Opus is the story of a young writer named Ariel (Ayo Edebiri), who works at a music publication but is largely considered the most junior staffer at the magazine. She is therefore rarely listened to or appreciated, and she’s certainly underestimated…or at least she is until she and her boss (Murray Bartlett) receive exclusive invites to an album release press junket at the remote compound of legendary pop star Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich), who hasn’t surfaced from his self-imposed exile 30 years earlier. It turns out the charming and persuasive Moretti has been building a wellness community that looks a lot like a cult, but the music is so good that the journalists (including one played by the great Juliette Lewis) barely notice the vaguely sketchy goings on around them.
Setting this pseudo-horror movie in the world of entertainment journalism is a prime example of writing what you know for first-time writer/director Mark Anthony Green, who began writing for GQ Magazine at the age of 19, becoming a full-time writer/editor for the publication after graduating from Morehouse College. Before making Opus, Green made the award-winning short Trapeze, U.S.A. To make the film’s soundtrack more authentic, Green got three original songs written and produced by pop legends Nile Rogers and The-Dream, with Malkovich providing his own vocals.
Opus explores the cult of celebrity in the horror context, and reveals that while Ariel might be the smartest one amid the pool of journalists on this journey, that doesn’t mean she’s beyond getting duped and used like everyone else. The film isn’t afraid to get a bit bloody at times, but its primary objective is to see how far members of Moretti’s society can push their strange beliefs on the unsuspecting press. Are they out to harm them or are they out to convert them and spread the word?
I talked with Green when he was in Chicago recently to get discuss the film’s origins, messages, and horror elements. Enjoy our conversation…
Maybe I imagined this, but is there not a line in this movie about the Bruce Springsteen album Nebraska? It totally threw me because you said you didn’t even know who Bruce was when you worked at GQ. But I read that line as somebody who knew their Bruce.
Yes! That was me making fun of myself. I Googled “What is Bruce Springsteen’s most iconic album?” and it felt right, and when I put it there, no one corrected me.
For sure, people who know Bruce know that’s the iconic one. It’s not necessarily an entry-point album, but it’s the most impactful.
That’s what the internet told me.
It’s a good choice. I’m glad you mention it in the film.
I’m fascinated by the idea that you created an entire religion for a movie. Where do you even begin creating that, and how deep do you let yourself go in building the rituals, etc? Did you do that because you even wrote the script?
Yeah. I was writing the script, and I think I had a draft done, but the religion part was so not fleshed out. You have to let yourself go as far as it will take you. For me, I’m a spiritual person, I’m a sensitive person, and I believe that religion has value, so I was really worried about taking something from a religion and putting it in this horror movie because that’s probably not going to paint them in a great light. I was very cognizant of that, but also knowing the purpose I was going to use this for and the power dynamic, auditing manipulation, all of these things. Reading different texts through that lens, I began to see why so many people have a tough go at religion and why there are so many bad actors and how people exploit these things. I read a lot and talked to some friends, including ones that had been in cults. It’s easy to DM a person who’s had experience with a cult and say “I’m writing this thing; do you want to hop on the phone?” A lot of people want to talk about their experience.
The writer and creator in me loves when you get swept away into something. It just didn’t feel great; it’s not as fun as working on the music, figuring out the clothes, or figuring out the other world-building stuff.
It probably takes longer.
Yes, it takes longer, and you can see so many people who have had their lives ruined, especially by cults.
You said you had a 300-page doctrine on this religion that you wrote out. Do you do that for yourself or for your actors, so you can answer their questions?
As a director, it just feels like it’s your job. You have to have an answer to every question, and you pray it’s the right answer. But at the end of the day, you’re the only one with the answer. Especially as a first-time feature filmmaker, I never wanted to be asked something that I didn’t have an answer that I believed in. That’s the other thing: you can have an answer, but is it one you believe in? When this movie comes out, I’ll never be able to change it, as much as I might want to grab it back. So I wanted to make sure I knew everything about, for example, the Book of Level.
One of the cornerstones of this religion is the power of creativity, and I don’t know if any of the real religions you investigated has that as part of their doctrine. So you have to be the one to invent that aspect of it. Again, where do you begin piecing that together?
