Interview: Kelly O’Sullivan, Alex Thompson, and James Choi
A conversation with the writer-actor, director, and producer of the new indie drama comedy Saint Frances which opens in select theaters February 28th.
Saint Frances is a gem of a movie. It won the 2019 South By Southwest Audience Award in the narrative feature competition as well as a special jury recognition for breakthrough voice. Oscilloscope Pictures picked up the movie for distribution and it begins its theatrical run on February 28 in New York City with plans to roll it out in at least 30 cities.
My friends, please Declare Your Independents and spread the word about Saint Frances. It is a movie which deserves wide attention because it is so good.
The film has Chicago running through it. The screenwriter and lead actor is Kelly O’Sullivan who studied acting at Northwestern University and has studied at The School at Steppenwolf Theatre. The director Alex Thompson received an MFA from the DePaul University School of Cinematic Arts and producer James Choi is on the faculty of DePaul. Most of the funding came from local sources as well as the actors.
It’s a small film, but it packs a big emotional and entertaining wallop.
Here is the trailer for Saint Frances:
Recently, I hopped on the phone with Kelly, Alex, and James to talk about Saint Frances. Here is that interview in its entirety.
Scott Myers: I’d like to begin by talking about each of your backgrounds and how you intersected with this project. Kelly, let’s start with you. I know you studied acting at Northwestern. You have performed at Steppenwolf and Goodman and other places.
This is your first feature screenplay. How did the idea come together for you: “I want to write a screenplay and see if I can get this movie made?”
Kelly O’Sullivan: It happened really quickly. I just had the idea to write this story that intersected a woman becoming a child caregiver at the same time that she decides not to become a mother.
Then I started just writing the first 10 pages. Because Alex [Thompson] and I lived together and I knew he was a great director, he was like, “Yeah, you should finish this.” That was how it happened.
Scott: Where did you study screenwriting along the way?
Kelly: I didn’t. To both Alex’s and James’ [Choi] chagrin, it was a lot of literally figuring out software and learning that screen direction shouldn’t contain every description of anything that exists in the room or a feeling that a character goes through. I’m still learning how to do that.
Alex Thompson: That’s pretty hard on yourself. It read really well right out the gate, I would say. James, you can correct if I’m wrong.
James Choi: I agree. I thought that part was not bad at all.
Alex: I had to Google “chagrin” just now. Then I was like, “I was not distressed or embarrassed.”
Kelly: I didn’t even know that I pronounced that word right. I learned very much just through writing.
Scott: How long was that process getting the script to the point where you could push it out there?
Kelly: It took three months to get to the first draft, at which point we were like “Let’s try to do this.” Then it was three months after that that we were shooting. It was a lot of helpful deadlines to get me to revise in the way that I needed to.
Scott: Alex, you were involved in this probably from the get‑go, it sounds like.
Alex: Yeah. I was an encouraging and a critical force from pretty early on.
Scott: You got an MFA in directing from DePaul. You directed short films, music videos, web series, produced two feature films on the producing side of the thing. Would that come in helpful here, with working with Kelly on this?
Alex: Yeah. It was interesting. I produced those features while I was at DePaul. I developed, I guess, a sort of arrogance that it could be done. Then, in making those features, I lost that arrogance and became really scared and humbled by the experience.
Going into Saint Frances, there was just a real emphasis on process. I had seen before how venturing into work without process in mind could end up to the work’s detriment. It was really great having that connection to James.
Actually, Raphael Nash, I met, I think, through DePaul. Having access to those resources and those professors and mentors was really quite helpful.
Scott: James, when did you become familiar with this project?
James: Alex and I were working on something over winter into spring, I think.
Alex: Yeah.
James: We were working on another film that Alex was going to direct, just working on the script and developing. I don’t know exactly when the timeframe was. In the middle of that, Alex comes to me. He was like, “Hey, Kelly wrote this script. There might be some money available to shoot this in the summer. Will you take a read?”
I was familiar with Alex’s work and Kelly’s work and Nate’s [Hurtsellers] work, who was the DP on this, from previous stuff. When I read the script, it was a no‑brainer.
Scott: You were in LA for many years working in representation and production and digital media. You’ve produced two feature films, Made in China and Saint Frances, both of which have done quite well. What is it about this project that you saw that you thought, “Well, this has the potential to be a successful feature‑length film?”
