Following her government manufacturing work on Prime Video’s Música, through which she additionally starred alongside the movie’s author and director Rudy Mancuso, in addition to her EP function on the streamer’s romantic comedy Upgraded, through which she starred alongside Archie Renaux and Marisa Tomei, Camila Mendes’ newest double responsibility mission takes place on the earth of style. Idiotka is an acquisition title out of the 2025 SXSW Movie Pageant, the place it is going to premiere Wednesday.
“This mission got here by way of a mutual buddy that I shared with our producing associate, Tess Cohen, a buddy that I knew from highschool. It’s very random, however superior. It gripped me,” Mendes advised Deadline of the movie forward of its premiere Wednesday. “I known as my producing associate immediately, Rachel Matthews, and I used to be like, we gotta do that. She’s like, ‘Babe, I’m with you. I simply learn the primary two pages and I’m in.’ It was so gripping and charming. [Director] Nastasya’s writing model is so distinctive that it was a direct, sure, however I used to be like, ‘All proper, high quality. I’ll learn the remainder of the script simply to do my due diligence,’ however I already [knew] I would like[ed] to do it.”
Idiotka, directed by Nastasya Popov and starring Anna Baryshnikov, follows spiring dressmaker Margarita (Baryshnikov) who lives at her grandmother’s West Hollywood residence together with her babushka (Galina Jovovich) in addition to her father (Mark Ivanir) and brother. Margarita’s already chaotic dwelling scenario spirals extra when their landlord decides to lastly act on their unpaid, months-late lease and serve them an eviction discover. Margarita’s determined try to make some quick money, in addition to a reputation for herself, by making use of to a actuality TV style present a la Undertaking Runway unexpectedly comes by way of when a producer on the present Nicol (Mendes) calls Margarita to just accept her utility and usher her into the wild world of actuality tv.
“I used to be desirous to discover questions of self-exploitation and the way a lot of ourselves we expose as storytellers and artists,” Popov advised Deadline forward of the movie’s March 12 premiere on the SXSW Movie Pageant.
Each Baryshnikov and Mendes, whose character balances a high quality line between supporting Margarita within the competitors and milking her for good actuality TV content material, recall desirous to signal onto the mission with out about two pages into the script.
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“The script was tremendous tight and really, very sturdy, and supported with this wonderful sizzle reel that basically bought the imaginative and prescient of it. Typically you learn an awesome script and all the things’s written fantastically, however you don’t actually understand how the director envisions it, or in the event that they’re able to executing that. And Nas[tasya] had that every one within the bag. So it was similar to, ‘Okay, like we have now a visionary right here.’ She’s obtained a imaginative and prescient.” Mendes stated. “Every part from there simply turned a matter of growing what was already there. Primarily what drew me to this story was this facet of constructing your non-public self public, and it’s one thing that I really feel like I’m continuously at odds with this thirst for being relatable, and everybody needs a chunk of you. Everybody needs to know what your private life is like, and also you’re all the time having to stroll that line and determine what you’re comfy sharing and what seems like an excessive amount of. That theme was one thing that I actually needed to develop by way of the truth present and thru Nicol’s dynamic with Margarita. That was my contribution to it as a producer.”
Popov wrote her first draft in 2021 after she had moved dwelling to Los Angeles from New York into the same intergenerational family to her most important character’s together with her dad and mom, grandmother, sister and boyfriend.
“It was actually humorous, claustrophobic, chaotic power that impressed me to start out scripting this. I used to be engaged on it for some time, and I’ve been working with my producing associate, Tess Cohen since we met in school, and he or she learn early drafts, and he or she actually helped me develop it for just a few years,” Popov stated. “Then Anna Baryshnikov, our beautiful star, learn a draft a 12 months in, and he or she actually sparked to the story. Then we spent one other 12 months growing it from there. After which we shot a sizzle within the residence the place I used to be dwelling, very scrappy. The purpose of that was to actually solidify the aesthetic of the mission and attempt to assist us get funding. From there, extra drafts. At that time, the truth TV threatdof the story actually clicked. I feel we discovered the tone of the film whereas we have been capturing the sizzle. After the sizzle was made, actually, issues began snowballing.”
