By: Haley Bosselman By: Haley Bosselman | March 18, 2022 | Movies,
In her feature debut, writer-director Krystin Ver Linden captures the story of an enslaved woman (Keke Palmer) on a Georgia plantation who escapes after a violent confrontation with the plantation owner. Alice follows its eponymous hero as she stumbles onto a highway and discovers that it is, in fact, 1973. Alice crosses paths with Frank (Common), a disillusioned activist and truck driver who aids Alice into her new world and settling into freedom. Along the way, she uncovers the lies that kept her enslaved.
Following its Sundance Film Festival debut, LA Confidential spoke with Ver Linden about Alice, finding her perfect star actors and navigating the filming of her debut during the early days of the pandemic.
How does someone come up with an idea like the plotline in Alice?
I wish I could say it just popped into my head, but the sad reality is it was based on a bunch of articles I read. And there's specifically one article that stood out about this woman, May Miller, and the article opens without us knowing any information. She and the journalist are walking onto this property and she says, “How do you feel coming back to the plantation?” And as a reader, you're going like, “Wait, what? What year is this?” And then she goes into her story and talks about how she was born there, she was raised there, her life and then the circumstances on how she was able to run away. It was so compelling to me and it stuck with me for days and days and days until I just I got to the point where it's like, “Okay, let me just write. Let me just sit in front of my computer and just see what it would look like just to write some of this out.” And then without purposefully doing it, I ended up writing the script probably from one Sunday to the following Sunday. So it took seven days... It was almost like I was forced into it because it was so compelling.
Out of all post-antebellum years, why set it in 1973?
The True stories took place in the 1960s when they ran out, including May Miller's. It was 1962. I didn't want for our protagonist to run out in the middle of the Civil Rights movement with nothing to reflect on, just more adversity that she's going to have to navigate. It's just not good for film. I decided if she ran out 10 years later in 1973, she could reflect on the decade before and what happened and what happened to the leaders, and also that way our character Frank can echo what happened 10 years earlier and see how she becomes the spark that reignites him to want to take action action again because he feels like everything he did was in vain.
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What was it like forming a character like Frank? I can imagine it’s tricky developing a whole, complex person who is still kind and patient enough to help a woman who thinks they’re from the 19th century?
It really came down to finding out the key moments for us to see Frank with his brother. We see the parallels between what looks like “making it” to his brother, who's on the right side of politics, versus Frank, who's on the left side of politics and how Alice reignites his flame to not only stand up for what's right and the things that he believed in in the past, but also his brother, who thinks making it looks like it looks a certain way.
I didn't want Alice to just run out and then in a Stranger Things or E.T. kind of way, bump into people. I wanted one person to guide her through the journey. When I was writing, I asked myself, “If I were Alice running out into a world I didn't know anything about, who would I feel safe to get into a truck with?” My head always went to Common because he was a hero of mine as a kid and he's someone that I look up to and inspired me. His music inspired me greatly as a little girl, so I'm glad it worked out.
Did you also have Keke Palmer specifically in mind for the role?
I did. I love her. She was someone that I love how outspoken she is. She doesn't filter what she says, she's not fake… I absolutely love that about her. When we were in the middle of casting, it was when all of the protests were happening. I would turn on the TV and every day and see Keke on the front lines in a protest either in Chicago or L.A. I couldn't help but think, “That's Alice. That is so Alice, if Alice is thrown into 2020 American summer, that would be Alice.” And so we met and talked for four hours in a cafe in New York. It felt like a reunion, like I was meeting up with an old friend, and she'll be your friend forever.
The movie has some very intense scenes. What was it like developing safe spaces on set?
One of my jobs as a director is to create a safe space from the get go. And so I would talk to everyone working on the set, every morning I would give a little speech. We were all really really, really close, I think, because it was COVID. Everyone was making a choice to take the risk to be a part of this, so we all had the same mindset. There were certain scenes where Keke and I really locked arm-in-arm and I made sure she felt safe in every moment. And Johnny Lee Miller (plantation owner Paul), I made sure that he was being aware that certain things can make people feel uncomfortable because he stayed in character the whole time. I just am really outspoken when it comes to setting a tone on a set and making it feel safe, but also upbeat given the circumstances that we were shooting and the circumstances of life in 2020.
What do you want audiences to take away from Alice?
I just want people to remember or knowing or realizing that you define yourself on your own terms, not the definition that anybody puts on you. And that one voice can start a conversation and every voice is important no matter what race, religion, gender, anything. Every person is unique and that's what makes the world beautiful.
Given this is your directorial debut, was making this a high-pressure process?
Yes. I wanted to present myself as what my voice is, which is something like Alice or I feel like I'm a combination of if Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino had a kid. A weird kid. Directing is really, really easy. It's not rocket science. What's hard is COVID and navigating COVID when in 2020, no one really knew what was going to happen or if there was ever going to be a vaccine anytime soon. Or do the masks work, do they not work? Navigating that and waking up every morning wondering, “Oh my God, was this the day someone tests positive? Is this the day we shut down?” That was the hardest part. That was the thing that kept me up at night, in tandem with the presidential election in Georgia. It was like there was this tension in the state and in the city that was undeniable too. It was like being thrown into a hot skillet.
This interview has been edited and condensed. Alice is now in theaters.
Photography by: Courtesy Krystin Ver Linden