The Your Monster star opens up about letting her anger out in real life and ending another movie covered in blood, while the cast and crew spill on the horror-romcom-musical mashup.
She may look cool and comfortable getting her frustrations out in movies like Scream and Abigail, but Melissa Barrera still struggles with expressing those feelings in real life.
That theme is at the center of her new film, Your Monster, in which she plays a young woman whose boyfriend breaks up with her while undergoing cancer treatment. After the split, she befriends a monster living in her closet (Tommy Dewey), with the two sparking a romance as she metaphorically begins to embrace the beast inside herself and learns to become more assertive in the process.
When asked how the pair felt about “letting your monsters loose in real life,” Barrera told TooFab she thinks “it’s always uncomfortable.”
“Part of the point of this movie, the message is we’ve been conditioned to be uncomfortable with anger. I think because of that our anger is always kind of, when it’s unleashed, it’s not unleashed in the best [way],” she explained. “I think because we’ve been taught to suppress it, when it comes out, it’s like, it’s super hurtful and violent and you’re ashamed.”
“So I think that I’m personally terrible, I don’t get angry,” she continued. “I do, but it’s very internal. I am assertive with a lot of things and when I am assertive, I feel like I’m being rude, which is I think the case for a lot of women. But that’s why [director Caroline Lindy] wanted to make this movie.”
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Costar Dewey said he’s in the same boat, telling TooFab that at 46, he’s only just now “getting good at finding that middle gear” when it comes to expressing himself.
“For too many years it was 0 or 120. Wanting to please everybody and try to stay polite and charming [or] finally just flip my lid in a way that Melissa said, a moment after you’re like, ‘I’m embarrassed, bye,'” he shared. “Now, finally, halfway through my life, I’m dialing it in, trying to be assertive without losing my mind.”
Your Monster is a pretty unique project, mashing up elements of movie musicals, romcoms and horror into one pretty package. For Barrera, it was a way for her to highlight more of her comedy chops, after already ending up soaked in blood for Screams 5 and 6 and Abigail … and singing in the film version of In the Heights.
“It was a dream come true. I genuinely could not believe when I read the script that this movie existed. It’s literally like I prayed for the perfect movie for me and then Caroline just thought it up and wrote it,” she told TooFab of the role. “Horror, yes, check. Musicals, check. Romcoms, check. I love it. And creatures, I love creatures. With a monster, it was just like everything I loved in this perfect little movie. I’m very lucky, I feel great.”
And, again, she ends up drenched in red goo.
“It’s part of my contract you know. When I land a role, it’s a clause,” Barrera quipped.
For director Lindy, she found it “really exciting” to get the chance to highlight more of Barrera’s romcom talents, telling TooFab she really hoped they would be able to attract a name actress for her quirky indie film.
“Melissa is a singer, Melissa’s a dancer. I saw her in In the Heights and Vida, she is incredible and she’s so lovable, which is extremely important for romance, romantic comedy,” she said of casting her. “I just felt like there were enough pieces in place that this would be an attractive project to her. I also had a friend who knew her, he was like, ‘I think you guys would really get along.’ We sent the script to her people and she read it in a day and was like, let’s talk. I was in London at the time, I flew from London to LA to meet with her and she was like, I’m in, let’s do it together.”
Check out the interviews above to see what Dewey said about the prosthetics he had to rock for the film, while Lindy and star/producer Kayla Foster spill on executing the genre mashup.
Your Monster is in theaters now.
