Mia Goth acts her age to reprise her role as Pearl from Ti West’s successful slasher flick X. Written, directed, produced and edited by West himself, X follows a cast of hopeful filmmakers who rent out a property in rural Texas from an elderly couple in order to make a ‘tasteful’ pornographic film. Mia Goth stars in a dual role as a mid-twenties wannabe pornographic actress — the promiscuous Maxine Minx — and Pearl, a working-class woman lamenting her age and expressing jealousy towards Maxine’s ‘free-spirited’ attitude and lack of constraint when it comes to sexual endeavors.
Courtesy of A24, the official synopsis for Pearl reads as follows:
Trapped on her family’s isolated farm, Pearl must tend to her ailing father under the bitter and overbearing watch of her devout mother. Lusting for a glamorous life like she’s seen in the movies, Pearl’s ambitions, temptations, and repressions all collide, in the stunning, technicolor-inspired origin story of X’s iconic villain.
Shortly after its theatrical run, Ti West revealed that X was filmed back-to-back with its prequel, Pearl, and Mia Goth would be reprising her role as a younger-aged Pearl for an in-depth exploration of her youth, including her relationship with Howard. Pearl also stars David Corenswet as Howard, Tandi Wright, Matthew Sunderland, and Emma Jenkins-Purro.
A24, the independent studio behind Hereditary, Midsommar and the upcoming slasher Bodies Bodies Bodies, are producing and distributing West’s prequel with Jacob Jaffke, Harrison Kreiss and Kevin Turen serving as producers and Goth, Dennis Cummings, Sam Levinson, Ashley Levinson, Karina Manashil, Scott Mescudi and Peter Phok executive producing.
Speaking to Fangoria, West shared details about Mia Goth’s role as the central villain in both X and Pearl, considering Goth to be a key component in the correspondence.
In terms of what I wanted to do with the movie, Mia just came in right from the jump and was like, ‘I can kill this.’ I just believed her; I just believed that she totally got these characters. So that’s how Pearl came about. I decided that I wanted to make a film set in 1918 that’s all about that character, and we have already made and finished it. And Mia’s just tremendous in that, too.
Plus, I love that with the character of Pearl that Mia was able to create a villain character that wasn’t going to be a normal villain, and I love how she gave this character some humanity to her which is what that movie [Pearl] hangs on.
West has also stated that while X was heavily influenced by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise and the works of Mario Bava, exploring how the rise of independent filmmaking affected society, Pearl will be a melodrama-meets-Technicolor style of Mary Poppins made as a “demented Disney movie” and based on the works of Douglas Sirk.
Pearl is coming to theaters on Sep. 16.
Published: Jul 26, 2022 08:54 am