Interview: Parker Finn

Conversations with the writer-director of the hit horror film Smile.

The horror genre has been sizzling the last six weeks and no movie has been hotter than Smile. With a reported budget of $17M, to date it has generated a box office total of $189M. That is some scary good ROI.

Plot summary: After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can’t explain. Rose must confront her troubling past in order to survive and escape her horrifying new reality.

Here is an excerpt from a Nightmarish Conjurings interview with the movie’s writer-director Parker Finn.

SMILE is your first feature-length film inspired by your short, Laura Hasn’t Slept. What made you decide to take that short and execute it into a feature-length film?

Parker Finn: I think the best shorts that arere self-contained should exist for their own sake and that was certainly my intention at the time. I was in post finishing Laura Hasn’t Slept, and something about it kept nagging at me and I was sort of obsessively thinking about it. Before I knew it, this idea for a larger story started emerging from it that had a brand new character journey and all these new ideas. And I just, I don’t know, I couldn’t let go of it. It sort of had its grips on me.

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How did the smile come about? Did you have a lot of concept art that you looked at before arriving at the final one? When did you know you had it?

Parker Finn: I knew from the beginning I wanted the smiles to be practical human performances cause I think there’s something so uncanny about that. When they’re real smiles yet they’re so unsettling. It kind of all started while I was writing the script. I would go to the bathroom and smile at myself in the mirror and see how I could creep myself out. On set, the actors all came prepared and did a lot of work on that. Before we would go [film], we’d spend a little time just smiling back and forth at each other trying to dial it in on set to make sure they had it just right. There’s a through line with all the smiles, but everybody brings their own kind of little flavor to it.

I do have to bring up the mental health aspect of the film as one of the main themes focuses on suicide. What type of research did you do and were you concerned that this might upset people who struggle with mental illness/suicide?

Parker Finn: I spoke with a few psychologists and let them read the script and weigh in which was really important to me, and I did a bunch of research as well. Anytime I’m writing I’m putting personal stuff into it as well but I’m always translating it through the lens of genre to take it away from the personal because otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to engage with it if I made things too personal.

But what was really, really important to me was to tell a compelling human character story that was exploring the human condition. I think we all are walking around with these things inside of us. Whether it’s traumas or grief or anxieties or fears and the way that we mask those from the world. That was something I was really interested in exploring as well, placing the audience in the shoes of a character who feels like their mind is turning against them and how frightening that could be. But it was always really important to me that we are really, really placed with the character and feel that sense of empathy.

I mean, it is kind of like a gleefully evil movie, which was very intentional. I wanted to be provocative and transgressive, but I also wanted to tell this story that felt grounded and real, and honest. And hopefully, after the audience watches the film, they’ll look at someone who is trying to describe an experience they’re having that’s really difficult to explain and maybe look at that a little differently than they did before they watched the film.

Here is video interview with Finn:

Here is a trailer for the movie:

For those of you who have seen the movie and want to see some analysis of it, along with some details about the short film Smile was based on, here you go [it’s only available to watch on YouTube]:

For the rest of the Nightmarish Conjurings interview, go here.

For 100s more interviews with screenwriters and filmmakers, go here.