James: It’s really those three people, as I mentioned. Alex, Kelly, and Nate ‑‑ you start with that, and again, they’re so talented in all of their respective fields, and then again, when the script came across, it was just such a great script, great characters.
It’s something that’s really nimble, and I know that they’re capable of doing that. Again, all the skill sets that are involved in making something like this, at least on the independent level, was all there for me, at least, and it was clear.
I think it helped having known Alex for a bit, and again, it helped a lot having seen Kelly’s work as an actress, and having seen Nate’s work as a DP ‑‑ all those things. It’s like, you have great actors, great director, and story, it’s almost like you can’t lose.
Scott: Kelly mentioned it earlier, but the plot summary that I found on IMDB ‑‑ it says, “After an accidental pregnancy‑turned‑abortion, a deadbeat nanny finds an unlikely friendship with a six‑year‑old she’s charged with protecting.”
Kelly, I’d like you to unpack that a little bit more ‑‑ the juxtaposition of those two elements ‑‑ what was it about that you found so interesting?
Kelly: I had been a nanny in my 20s, and so I knew that that’s a really complicated, wonderful, and also kind of maddening job to have. It’s such a strange thing to come into somebody’s family and take care of their kid. I knew that I could write about that really specifically and honestly.
When I was in my 30s, I had an abortion, and I knew that I could write about that really specifically and honestly in a way that I don’t think gets represented very often in TV and film. There’s no question whether will she or won’t she. It’s just about how do you deal with once you’ve gone through with that procedure?
Knowing that I could write about both of those events from a very authentic place and also from a very funny place ‑‑ it was important to me that it have a lot of lightness and it have a lot of heart ‑‑ then I thought it would be a great thing to have these two life events ping‑pong against each other for the whole movie.
Scott: In the press kit from Oscilloscope, there’s the statement: “Our goal making Saint Frances was to normalize subjects that had been stigmatized in the past, including abortion, queer parenting, and postpartum depression. It was important to do this with maximal empathy, blood, and humor in equal measure.”
As I read that I was reminded ‑‑ James, you may remember this ‑‑ there’s an old Hollywood anecdote attributed to Samuel Goldman where a screenwriter pitched him a project and said it had a great message. Goldman replied, “All I want is a story. You got a message, use Western Union.”
How top of mind was this for you as a creative team, where you’re balancing storytelling and message?
Alex: I think it’s kind of a luxury to think of normative representation as story, whereas non‑normative representation is message. It’s impossible not to see that the movies we watch are predominantly white, predominantly male, predominantly heteronormative. It’s just like, you can’t avoid it.
As a white male heteronormative director, at least, it seemed really obvious to me that this is story first. It just happens to be a story that isn’t told.
Because so many of those other stories, so many of those “normal stories,” are green lit so much more quickly and they come with kind of a shrug ‑‑ they come with this assumption of value ‑‑ it became necessary in the narrative of the film to say, “OK, what’s our intention with this?”
Because obviously when we’re casting and when we’re thinking about story in those pre‑production days, those questions of representation, they come up just from a practical perspective, even.
“Who’s going to play this part? Oh, this person can’t play it.” Are we going to keep hustling to find the right person? Or “I wrote the part for this person, but they’re not available on these days, and so on and so forth.
I probably said it best right out the gate, which is that it’s kind of a luxury that when we think of normal, we think of story and when we think of these less‑represented identities, that makes it message.
Kelly: Yeah. From my point of view, I hate message films. They’re so boring. It was really important that we bake in certain ideologies but in a way that that’s not the thing at the forefront.
Alex: Right.
Kelly: To me, this movie is very pro‑choice, but I also know that people who are pro‑life have seen this movie and responded to it and enjoyed the characters. That was really important to us that it wasn’t hitting you over your head in a way that people would feel alienated from the characters that we want them to love.
Scott: I thought it was a really well done. Even the mother at the park with the fireworks who was clearly uncomfortable with the breastfeeding and the lesbian parents. Presumably, I would think that she would be on the other side of the debate in terms of abortion.
She was handled realistically, I thought, but also with some empathy. You mentioned the word empathy. I’m assuming that was a big point of concern too, empathetic characters.
Alex: Yeah.
Kelly: Absolutely.
