PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Filmmaker Goran Stolevski directorial feature-length film debut, You Won’t Be Alone, is a beautiful, heartbreaking, and poetic film. Filmed in Serbia but set in 19th century Macedonia, You Won’t Be Alone follows Nevena on her horrific journey of finding out what it’s like to be human. To celebrate the film’s release, I chatted with star Alice Englert, and we discussed her reaction to reading the script, why she wanted the part, and more!
PopHorror: Hi Alice! I really loved You Won’t Be Alone, so I’m really excited to speak with you today.
Alice Englert: Oh yay! I’m so glad.
PopHorror: What intrigued you about You Won’t Be Alone and made you want to be a part of the project?
Alice Englert: Well, Goran [writer and director Stolevski] and I had met just on the festival circuit as little baby short film directors, and I didn’t even know he knew I was an actress or knew my work. Even though that was sort of my main job, you just never really know. Honestly, out of the blue one day, I just got this weird email from Goran about whether or not I wanted to read his script, and I wasn’t even sure exactly the context. He said if it moved me in any way, he would like to talk. I read it at The Black Cat in Silverlake in one sitting. I think I kept the coaster that I had my drink on, because I felt like I was just reading something that was for me, for my friends, for people I love, that I thought they might love. It felt like a fairy tale that was sort of old and very modern all at once, because it included all the gnarliness and all the gore that got stripped away with Disney. No shade to Disney, it’s just…
PopHorror: Very much a contrast!
Alice Englert: Yeah, yeah! I just loved how it felt like a fairy tale about how you break that cycle of abuse, and I love that there was this inescapable lightness and humor even though the subject matter got so dark. I just really related to the kind of optimism that was in a film surrounded in darkness. I found that very exciting, because sometimes you read something that’s trying to convince you to have hope, but it’s really, really leaving out the context of what might have made you feel hopeless, you know?
I just loved that Goran had basically written a monster movie that was from the perspective of the monster, and it’s impossible, I find, not to relate to Maria and to Nevena in all her forms. But really very much so to Maria. I was in awe of it. We spoke and Goran said, “Would you like to play any of them?” And I was like, “Yes!” I was very grateful to get to play Biliana, or that iteration, because I was really seeking that kind of grounded feeling in my life. I was really excited to try to embody the kind of joy and closure and moving on that she gets to go through. I remember reading it and going, “Oh my God, this is so full of joy. I can’t wait!” And then getting there and suddenly remembering, to my horror, that all her joy gets taken away and going like, “Oh fuck. This is actually harrowing.” But I don’t know.
I’m really happy to be proud of it, because it still feels like the experience I had reading it, and I hear people talking about it in a way that… I think Goran said this, too. I didn’t tell anybody that, and somehow they know, you know? It was really sweet to think that maybe other people are getting a kick out of it as well, getting something from that really intimate journey with a monster in pain, one that’s really not a monster at all. It’s impossible not to understand. I really liked that. That was obviously the long version.
PopHorror: After reading the script, was there anything you were adamant about bringing to your character?
Alice Englert: Oh, actually, yeah. Not that I was in any conflict with anybody, because I felt very supported by Goran. Goran really, really helped be a guiding light for the ensemble and who they were as a character. I wanted that violence at the end… I didn’t want it to be revenge. I wanted it to be necessity. I fins with ending these abuse cycles that can happen is that no matter how much you understand your abuser or the person who’s perpetrating against you, who somehow decided that you’re not it and you’re not allowed, no matter how much you understand where they’re coming from. It doesn’t stop them doing the behavior.
And I think the most painful thing about ending those circles is that you can’t escape unscathed. You can’t escape the pain of being able to really understand that person and still have to stop them from being in your life. You can’t expect to be unscathed by that experience. Nor should we be, because that compassion changes how we treat being able to hold that and will treat the world a little bit at a time. And sometimes you can only do your bit anyway, and somehow that has to be enough. I just wanted it to end with her, and I felt like it had to be necessity and not revenge for it to be over.
PopHorror: I just have one last question for you today. What is your favorite scary movie?
Alice Englert: Oh my God. What a fabulous question! I just got chills, but also give me a sec because my mind went blank. Okay, actually I think it might be… It’s not that scary but it might be Dawn of the Dead. George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, because I just find it so funny and poetic and it’s just wonderful and wild. I really like it.
Thank you, Alice, for taking the time to speak with us. You can catch You Won’t Be Alone in theaters now!
