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Saint Clare Director on Casting, Dark Religious Overtones & Levity

Director Mitzi Peirone (Braid) spoke to Bleeding Cool about Quiver's thriller Saint Clare, casting, and film's dark religious overtones.

Writer-director Mitzi Peirone is as resourceful as she is passionate as a filmmaker, not only demonstrating her intuition in getting her debut feature Braid (2018) financed by cryptocurrency, but also her prowess in storytelling, blending cathartic and religious themes in her latest thriller in Quiver's Saint Clare. The film follows Clare Bleecker (Bella Thorne), a 16-year-old Catholic school student, animal lover, and devout vegan living with her grandparents. Little beknown to her loved ones, she harbors a dark secret, living a life with dissociative identity disorder as a serial killer. Her victims are typical sexual predators who don't know they are prey. Peirone spoke to Bleeding Cool about casting with seasoned veterans like Rebecca De Mornay, Ryan Phillippe, and Frank Whaley, and how she came to define Clare's relationship with her conscience, Mailman Bob (Whaley), who was one of her victims.

Saint Clare Writer-Director Mitzi Peirone on Creative Process, Casting, and Building Nuance to Clare and Mailman Bob's Relationship

So, how did the rest of the cast come about with Rebecca, Ryan, Frank, Bart [Johnson], Erica [Dasher], Jan Luis [Castellanos], and Joy [Rovaris]?

The baseline was that everybody read the script. They loved it and met with me. Their first question was, "How are you going to shoot this in 15 days?" Frankly, I didn't know how to answer at the time, because besides the will to get through it, I had to prepare relentlessly, storyboard as much as I could to make sure that we were prepared for battle every day. Ultimately, the best way to get the right actors is to write something true to your heart that's going to attract the right people who need to be a part of the project.

Rebecca de Mornay told me at our first meeting that her favorite historical character is Joan of Arc, so some of these moments are just too perfect. When two people find things they love in common and see it reflected in the script, that's ultimately what gets actors engaged. It was the same for Ryan Phillippe and Frank Whaley, who brought such a profound dimension to "Mailman Bob" that I wasn't even expecting. You write to the best of your ability, but then the actor shows up, and they bring a whole other world of truthfulness of grounded beauty that's also vulnerable. It's raw, fragile, and they brought gravitas to the script. With Joy, Erica, and Jan-Luis, I got old-fashioned audition tapes, and they stood out, and I'm so delighted I was able to cast them.

Can you tell me how Bella and Frank developed their relationship, Clare and Bob? The second part is how you worked with Bella on her action scenes and stunt work?

Bella's not foreign to action, so she came in with a great deal of knowledge and expertise of her own. We practice the stunts with the stunt coordinator (Frank Blake) at length, and Bella's capability of being so physical and strong grounded the narrative in realism. Her work with Frank brought this unexpected depth to the character, this fragility, I keep saying he's the heart of the film, especially when we premiered in London. I could feel the audience reacting, particularly to their relationship.

If we didn't have that, the film would be a little too bleak. In a sense, Bob is Clare's conscience, and the fact that every time he appears, he nags her and warns her about what could happen. Bob represents hunches, her own instincts, like what we feel could happen, but also her conscience. Halfway through the film, you wonder, "Where did Bob go?" That's the same thing she asks because perhaps she needed to do certain things. She needed to block out her inner voice and conscience. It is also reflective of the moment in the Bible, where Jesus asks, "Why did you abandon me to God?" I'm not trying to say Bella is Jesus and Bob is God, but we can feel a sense of loss of meaning of direction at times in our lives.

I'm taking it from a metaphorical standpoint. I'm not here to preach Bible passages, but from a humanistic and philosophical standpoint, it is relatable. The idea at some point, we feel lost within a dark forest, to quote 'Dante's Inferno,' so Bob becomes that inner dimension of her soul. That's why he comes back in the end when things are resolved, but not quite so resolved. [Clare and Bob] mastered a relationship that is both tender at times, because Bob is somewhat a reflection of Clare's psyche and other consciousness. At the same time, there is an element of oddball couple between the two of them. It's the comedic relief of the film needed.

Saint Clare is in select theaters and available digitally.

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