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Mendes made positive to emphasise that the “scrappy” sizzle, which featured Jovovich as Margarita’s grandmother, was “very well performed” and what “actually pulled [her] in except for the script.”
Baryshnikov discovered the Russian-American household expertise very private along with the originality of the story, explicit the vernacular of a number of the characters.
“There was an entire model of this movie that was a quiet household movie that was very lovely, however then Nastasya had this different very acerbic, fascinating humorousness, and this world of LA and the way fabulous and in addition shallow it may be,” Baryshnikov added. “And people two issues, dwelling aspect by aspect, to me, was a really particular factor to our era of the way it feels to discover your personal identification in these areas the place you’re requested to do it on this very boiled down, easy means, when really your lived expertise may be very advanced. I discovered that to be actually simply exquisitely captured within the script.”
After speaking with Popov forwards and backwards for a 12 months, Baryshnikov was very anticipating the function, expressing a “tiny bit” of annoyance at having to nonetheless learn for it, however deeply respecting Popov’s safety of her work.
“I feel it’s simple while you’re making your first movie to have a shortage mindset, and he or she was so keen about making the movie that she needed to make,” Baryshnikov stated. “I used to be simply determined to do it.”
Over a pot of Russian black tea, Baryshnikov reread for Popov, and the remaining is historical past, however one in every of a number of visitor stars was really hooked up to the mission earlier than Baryshnikov was — Owen Thiele, who performs the host of the truth style competitors, Slay, Serve Survive.
“I grew up in Los Angeles. So I used to be fortunate to know somebody like Owen Thiele from rising up. I had seen him in Theater Camp, and thought he was simply hilarious,” Popov stated. “So I really wrote the host function with him in thoughts.”
Movie star judges on the competitors collection are performed by Benito Skinner, Julia Fox and Saweetie.
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“With the judges, it was actually a collective effort. Cami was mates with Benny so we reached out to him. He is also such a artistic and storyteller himself, so I feel he cherished the the tone, after which with Julia Fox, it was additionally simply nice kismet and synchronicity that she occurred to be on the town selling Down the Drain, which we love her writing a lot, and her supervisor learn the script, and he additionally actually preferred the vibe. We confirmed up and obtained copies of her ebook and obtained it signed by her. And he or she stated ‘Yeah, I just like the script. It’s so meta. And can be simply an unimaginable collaborator.”
Baryshnikov recalled taking a photograph of producer Tess Cohen and Popov forward of Fox’s studying.
“They advised me that they hung round till the top to speak to her. Typically there’s this concept that all of it, all the things occurs by way of brokers,” the actress stated. “And one thing that I simply thought was so unimaginable about this mission was that we have been bodily chasing some folks down. And Julia, I feel, actually responded to that.”
Popov agreed with that summarization of the “spirit of this movie” which she described as “banging down doorways.” She revealed that she has handed folks bodily letters at movie festivals and playing cards, and he or she burdened that Fox embodied the “actual acknowledge actual” mentality.
“Saweetie, the ultimate choose — we have been just a few days out from capturing and simply have been fortunate sufficient that one other mutual buddy occurred to be her supervisor and helped us attain out,” Popov stated. “So hold networking, and other people will enable you to down the road.”
All of it comes again to the strain of the dynamic between Margarita and Nicol for the plot as a result of issues warmth up on the truth competitors present as they so usually do.
“Camila actually mined the nuance in Nicole’s character. I feel it’s simple to stereotype actuality TV and make it caricature-y, however I feel it’s way more fascinating to observe an awesome producer who can be possibly a little bit of aa large manipulator,” Popov described the arc that develops between the pair.
“We needed to stroll that line of, she’s being manipulative in some methods, however in different methods, she’s additionally serving to Margarita open up and never be ashamed of who she is,” Mendes completed Popov’s thought. “There’s private acquire available with Nicole, but additionally it advantages Margarita as properly.”
Baryshnikov agreed taking a look at it from her character and contestant’s perspective.
“I spoke to some individuals who’ve been on unscripted exhibits, and that appears very true to the expertise that on the one hand, it’s the one one who understands what you’re going by way of,” she stated. “And on the opposite, they’ve an agenda to make good tv. ‘What do you place your self by way of within the title of fact?’”
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