After directing music videos with famous artists such as Orville Peck, Haim and Bastille, he moved on to documentary Give me a future about Major Lazer’s free concert in Cuba in 2016, Austin Peters has now ventured into narrative feature filmmaking. His first star venture is Skin care with Elizabeth Banks (in theaters August 16).
Banks plays Hope Goldman, a Los Angeles-based celebrity facialist who is launching her own skin care line. But while she navigates the financial investment to launch her own line alongside her high-profile practice, a rival beautician, Angel Vergara (Luis Gerardo Méndez), sets up shop across the street from Hope’s studio.
As Hope begins to worry that Angel is affecting her business, she is convinced that someone is trying to sabotage her after a series of unfortunate events, including Hope’s email being hacked with disturbing messages sent from the account. Hope’s friend Jordan (Louis Pullman) helps her try to figure out who is trying to destroy the business and, more importantly, her reputation.
For Peters, Banks was always the top choice for the film’s lead role.
“He was our first choice and we thought he was such a long shot that he would do it,” Peters said Yahoo Canada. “Watching her bring that character to life and seeing what she adds to it and seeing the choices she makes when we’re talking about the script, but also on the day she would find it, was so exciting. “
“The schedule was incredibly intense, as it is for all indie films, and the days were very long, as for all indie films, but I was coming home so full of energy and excitement, because it was just exciting to see her bring this character in life”.
Banks also reunites with her Slip co-starring Nathan Fillion Skin care. Fillion plays a TV host and Hope goes on his show to promote her skin care line.
“He was always so funny and he was always like that,” Peters said. “He and Elizabeth have been friends for a long time.”
“He wasn’t working long days and he showed up and it just clicked, and they immediately had this shorthand, and they were able to have so much fun… He was just incredible and cracking everybody up… I have so many hours of footage of him behind the TV desk, where he makes different news… It was hard to cut anything.
While Skin care it is very loosely inspired by history Dawn DaLuisethe Hollywood beautician who was arrested and then acquitted in a murder-for-hire plot, Peters emphasized that this film is “completely fictional”.
“We made a very conscious decision early on not to try to tell that story, not to try to serve that story, because we didn’t want to make a documentary or a journalistic piece, we wanted to make it a sun noir. Hollywood in 2013,” Peters said.
“It was inspired by the loose idea of this case that happened, … and we had heard those stories, but I think everything beyond that was about, what is the best version of this movie … How did it fit into this the idea of sunshine noir and the characters are completely inventions of the cast and writers.”
We are moving away from the “glamorized” version of Los Angeles
In addition to the famous stars of the film, the setting for Skin care he has his own style.
While historical accounts of Los Angeles and Hollywood have been presented as this bright, shiny place, Peters’ approach Skin care takes a much grittier and darker look at the film’s location.
“We went to great lengths to find a way to shoot this movie in Los Angeles, which wasn’t the cheapest option, … because we really wanted to feel like Los Angeles and like Hollywood as a real city,” Peters explained. “Not like that situation with the Emperor’s New Clothes, where… it wasn’t the flashy version you see in the reality shows that take place here.”
“We talked a lot about American films of the 1970s, a lot of which were shot in New York, and it’s like New York, and it’s like this almost documentary version of that. And so we wanted to capture that same spirit… It’s not just this fake Hollywood I think, when you say Hollywood to people around the world, sometimes they have a certain idea that comes to mind is wealth, and it’s all these things And we really wanted this movie to show Hollywood the location and Hollywood the city, and an actual 10-block radius that this movie takes place in, and really feel grounded in that space.”
As you can expect with Peters extensive experience in music video direction, music and score Skin care I feel very specific, but there was actually a moment when the director thought there would be no music in the film.
“There was an early iteration of this movie where I thought I’d do it without music, and everything would be live, natural sound and city sounds,” Peters revealed. “But then I realized that while … there are a lot of movies that I enjoy like that, it’s not necessarily what I do, and it would be a shame to … not try to have that music in this movie.”
“I think I always knew there was going to be some heavy metal kind of music in it, and I always knew there was going to be top 40 pop music in it, or that was always my ambition. I knew I wanted the score to be something that created an atmosphere that was really different.”
Peters was particularly inspired by the score of the 2019 film Atlanticled by Fatima Al Qadiri, who worked on the score for Skin care also.
“The pursuit of the image of success”
At its core Skin care is a story about someone’s quest for fame and success, how far they will go to achieve it, and what happens when their idealized success story is in jeopardy.
“It’s a really amped-up version of something that we can all relate to now, which is trying to get by and be successful and trying to make it in an economy that’s very challenging,” Peters said. “We’re trying to pay our bills and try to be successful and not be replaced by the younger generation that’s coming up behind us that’s different and knows how to use TikTok and knows how to do these things that maybe we do.”
“We talk so much about the movie about the image of success and the pursuit of the image of success, and how far you’re willing to go to protect your image and how important the image of success is over actual success. I think the famous version of that is kind of the weird fun version that you get to experience in Los Angeles, where you feel like everything is so edgy and everything is so wrong all the time, which makes it an exciting setting for a movie or the reason for the culture, because everything here feels so high all the time.”
