The 2022 Sundance Film Festival line-up is packed with industry powerhouses, but one of the highlights of the event is discovering emerging talent and there are two individuals involved in the movieMasterthat absolutely need to be on your radar — starZoe Reneeand first time feature director,Mariama Diallo.
Renee plays Jasmine Moore in the film, an especially bright student who’s excited to kick off her first year at an elite New England university. However, soon after arriving, Jasmine comes to realize that there’s a darkness lurking underneath the school’s pristine facade, a darkness tied to its Salem-era roots and blatant racism plaguing the campus. In addition to Jasmine,Masteralso covers what happens whenRegina Hall’s Gail Bishop accepts the position of “Master,” a dean of students, and all the responsibilities and baggage that come with it.
With the film celebrating its World Premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, I got the chance to chat with Hall, Renee and Diallo about bringing this “spooky drama” to screen. Diallo began by walking us through the notoriously challenging process of getting a green light to make her very first feature film.
“It was very hard and there was certainly a point where I just couldn’t tell how to make it happen, you know? I had been writing for years and years just for fun, but I felt very, very outside of the film industry. But the thing that I think really made the difference for me is that on the scale that I could manage, I started to create, and so I made a couple of short films. I made a short film called Sketch and then I made a short film called Hair Wolf where I tried to apply the lessons that I had learned from the first one and strengthen the film. And that short was lucky enough to get traction and play at festivals like Sundance, and that’s really what allowed me to start walking into meetings and say, ‘I do have this script!’”
Actually, Diallo didn’t have one script — she had a lot of them. Diallo explained that, at the time, she was in a phase where she was constantly writing. However, that didn’t mean she had a whole batch of scripts she was eager to prioritize. Diallo pinpointed what could be a common screenwriting struggle and also highlighted how it helped confirm thatMasterabsolutely had to be her first feature.
“I had a lot of scripts. Master was the one that I liked the most. But the timing just worked out that I had the story that I really loved. I hadn’t yet fallen out of love with it, which happens to me sometimes with some of the scripts I write. You write it thinking it’s gonna be brilliant and then you get to the end and you’re like, ‘I can never show my face again.’ But this one, I never stopped loving it and so that felt like a sign and then I got to actually meet people who could help me make it, which is how I met my producers at Animal Kingdom.”
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As someone who grew up watching Hall shine in the horror spoof series,Scary Movie, I couldn’t help but be curious about her unique journey in the genre. Here she is going from a comedy that pokes fun at genre tropes to an especially unsettling and tragic horror film. It’s quite the leap so I opted to ask Hall how that pivot impacted her feelings on horror.
“I love all genres when they’re done well, so I felt really lucky to be doing the spoof genre with the Wayans because I feel like Keenen [Ivory Wayans] really understood it. And I love Scream, too! I actually watched it! So it feels great and to do this, the way I think Mariama wrote the script and the way she directed it, it’s so grounded and it’s so real, and there are things obviously that are suspended, but it’s like whatever world you’re getting to in whatever genre, it’s really real. As crazy as it sounds, Brenda was really real. You weren’t playing the parody, you’re not playing the horror. You kind of go into this world, you go into these characters, you go into these relationships. And what’s great about having a really good director and a director like Mariama is she’s watching the monitor and she’s watching your performance, and she’s fine tuning it and helping you create nuances that are so subtle, and giving you the opportunity to do it until it clicks.”
As for Renee, it’s pretty remarkable what she’s able to accomplish inMastergiven it’s only her second lead role in a feature film. Similarly to Diallo, Renee approaches her work in the movie like a seasoned pro, her performance brimming with confidence from top of bottom. There is no doubt in my mind that a lot of that comes from her own raw talent, but Renee did stress the positive influence her collaborators had on her, beginning with Diallo while tackling one of the film’s most challenging scenes:
“It was one of my biggest emotionally draining scenes. I’m crying, I’m running around and [Mariama is] pushing me in the sweetest way, but also pushing me, wanting me to get to this point where Jasmine is really struggling. Her comfort and her guidance was genuinely invaluable. It helped me for the rest of shooting.”
Renee also took a moment to explain how Hall bolstered the sense of community on the set ofMaster:
“She really is just a light. I think our most tender moments were in the makeup trailer or passing each other going to our trailers, this sense of community and love. And you know, Regina had only known me at that point for like maybe a couple days, but I felt like she had my back, and she really did. Even on set I remember feeling like I was really walking side by side Regina Hall, and still to this day, I’m not sure how to process it.”
Eager to hear more from the trio on their new film? You can catch our full conversation in the video interview at the top of this article! Be sure to keep an eye out forMasterwhen it hits prime video globally on March 18th.
