Kate Hudson, Jeon Jong-seo star in tribute to outsiders 'Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon'

Record ID: 1635152

  • Title: Kate Hudson, Jeon Jong-seo star in tribute to outsiders 'Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon'
  • Date: 5th September 2021
  • Summary: VENICE, ITALY (SEPTEMBER 5, 2021) (REUTERS) ***WARNING: CONTAINS PROFANITY*** SKREIN AND ROBINSON LEAVING NEWS CONFERENCE AND SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS HUDSON WALKING OVER TO FANS AND SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS / AMIRPOUR POSING FOR SELFIE WITH FAN (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTOR, KATE HUDSON, SAYING: "I sort of found this like celebration of people who live very hard, harder lives, and I, going back to the freedom part of it, I think there's this sort of liberating thing to be able to just live as you want and not care what other people think about your choices. And it was fun. It was fun to get into that with Bonnie, it was pretty great." (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR, ANA LILY AMIRPOUR, SAYING: "Yeah, it's like if you get judged that hard, at some point you're just like 'all right, I'm out go ahead, judge me, fuck you." (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTOR, KATE HUDSON, SAYING: "At some point we all have to make choices and if you're making them for everybody else then you're going to be miserable."
  • Embargoed: 19th September 2021 16:20
  • Keywords: ana lily amirpour ed skrein jeon jong-seo kate hudson kate hudson venice mona lisa and the blood moon venice film festival
  • Location: VENICE, ITALY AND VARIOUS FILM LOCATIONS
  • City: VENICE, ITALY AND VARIOUS FILM LOCATIONS
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Europe,Film
  • Reuters ID: LVA004ETFZ6TP
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: PLEASE NOTE: PROFANITY IN SHOT 17
    Hollywood star Kate Hudson and South Korean actress Jeon Jong-seo play two outsiders on a collision course with their surroundings in Ana Lily Amirpour's Venice Film Festival entry "Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon".
    The fantasy adventure, screening in competition at Venice, opens with Jeon's mysterious Mona Lisa using supernatural powers to break free from the maximum-security wing of a mental asylum in New Orleans. Running away from the police she finds herself in the city's French Quarter where she comes to the rescue of exotic dancer and single mother Bonnie (Hudson) who in turn takes her in and immediately sees potential in using her powers for financial gain.
    Mona Lisa, with a taste for junk food and a tenderness towards the underdogs, strikes up an unlikely friendship with Bonnie's young son Charles and a local drug dealer (Ed Skrein) who accept her despite her quirks.
    "I wanted to find and believe what's optimistic about this madness that we're all in. And I do think friendship is such a defining and important thing. It feeds us so much and it can take so many forms," Amirpour told Reuters ahead of the film's world premiere at Venice, adding she found inspiration for her characters close to home.
    "I definitely always have been an outsider in almost every way, literally coming from somewhere else, looking different, speaking different, adapting and surviving through that and also just not being into the things that seemed that everybody was into when I was kind of finding my own space," the English-born American-Iranian filmmaker said.
    The director, 40, whose 2016 dystopian thriller "The Bad Batch" also premiered at Venice, cast Hudson in a role the 42-year-old "Almost Famous" and "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" star relished.
    "She was pregnant the first time I met her. I was like 'so, if we can get that baby out then do you want to come and be a stripper?' And she was like 'yeah, cool'," Amirpour joked.
    "I sort of found this like a celebration of people who live very hard lives," Hudson told Reuters.
    "I think there's this sort of liberating thing to be able to just live as you want and not care what other people think about your choices. And it was fun. It was fun to get into that with Bonnie," she added.
    The two also paid tribute to Jeon, who they said was not able to travel to Venice due to COVID restrictions.
    "I wanted a Korean actress and I had seen 'Burning'. It was actually Steven Yeun who was in 'Burning', who I worked with on something that was like 'you should check out Jong-seo and I looked at 'Burning' and I was just astounded and then asked if she would should go on tape and on tape all I really had her do is eat a hamburger. I wanted to see her eat and I just saw Mona Lisa. And then it was like 'it's her'," said Amirpour.
    With Mona Lisa, Amirpour said she wanted to create a new type of a hero who is able to change form and reinvent herself as she moves through different environments.
    "That's freedom. That's exciting," she said, adding that she hoped her protagonist would inspire young viewers to embrace their inner weirdo.
    (Production: Cristiano Corvino, Roberto Mignucci, Hanna Rantala)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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