Lana Condor & Kathryn Newton Talk Representation, Their New Shark Movie & Body Positivity
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Overview
Shark movies aren’t always looked upon fondly. But there’s a reason the genre continues to flourish: it’s entertaining, there’s room for strong female characters, and filmmakers can find a way to turn it on its head. In The Devil’s Mouth, director Jeff Wadlow explores themes of female friendship and growing up, while five friends fight for survival. One of the lead characters is Max, played by Lana Condor, a polarizing, confident sweet-talker. This isn’t the first Amazon-MGM thriller that Condor has played a lead role in — her action-ballerina film Pretty Lethal was released earlier this year — but that doesn’t mean Asian-American actors are being spoiled for choice.
“Within the past six years, we’ve seen more Asian representation, more leading roles, than we’ve ever [seen] before, but still, in comparison, [it] doesn’t even make a blip,” Condor tells Refinery29. “I definitely think more leading roles need to be written for us, because it’s really super easy to put us not in a lead.” Condor says it’s a “testament” to both The Devil’s Mouth and Amazon for championing non-white leads. “There’s work to be done, but there’s also a lot of us that are super stoked to do the work. So it’s really like, let’s get going,” she says.
Condor provided representation for East Asian women around the world when To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before was released in 2018, and she admits it’s something that has driven her whole career. “My honest-to-God reason that pushes me to keep making films [is that] I really want people to feel seen,” the actor says sincerely. “That’s what drives my basically, my entire want… I feel so grateful that I get to storytell just in general.”
The Devil’s Mouth also puts women in the spotlight. Condor’s character, Max, and Kathryn Newton’s character, Sara, are the beating heart of the film. Sarah Michelle Gellar previously said that only a few genres would allow women to lead early in her career. Horror has always been one of these, so it makes sense that The Devil’s Mouth continues that tradition. Newton is fast becoming a modern Scream Queen, after completing films such as Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come, Freaky, Paranormal Activity 4 and more, and she tells R29 genre films provide a special type of challenge.
“I love to entertain, and I think genre films reach a really wide audience. I think they’re challenging. I don’t think they’re easy. I think they’re hard to be convincing in, and [be] grounded and real,” the star says. “You know what’s going to happen in [The Devil’s Mouth]. It’s a shark movie. Someone’s going to die. Someone’s gonna get eaten, but how am I gonna keep you invested?”
You know what’s going to happen. It’s a shark movie. Someone’s going to die. Someone’s gonna get eaten, but how am I gonna keep you invested?
The film relies on the actors to keep audiences invested, and the cast had to put their bodies on the line. “This movie had everything I thought I needed to be doing at the time. I wanted to be the lead of an action film, and I think Jeff Wadlow really helped me do that,” Newton explains. “You get banged up, but it’s all part of the fun. It adds to your performance… yeah, sometimes we were bleeding, but it didn’t slow you down. It was cool, it was cool to be bleeding. It’s like battle scars.”
There’s also body diversity in the cast, with Condor opting to wear a one-piece swimsuit while filming. She’s been open about healing from body dysmorphia, and was the topic of online chatter after going natural and braless for the Fashion Trust Awards earlier this year. While she’s not plus-sized, it’s still a relief to see curvier figures on screen, especially when extreme thinness is being celebrated in Hollywood at the moment. Condor says when she first received The Devil’s Mouth script, she had to think carefully about what it would entail.
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“One of the first things that came into my brain was, ‘You will be very exposed. You are going to be in a swimsuit [for] three months in 4K’ or whatever it is,” she recalls. “When I was in fittings, I very much advocated for ‘I need to feel safe in my body, full stop.’ And I know this is a shark movie. I know that body is everything in a shark movie, because you’re swimming, and all you see is bodies in the water, I get it.”
When I was in fittings, I very much advocated for, ‘I need to feel safe in my body, full stop’.
The actor says it’s a vulnerable position to expose yourself under these types of conditions, so the costume team designed the one-piece swimsuit with specifications that would make Condor feel confident. “I’m curious to see the type of conversation that’s going to start [from this],” she notes. “I hope it’s a positive one, because it would be really hard if that was a topic of conversation in a negative way.”
With the way audiences embraced Ella Bright’s role as Hannah Wells in Off Campus, there’s a lesson for studios to learn here. We want more diversity. Whether that’s body size, gender, ethnicities, disabled or queer representation on screen, there are viewers waiting for it.
The Devil’s Mouth will be available to stream on Prime Video from July 29.
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Originally published at www.refinery29.com.