Brea Grant Interview: Torn Hearts (2024)

A veteran of the horrorgenre both in front and behind the camera, Brea Grant directed Blumhouse Television and EPIX's Torn Hearts, whicheasilycombines thrills with country music. Written by Rachel Koller Croft, the film stars Golden Globe-winner Katey Sagal as estranged country star Harper Dutch and sees an aspiring music duo Jordan (Abby Quinn) and Leigh (Alexxis Lemire) arrive at Harper'smansion, eager to record with their idol.

Things turn ugly fast, as music's toxic culture threatens to destroyall three of them. Grant's acting career has seen her play roles in 2009's Halloween II and the TV series EastSiders. Prior to Torn Hearts, she directed the horror-comedy 12 Hour Shift in 2020, as well as a trio of episodes of the CW's Pandora.

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Grant spoke with Screen Rant about Torn Hearts' principal message, as well as what she loved about working with the cast.

Screen Rant:This film’s meshing of horror elements and country music is not the most conventional crossover. What are your thoughts on the uniqueness of this story?

Brea Grant: It's what drew me to the story. Blumhouse sent me Rachel's script, and I was like, "I've never seen this before." I've never seen country music and horror in the same story. That felt like something that I just had to jump on because I don't know if I'll ever get that opportunity again. I feel like it's a perfect place because the entertainment industry is something that I understood to extent. Also, I get to put cool costumes in it.

As a director, what elements did you aim to incorporate in a horror film likeTorn Hearts?

Brea Grant: So much. I feel like I got to really play in this one from the costumes, getting to design really cool stuff, working with my production designer as well and getting to make this massive wild house that I kept saying was a maximalist house as much as possible. We also got to write original music for it, we got to do five original songs for the movie.

There was just so much to build in this world. It was a quick movie. The turnaround was quite quick. The prep was very quick, but I feel like I got to really play with creating an interesting world within that Nashville country scene.

Can you tell me more about writing those original songs? How involved were you in that process?

Brea Grant: Rachel, the writer of the film, had written lyrics in the back of the script and I saw it when I read the script and I was like, "Are we going to use those lyrics? I can't believe she wrote lyrics to these songs!" It was so interesting, so I met with the producer, Allan Ett. I sent him the lyrics and he was like, "Yeah, I think we can make these work" and then we basically went over the different types of songs that are in the movie and came up with archetypes, things that we were trying to copy.

There's one song that's more pop-country because that's the Torn Hearts' song and they're almost a pop band at this point. We also had the old Dutch Sisters' song. That one I wanted to feel more like old country like Loretta Lynn. We had all of these different influences and he would write stuff and send it back and forth. We got that done within a week of meeting each other and then they had to record it within a couple of days because they all actually sang the songs.

This film takes time building up to its many plot twists toward the end. How did you go about conveying this suspense throughout the film? What were your goals for achieving that?

Brea Grant:I had a really good opportunity that I got to work with Alexxis and Abby — who are the two young women. I got to work with them a couple of days before we started. We went through the script, I was still tweaking some of the scenes, playing with some of the dialogue. We really went through and talked about what their goals as characters were, how they could end up where they were, and they added a lot to it. They brought in the background that they felt like they had and the things that would make them go to the extremes that happen at the end of the movie. I feel like that was really helpful because then we could always fall back on that. And they're both great actresses, so it was so easy to capture on camera, you could see their wheels turning the whole time as we're going along. I feel like it's a lot of credit to them.

What was it like seeing Abby, Alexxis, and also Katey fleshing out those character dynamics together?

Brea Grant: It was very fun. My first week, it was just Abby and Alexxis, and it was really fun to get to see them hang out and watch them grow as friends over the course of that first week. Katey came in the second week and we started shooting with her. That was amazing because she has such gravitas and she shows up and is very well prepared. She's a complete professional and has been doing this for a long time, longer than a lot of us. I would say everyone on set was intimidated by her [laughs] from the moment she walked in, but it was super fun.

They all were really down to play and I love getting to play with my actors. I love going in, shooting a scene, and then being like, "You know what? What if we did something different?" throwing different ideas at them, letting them improvise, and they were all really down to do that and really excited to get to play. So when you have three strong actresses like that, for me it's just finding new things in that moment and creating interesting stuff that I can possibly use later.

Do you have any funny or unusual stories from being on set?

Brea Grant: I always have trouble with this question. One thing that I think was really fun and exciting for me, we all really loved this day. There's a scene in the movie where all three of the characters sing together around this microphone and I really wanted to record it live. So, that was really important to me to find actresses who could all sing when we were casting.

I was totally unsure if it was going to work and we got there and it was sort of working, but not great. Katey was like, "Let me just figure this out" and Katey worked it out was able to make it so we could record it live. We recorded around this microphone and that's actually the live version what is used in the final film, which I was so happy about.

In the film, these two young musicians, Jordan and Leigh, are highly ambitious and deeply obsessed with Harper Dutch. In your mind, what is the message of Torn Hearts, especially concerning the danger of ambition?

Brea Grant: I don't think it's as much the danger of ambition as much as the way the entertainment industry treats women. I think the entertainment industry would encourage women to be ambitious, but then punish them for it at the same time. I wanted to show the ways in which women are encouraged to be certain ways or take certain paths. I think Harper's path is very different, obviously from the other musicians' paths. I think they all play the game the way they were told to play the game, but at the end, unfortunately, they all get pitted against each other, and that means they're all going to lose at the end.

I don't think it's the fault of any of the characters. In fact, my entire goal was to not judge any of the characters. I wanted us to all understand why they were doing the things they were doing because that's what they've been told would work or that was the way they felt they could get by. Unfortunately, it's a horror movie. [laughs] It doesn't work for them.

You are no stranger to the horror genre and you’ve been involved in films both in front of and behind the camera. I’m curious, what’s your favorite thing about this genreand this mode of storytelling?

Brea Grant: There's so much to play with there. There's a version of this movie that could have been like a drama. It could have been a drama, it could have been just women hashing it out with each other, dealing with their pasts, dealing with things they're angry about in a house. But for me, it takes a story that is a good story, but then heightens it and makes it even more interesting, and I'm able to put more fun moments in, put things that will keep me interested in this roller coaster of a movie.

Torn Hearts Synopsis

A country music duo seek out the private mansion of their idol and end up in a twisted series of horrors that force them to confront the limits they'd go for their dreams.

Check out our interview withTorn Heartsstar Katey Sagal as well.

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Torn Hearts is available to purchase digitally on May 20.