There’s a line in the film where Ayo’s character says “Every religion does something.” What you start to see when you study religions is that there are universal patterns—it’s insane—especially when you get to the smaller ones that we see as cults. With patterns come priorities, so I just chose the priority to be this and built everything around that. I’m very skittish about creating a religion in the world; I just want to create one for this movie. I want you all to have fun, enjoy it, talk about it, but I never want to be the creator of an actual religion.
The thing that would keep me out of this religion are the oysters; they’re just inherently gross.
I agree. Me too.
Let me ask you about that scene. If I remember correctly, the way Ayo and Malkovich get in that oyster-shucking hut is that she wants him to show her a pursuit in this compound that isn’t as isolated; she wants to see something the followers do as a group. And he takes her in there, and there’s just one person opening up the oysters.
That’s a really good catch. I love this. If you watch the film, and it’s a really dense film, there are many times when Ariel asks for something, and Moretti delivers half of it. He promises the full thing, gives her half, but there is the constant manipulation that you see in a really subtle way. That was more fun. It’s very deliberate. It’s the promise of a thing, and the reason I made that choice is that so much of religion and their deities and idols we have on earth—politicians, entertainers, whatever—there is this promise that is often half delivered, but the delivery completely distracts you from the thing you didn’t get. I know this is heady and I hope it lands for people, but he does that several times throughout the cat and mouse of it, and I found that to be really fun. I think a lot of filmmaking is about what makes you laugh the most.
The other thing that scene does is give us the first indication that this might go in a horror direction, because of the tool slicing into the guy’s hand quite graphically. It goes from weird to dangerous. I did not know this was going to turn into a horror movie going into it, or at least incorporate horror elements, but you reveal that in a very deliberate, carefully paced way. Talk about making sure you keep that hidden until it’s time for the reveal.
The pacing in the film is one of the things I’m most proud of.
Was that there in the screenplay or did you nail that down in the edit?
That was always there, even before the script. It was a fight. I’m obsessed with Japanese horror films, and you see this a lot in Korean horror films too, they let you sink into your chair and get into the world before they do something gory. And when they do something gory, they go all the way. Some of my favorite films choose to do the thing I chose not to do, so this isn’t a knock against movies that do this. It just felt different. It felt right to live with Ariel, go on that date with her, and not just hear her complain at work, to see her at home, to see her do these things before she gets to that compound. I love Ayo as an actor and love what she did with that character; I hope that this film honors that character and what she did. It felt more interesting to me.
Last night during the Q&A, someone said the film was about not believing Black women. I felt it was more about underestimating Black women. I’m sure there’s a world where both interpretations are correct.
We do way too much of both.
Right. Everyone thinks she’s going to be the pushover and doesn’t really get what’s going on. She’s this young upstart, but she also has the best bullshit detector, even among all of these veteran journalists. She has not played this game before.
I think there’s something we can say about experience. Experience is really good in some cases, but it also can help you fall for the okey doke, right? I was a journalist for 13 years, it was my only job. This is not a film being critical of journalism or journalists; for one, I don’t believe that and wouldn’t want that to be misconstrued. But I’ve also been in room where people didn’t listen to the inexperienced person, but they were right. That’s tough, and there are a lot of films being made about power dynamics, and I think it’s obvious why it’s at the forefront of our minds.
I love that that character is strong and young but not dumb and questioning things. There’s usually that moment where someone says, “There’s something bad; we have to leave,” and it’s much later in the film. Ours is earlier, which feels like we did it wrong. I’m questioning and want you to question why we do that. I think it’s way more interesting to take a journey like this in this genre with somebody that would ask questions that we all would ask. I hope it works.
You started working at GQ when you were 19, which I’m guessing means you didn’t go to film school. So how did you learn to make films beyond the shorts you did?
I made that short eight years ago, and I knew it was what I wanted to do and realized that I made the short by putting the cart before the horse. I let the short prove to me that this was the artistic medium I want to dedicate myself to. It’s the reason I didn’t put the short out. That short, at its best, told me that if I dedicate myself to this, it will make you feel alive. That’s all that I needed. So everything I could read, I read; every documentary that I could watch, I watched; anyone who would answer the call—which wasn’t many—I called. 2020 was an awful time because we were stuck in the house, but I watched three movies a day and get swept away with French New Wave and spaghetti Westerns, and in some of that education. Even now, I go to the movies three times a week; the only time I broke that was when we were in production, and we still want every Sunday.
Best of luck with this, Mark.
Thank you. So nice to meet you; I appreciate you coming out.
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