Alex: That’s a really astute observation. Kelly, tell me if I’m wrong. That was a day‑to‑day on set question that we’d fall back on. If there was ever any question of how to direct a scene, it was in what direction to take it, or where the laughs landed, or what our perspective was meant to be.
We always fell back on, as much as we could, the idea that all these voices had value. Even if we don’t share their perspective, it’ll affect everybody more if we at least entertain their perspective, don’t make anybody into a cartoon character.
Scott: I thought the abortion was handled in a really honest, in‑depth fashion. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a treatment like that. It was realistic. It was touching yet funny. How challenging was it for you to decide what to show, what not to show, how to show it onscreen?
Kelly: We were very intentional about it. We knew from the outset and one of the reasons I wanted to write it was it feels like so many things that women go through with their bodies, whether it’s their periods, or abortions, or anything to do with childbirth, that it’s always put offscreen. It was important to me to have some of that be onscreen.
The truth is that women are faced with that for so much of their lives. It was a way to demystify it too. For me, as a mid‑30s woman, there were things that I did not…I didn’t know that you can get an abortion just from taking a pill. I thought that it was really important to show that onscreen that it doesn’t have to be the typical, you go in for a scary surgery.
Most of the time when abortion is portrayed, they want to maximize the drama. I wanted to show that it doesn’t have to be dramatic. We were very intentional about the things that we did show and that we didn’t. We don’t show everything. It is intentionally graphic, I will say.
Alex: Yeah. I really like processes too onscreen. Getting to see how something works, there’s something about that that I find really satisfying narratively. It was really cool that in Kelly’s script there was this emphasis on the step‑by‑step. You go to the doctor. You get checked out. You get this paper bag. You leave with the paper bag. You have these instructions.
That informed when Max’s character Jace reads the side effects. We thought, “Well, that’s what you would do. You’d sit there and you’d read what was going to happen.”
Scott: It’s interesting you mentioned that, Kelly. The woman’s period, that’s a subplot in the story. It’s referenced several times. In fact, it even comes back in the denouement at the very end with the little girl.
Kelly: Yeah.
Scott: Let’s talk about those two characters, in particular, Bridget, who is the protagonist in the story. It is a heroine’s journey. She starts off per Joseph Campbell, she’s got to change.
I want to zero in on two scenes. One scene with her mother, they’re out for a walk. Her mother asks her an existential question. She says, “Are you glad you were born? I know you didn’t ask to be, but if you had the choice to never exist at all or have the exact life you’re having now, would you have chosen to be born?” It speaks to Bridget, a pivot point in her psychological metamorphosis.
Kelly, could you maybe talk about that scene, the genesis of that scene, and what you were going for there?
Kelly: Yeah. The genesis of that scene is that my mom and I have conversations like that all the time where I’m voicing why I’m so scared at the prospect of being a parent, at bringing a child into a world that feels very terrifying. Ultimately, I am glad I was born.
That was something that I was working out as I was writing it was considering that, too. That, yes, there are many, many reasons that the world is scary, but that also the world has always been scary.
The thing that I’m happy about is the character considers that, but then never feels any guilt for the decision that she’s made and never feels any regret for it so that you can have all these complicated layers of questioning and still feel good about the choice that you made.
Scott: The other scene I’d like to jump to is ‑‑ I have a theological background so I’m quite interested in it ‑‑ when they end up in the church, Bridget and Frances in the confessional, which I thought was such a great moment.
There’s obviously an attraction between Bridget and Frances. They’re friends. They bond emotionally.
In a way, whereas Bridget is filled with some self‑doubt, some wondering, disappointed about where she’s come in her life and what her future might be, Frances is, I guess you could say, psychologically speaking, a self‑actualized individual. She knows what she wants. She does it.
Oftentimes, she says exactly what’s on her mind. In that confessional scene, you’re not only getting an insight into where Bridget is in terms of her journey, it’s almost like Frances is acting as a mentor figure in a way.
I was curious, could you maybe unpack that scene a little bit what you were going for there?
Kelly: Yeah. I feel like as adults we start to get wrapped up in the idea of success and who has a good life, and who doesn’t, and who’s doing well, and who isn’t. Kids don’t really think that way. Their estimation of whether somebody’s a good person isn’t, “Well, what job do you have? How many kids? Do you have a successful marriage?” It’s not about that.
