The role of dark comedy I would say is to have those conversations. The ones that we can’t have, the ones that we feel afraid of,” Sanz says. “I don’t ever think we approached it [as] it’s so dark. This is just a really fun human story.”
Audrey hits Australian cinemas in November. Find out Where to Watch Audrey by heading to The Screen Guide.
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