Advertisement
Trey Edward Shults: I always wanted it to be a feature and the short film was supposed to be a feature, but I didn't know what I was doing. We shot the original thing in my mom's house with my family members in a week, but I was the sole producer and our budget was just $7,000. The crew was me, my director of photography, and a sound guy. The feature ended up being minimal, but that just wasn't the film I envisioned and the shoot didn't go well. It was the worst week of my life. I had a nervous breakdown, and then I took two years re-editing the footage and rethinking it. It turned into the short that way. Once we had a little bit of success from [the short], that gave everyone some encouragement. Then, I rewrote the feature, got the troops together, and we shot in August.
Advertisement
It's a combination of me, for the past five or six years, obsessing over movies, and auteurs, and studying them, and then trying to find my own way to do things. But for this particular movie, stylistically, everything serves Krisha's mental state; it's subjective to her experience. And everything was planned out to do that with the film grammar. For example, there's a visual progression that starts with wider lenses and longer takes, then we narrowed things in and changed aspect ratios, as well as used longer lenses. And then we did the same thing with the score. The score has an arc with her character, and each piece contains an element of the prior piece, but it shifts so it's starting off with a lot of percussion, and then strings come in, and by the end it's synths. That stuff was all planned.Beyond writing what you know, what drew you to make such a personal first film about and starring your family?
We had a family reunion, and my cousin Nika had a relapse, and then a month or two later she had an overdose and passed away. Addiction runs strong in my family. So I guess Krisha's character is kind of a combination of different family members, and the story a combination of different things in our family. I don't know, I just always knew it had to be made with my mom and with Krisha, in my mom's house. I wouldn't have done it any other way. It just felt right, and that's what made the movie special.
Advertisement
Krisha Fairchild: When you have someone in your family that you've loved their whole life, and you've watched them struggle with these things; it's like a roller coaster. You have to do hard things. And then when the person comes back, and they're clean, then there's this sense––I don't want to use the word guilt––that you can't escape, that you feel like, "Oh, God, we did these things to her to help her the last time, the tough love, and now she's OK." And, of course, "OK" is all relative with an addict.So, she had been "OK" for five years, being a part of the family and everything, and then this one time, we all felt the off-the-rails-ness, but we knew that we couldn't save her. I think after she passed, we all felt a sense of––again, guilt is not a healthy word to use––a sense of What could I have done differently? So by doing this movie, for me, I wanted to create a character that is empathetic and people can find the place where they feel compassion and empathy for the addicts, or the people who are struggling with mental issues, or whatever, in their family. We wanted to tell people, if you can't save them, if you can't help them, just let them know you love them.Robyn, can you talk about your experience having your son make a movie with you about your family?
Robyn: I have always been so supportive of his vision of wanting to be a filmmaker. I was a little anxious about whether I could do a role like that, because I'm not a trained actor, but I didn't really care… I just knew I would. So for me, yes, it was a lot about Nika, it was a lot about our history, but I gotta say, as a mom, it was more, I wanted to help him make what he saw.
Advertisement
You also made this movie in your real house in Texas. So you're essentially finishing a scene, wrapping for the day, and then just going to bed in your bed? Trey: Oh, yeah. At the end of the movie, when Krisha goes in the son's room, that's where I live, with my girlfriend and her three cats. [Laughs]While you were making this film, you had a number of other actors coming into your house. How did you deal with separating your family from these other professionals?I just always knew the movie had to be made with my mom and with Krisha, in my mom's house. I wouldn't have done it any other way. — Trey Shults
Robyn: You don't.Trey: We were all one big family.Robyn: Yeah, we just clicked immediately. Everybody felt comfortable.
Advertisement
Trey: Yeah, exactly!Krisha: We have a blood family and we have a soul family.Are you guys planning on doing another thing together, about family stuff? Or just with your family, but not necessarily about your own life?
Trey: I don't know. I personally want to do something totally different next. I feel like this has been a special, kind of magical experience, and you can't duplicate that. I just want to do something totally different, with different people. But then, I mean, who knows on the movie after that?Robyn: We're hoping, on his third or fourth movie, he might try to use us again.Trey: There you go.'Krisha' is now out in theaters. See here for more info on the movie. Follow Jeffrey on Twitter.