Austin Peters Talks On the Upcoming “Skincare” Thriller
This piece was originally published on Film Obsessive.
Los Angeles is the city of image. People want to be seen in the spotlight even if they have nothing to do with the film industry. Essential to the livelihood of the city is one’s persinal skincare routine and the various aestheticians who claim to have found the answer to anti-aging. It’s a cutthroat industry at the center of director Austin Peters’ aptly named upcoming feature, Skincare. Elizabeth Banks stars as celebrity aesthetician Hope Goldman who is planning the launch of her own product line. Just as everything seems to be working in her favor, another aesthetician (Luis Gerardo Méndez) opens up shop across the street. This arrival just so happens to coincide with an onslaught of vulgar messages and harassment where Hope is the target. Desperate to not let her reputation be sabotaged, Hope, with the help of a life coach (Lewis Pullman), will stop at nothing to make sure she ends up on top.
Austin Peters sat down with Film Obsessive News Editor Tina Kakadelis to chat about his upcoming film, Skincare. The transcript has been edited for clarity and space.
Film Obsessive: Hey, Austin! How’s it going?
Austin Peters: Hi, Tina. Nice to meet you! Thanks for coming and talking to me.
Absolutely! I’m thrilled to talk about Skincare. I interested to learn that it was kind of based on a true story. When and how did you hear about this true story? What kind of care do you think has to go into taking someone’s life events and putting them on the big screen?
I think the movie is, first and foremost, a work of fiction. I sort of became familiar with the story by becoming familiar with the script that this writer had brought me. The headlines and the events that really happened sort of acted as a point of departure for us to break off and be able to create the story that we were looking to tell. This film that is inspired by all the movies that we loved and all the books that we loved. It sort of was just this this loose idea that we started with. All the characters and everyone in it are creations of the actors and of the writers.
(L-R) Ella Balinska and Elizabeth Banks in Skincare. Image courtesy of IFC.
You’re quite the prolific music video director for some bands that I really love and music plays such a huge role in Skincare. As someone who comes from that background, were you thinking about the role music would play as early as going through that script or did it come much later?
Anytime I read a project or become sparked to an idea, one of the first things that happens is that I start to think about how it sounds. For this movie, there was a time where I thought there was going to be no music and it was just going to be all natural sound like so many movies that I love are. Then I very quickly did a 180 on that and realized that I loved the way Los Angeles sounds with all these different kinds of songs in different places. There’s music coming from a car that’s driving by and all of that. We could sort of play with the weird juxtaposition that happens in real life when you’re in a store and they play a song that is like the opposite of how you’re actually feeling and how that enhances those feelings. That’s what started to happen and then, of course, the score done by Fatima Al Qadiri. I had watched Atlantics and I had just been so smitten by the whole movie, but especially the score and I was so interested in what she would do in this world. I reached out to her and she came on to do the score. I think it adds so much to the atmosphere and to the feeling of the movie.
The score really stayed with me! There’s a repeated theme of the Skincare characters trying to take control of their narrative with Hope (Banks) and Jordan (Pullman) wanting to control the life that they have. Do you think it’s possible for anybody to ever control their their own story?
Not in the way that these characters think about it. I think that it’s possible to control one’s own life and the choices that you make. The way that these characters are talking about it, the blending of well-being and brand, and the toxic positivity that Jordan is always talking about. I don’t think that’s the way to get it done.
Elizabeth Banks in Skincare. Image courtesy of IFC
You go between this dreamy sense of believing in your dreams, what Los Angeles is built on, but then shift to almost a body horror thriller in Skincare. Can you talk a little bit about how you balance those two themes and how that maybe speaks to the larger culture of Los Angeles, or just the beauty industry in general?
Yeah, I think, in a way, modern life is constantly balancing these two things of your hopes and dreams and also the horror of everyday life. Obviously, things get really out of hand in this movie and they spiral to progressively get worse and worse and worse. I felt like Los Angeles was such a perfect setting for this story because of the way that everything feels so cranked here. So elevated. Al of these things play out and escalate so quickly in the film, that LA was the perfect setting for the movie in that way. Then, the setting sort of told us what it should feel like. That the film should have the feeling that is dreamy and surreal, but also hyper-real and brutal at the same time. That’s kind of what we were trying to create with the imagery and the making of the film.
Skincare will release Exclusively In Theaters August 16, 2024.
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