The Wild Magazine | Rose McGowan

Rose McGowan is about to show you a whole other side of undeniable talent in her directorial debut with Dawn. Visually stunning, meticulously thought out and flawlessly executed feature short film serves as warning tale to young girls and beyond, demonstrating how radical social norms and rules often cloud our perception and strip us defenseless in the face of danger. Touching upon crucial subjects like social class disparity, gender identity, and false values, Dawn draws you in and demands your attention. Watch the entire film below and check out our WILD exclusive interview with the mastermind behind it:

On her directorial debut:

It’s beyond liberating, I finally have my own voice. I know what I want to say and I know how to do it. I got tired of being people’s sub part of imagination. I was always very uncomfortable on sets. I wouldn’t seem it to others, but it didn’t feel quite right. Imagine you get to work every day and everything that comes out of your mouth is written for you, not by you, so you literally don’t have your own voice. Not only being other people but often a very little imagination of what you are or can be.

The Sundance Film Festival experience as a director:

It was hugely different to be there as a director and not as an actor. I was never quite comfortable before. I understood that promoting films was part of my job but it did feel a little bit like you are being pimped out to lure people to theater, which is kinda creepy. Especially how they did it with me. There are some actors and actresses that are very respected and they would never do such a thing to them, but if you are in a genre film, as they call them, if you are in an action movie then its tits out, heels up.  Don’t have to play that game, not anymore.

Watching Dawn with the live audience:

It was so surreal, and it opened the festival. Oh my God! I thought I was going to throw up. I was rocking in my seat back and forth, and then the color, which is so important in Dawn, was dis-saturated for whatever reason by like 50 %, so there’s this orange chair in the movie that came out brown I was like ‘whaaa?’.

The challenges faced directing Dawn:

Dawn kind of arose out of disaster. I was originally doing this southern author named Flannery O’connor short written by the people who wrote Dawn. These two amazing writers Joshua Miller and Mark Fortin. When I left location scouting for the Flannery piece, I got a call from the foundation saying I lost the rights. I almost fainted, ‘what am I going to do?!’ The writers were so amazing. I locked them up in a room for two days and I told them the last line that I needed and what I was interested in and my four locations so they built on that.

Some movies are on the fly and what you catch, Dawn was very specific. You can freeze frame on each shot and it will tell you its own story. Even though its 17 minutes I wanted it to have a lot of breathing room because I felt like the audiences most of the time don’t get enough, they don’t get the time to sit and digest what’s going on on the screen and actually feel something.

Her casting choices:

I wanted nobody who was on the “Vampire Diaries”, not that specific show and there’s nothing wrong with it, but there’s this Hollywood look that a lot of people go for and I wanted the opposite of that. My inspiration for casting tend to be classic films and I love girls that can by turn be homely and plain and then really beautiful. I love interesting faces. These actors were so good, they all worked so good together. For some it was their first acting job ever.

The ultimate takeaway:

Therese a lot to take away from it. I’d layered in a lot of things like class disparity,which is played out by moments like when this boy is sitting on a perfect coach and he probability got dirty jeans and his car is 14 years older than her parents’ car. You can talk about a lot of different things: the two men in a closet that she mentions, these actors that would have been her ideas of what masculinity was, even hyper masculinity, are not quite real, but mostly what we do to girls and women unwillingly without even thinking about it. We do it to boys too – we put them in boxes also, but their safety isn’t as critical. Louis C.K said something very scary : “Women are so brave, you get into a car with a man you don’t know that’s like a bear. That bear can kill you”.

Her personal connection to the film:

I identify with a lot of stuff [in “Dawn”] I was told I had to do when I was in Hollywood and a lot of it was in crude fashions. I rejected the notions of how I am supposed to be my whole life including the ones in Hollywood but I was like “fuck your rules” and then I realized I don’t need to say “fuck your rules” because the rules don’t exist and they don’t apply to me, none really ever have. I did not grow up within a system and  I’m grateful for that which means I can see the system.

On  having an opinion in Hollywood:

As an artist you are in an un-fireable position. And anybody is. You can be fired from a job but not from being you. You’re the source!

You know, you realize when you’re well known your not that different from being a politician. In a way, you’ve won an election, people voted you in, that means you have a voice. And a lot of actors use it for a lot of causes but nobody talks about what we are dealing with. There is no protection for actors. We have no human resources department, there’s nobody looking out for us, not our union, which sucks, nobody. And everybody else on set does, they have people that protect them, but not us. If you want to create something, you penalized, just because you want to do something that involves artistic expression.

It’s like Hollywood is kind of stuck in this “Mad Men/Entourage” era . They look to themselves most of the time condescending to the rest of the word while exporting to the rest of the world .

2015 is the year of gender:

I think its time. I hope it’s a beginning of a revolution and I hope it is the Revolution.

Fashion icons:

McQueen. When he died he left just this gaping whole of thought, creativity and function.

Movies to come: 

“Overnight” – this film is directed so well, the sound design, the shoot choice, everything! “Tangerine” which was shot on iPhone 6 in one day – I loved it! “Amy” – I want to see it so bad and I know its gonna break my heart. Its such a loss. She was an artist and a tortured soul, we need more of them and I know they are out there. They just need to break through.

Future projects:

I’m doing a feature next and looking for other ones to direct, writing different screenplays plus focusing on my own business projects.

Rose’s WILD Wish:

To never have to say the word feminist again. Cause I want it to be humanist.

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