It’s like, “Are you a nice, decent person?” It was really important to me that Bridget get that reframed for her, and that she experience completely nonjudgmental love, and that that’s the person, more than anybody in the story, she gets truly nonjudgmental love because she’s been a good friend.
Scott: It’s so great because she said early on that she’s a lapsed Catholic and she hates the church. Yet she comes to this moment there, you know.
Alex, could you maybe talk about the shooting of that scene? Ramona, the little girl, is great. Do you remember anything about that particular sequence there in the confessional?
Alex: Yeah. Ramona was wonderful and really fun. She had a lot of different voices for playing God, which was…I’m sorry, not Ramona. She never says she’s God. She says, “I’m not Ramona or not a priest.” It was really line‑by‑line if I remember correctly. It was a busy day. We were doing all the church business at once.
For a lot of Kelly’s scenes, she was acting opposite Alex Wilson, our first AD who, thankfully, wasn’t putting on a Ramona voice. Honestly, it was one of those scenes that we got by the skin of our teeth. We went through it so quickly and so much of it was trusting the performers.
I remember it being one of those scenes where you think, “Gosh, I really hope there’s something authentic in there.” Sure enough, there was. It was certainly not a scene that we thought we knocked out of the ballpark when we shot it. Do you remember that, Kelly?
Kelly: Also, the room was impossibly tiny. All the credit to Nate Hurtsellers who is huddled…He’s over six‑feet tall. His body is cramped up in the corner of this confessional a few inches away from our faces. I’ll always remember that.
Alex: It was crazy. It’s actually a confession booth. All the extras who were mostly investors… [laughs] All the extras who show up in the baptism scene are milling about just outside in this huge echoey church in Lincoln Park.
James: DePaul’s Church.
Alex: Yeah. DePaul’s Church. Saint de Paul, I guess.
Scott: Let’s talk about the production. You said you had some money. You came to James and said, “There may be some money.” Where did that seed funds come from?
Alex: You always say you have some money.
James: [laughs]
Alex: You want to get people involved. No. The first financing came from Ian Keiser, Chris Cravens, two investors and producers who had worked with me on previous projects and were ready to do anything. I really credit them with that.
Then most of the remaining financing came from a combination of some wonderful people that I met at a movie club on the North Side in Bannockburn in the back of a Camaro who got really motivated by the project. It became these super producers, Bob Rubin, Greg Beckway, Fred Levine, all these incredible folks.
Then Eddie Linker, who is probably best known as one of the Forager triad, came in after we wrapped. It ended up being a really good group. And Roger Welp, of course, and a group of people that Roger brought along.
It was a big Chicago party that we assembled. When I came to James, we thought we were going to shoot it for 60 grand.
James, I did find the email. I came to you in May and we shot in July.
Scott: James, were you involved in a lot of that making those connections for funding?
James: No. I didn’t know any of those people.
Alex: Aren’t you glad you know them?
James: No. I really, honestly, was just doing the process of Alex and Kelly having read the script and going through the process with them. When he had come to me, you know, I would have made this for 10,000 if he was like, “That’s all I had.” I wasn’t too concerned about it.
I knew that the main players were in place. I knew that we were going to be able to put together a passionate crew of people. I figured the money was going to be there. I didn’t know them, though, prior to the process.
Alex: I knew that James had produced low‑budget films far more successfully than I had to that point. In terms of having somebody who you can trust with some faith to speak rationally on a day‑to‑day basis on a shoot was invaluable. It really was if we’d had only $10,000, I would have believed that we could do it.
Scott: How helpful was it that you’re in Chicago and you got all the Chicago talent?
Alex: It was amazing.
Kelly: It was incredible.
Alex: We wrote the script for 90 percent of those actors.
Kelly: I wrote it for them, but I roped them in because we’re friends. A lot of them felt obligated. They were like, “Yeah, we’ll do this.” Everybody was really wonderful. Then we had a great time shooting it. People had a good time. When I was writing the script, I was writing it with those people in mind.
Scott: How long was the shoot?
Alex: 21 days including 2 days of pick‑ups.
Scott: The movie’s had a really good run on the festival circuit. I’m guessing it was South by Southwest, that was the high point where it won the Narrative Feature Audience Award and Special Jury Recognition Breakthrough Voice. What was that experience like?
Alex: Completely unexpected, truly. Kelly, I don’t remember you expecting it either. We truly felt like we were just happy to be there. We were not courting any awards. We had made a pact to see as many movies in competition as possible. That was really it. We didn’t make fliers. We didn’t do business cards. It was very unexpected.
Scott: How about you, Kelly? What was your experience like there?
Kelly: I felt so lucky that we were there. I couldn’t believe the movie got made, to begin with. Every single day I was expecting for us to get kicked out of a location or for somebody to come and be like, “Well, we don’t have enough money to finish it.” I would have been like, “Well, that’s a bummer but that’s OK. That’s to be expected.”
It took a lot of hard work. That we got into South By, that felt like the biggest thing. To get anything on top of that, it made me feel so good. It also made me realize that there’s a real hunger for this kind of women’s representation on film in a different kind of way.
Audience members would stay after and talk about their experiences that they had had that were similar. That’s when I started to realize there might be something in it beyond things that were important to me.
Scott: Oscilloscope agrees. They’re now going to open the movie, I guess, on February 28th in select cities. James, how many cities is it up to at this point? Do you know?
James: We’re at 13.
Scott: 13 cities.
James: Yeah.
Scott: After this journey, what are you all thinking about? What are your feelings, your thoughts about this whole journey and now it’s going to open in theaters?
Alex: Man, I don’t even know. I think we’re both really ready to do it all again. Is that accurate?
James: Yeah, I mean, right?
Kelly: That’s true.
Scott: You all were listed in Newcity Film 50 for 2019. There’s a quote from Kelly where she says, “I’m terrified about the next thing, whatever it is, that it won’t live up to this experience, but it also makes me want to make a hundred movies.”
Alex: That’s a great quote.
Kelly: That’s absolutely true. The biggest gift that this has given to me is that I feel like it is possible to keep making movies. It literally seemed impossible to me until this movie.
Who knows if the next ones will be any good? It’s really nice to know if we’ve done it, maybe we can do something again.
The fact Oscilloscope is expanding the number of theaters is a sign exhibitors are responding to the film. Here is the current list of theaters which will be screening Saint Frances.
2/28/2020 New York NY
Angelika Film CenterGet Tickets
3/6/2020 Pasadena CA
Laemmle Playhouse 7
3/6/2020 Hollywood CA
Arclight Hollywood
3/13/2020 Portland OR
The Living Room Theaters
3/13/2020 San Diego CA
Carmel Mountain
3/13/2020 Milwaukee WI
Oriental Theatre
3/13/2020 Glendale CA
Laemmle Glendale
3/13/2020 Santa Monica CA
Monica Film Center
3/13/2020 Tucson AZ
The Loft Cinema
COMING SOON
3/6/2020 Irvine CA
Regal Edwards Westpark
3/13/2020 Nashville TN
Regal Downtown West
3/13/2020 Ashland OR
Varsity Cinema
3/13/2020 Santa Barbara CA
The Hitchcock
3/13/2020 Louisville KY
Baxter Theater
3/13/2020 Denver CO
Sie Film Center
3/13/2020 Cincinnati OH
Esquire Theaters
3/13/2020 Nashville TN
Belcourt Theatre
3/13/2020 Washington DC
Avalon Theatre
3/13/2020 Austin TX
Regal Arbor at Great Hills
3/13/2020 Dallas TX
Angelika Film Center Dallas
3/13/2020 Plano TX
Angelika Film Center Plano
3/18/2020 Nantucket MA
Nantucket Dreamland
3/20/2020 Winston-Salem NC
Aperture Cinema
3/20/2020 Lexington KY
Kentucky Theater
3/20/2020 Chicago IL
Music Box
3/20/2020 Oklahoma City OK
Rodeo Cinema
3/20/2020 Wilmette IL
Wilmette Theater
3/20/2020 Honolulu HI
Koko Marina
3/20/2020 Birmingham AL
Sidewalk Cinema
3/20/2020 Baltimore MD
Parkway Theater
3/20/2020 Lake Worth FL
Lake Worth Playhouse
3/27/2020Seattle WA
SIFF
With your support, the number of theaters can grow. In the spirit of the late great Chicago native Roger Ebert, I give Saint Frances two thumbs way up.
Note: The movie currently has a 92 rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
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