“Ayo Edebiri Is Everything.”
The director of Opus breaks down the irony of “elevated horror,” the film’s divisive message, and creating the perfect Final Girl.
Journalism is a tricky profession. You’re constantly walking the line between the abject truth and the more interesting “message” within, reading between the lines, pulling stories out of colorful personalities. Few may understand this better than Mark Anthony Green, the writer and director behind A24’s latest horror, Opus. Green worked at GQ for 13 years as the publication’s resident “Style Guy,” profiling public figures like LeBron James, The Weeknd, and Childish Gambino. There’s no doubt he’s seen plenty in his tenure as a writer, more than enough to inform his directorial debut. Though Green denies that Opus is inspired by any one experience, the film has a lot to say about celebrity, fandom, and the horrors within either way.
Opus follows an aspiring journalist (Ayo Edebiri) as she fights to survive a hellish weekend with a legendary pop star (John Malkovich) and his devoted cult. As Alfred Moretti, Malkovich feels equally inspired by David Bowie, Prince, and Elton John. And he finds his perfect match in Edebiri, who embodies the “Final Girl” title with the wry, deadpan wit so many have come to love in The Bear and Bottoms. Edebiri’s star has steadily been rising for years, but her role in Opus is poised to crystallize that potential on the big screen. It’s also serendipitous for Green, who discovered Edebiri while watching early screeners of The Bear in 2022.
“I saw The Bear and it was like, She’s perfect for this film. She’s everything,” Green tells Inverse. He was so sure that Edebiri was the one, he sent his confidential screener to an executive at A24. “I hope Hulu or whoever owns Hulu doesn’t get upset with me,” the director adds. There is some risk, but you could argue that it’s already paid off: after all, timing is everything. As Green prepares to unleash his unsettling, dazzling debut on the world, he sits down with Inverse to discuss his influences, the irony of “elevated horror,” and the film’s divisive message.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Mark Anthony Green with Ayo Edebiri and John Malkovich on the set of Opus.
Was there a specific catalyst for the character of Moretti, like a profile that you did that was super weird, or was it just an amalgam of your time at GQ?
No, there isn’t. I think in a lot of ways, I used a lot of those profiles as what not to do. Obviously this experience hasn’t happened [to me], or everybody would know that I went to a place and a bunch of people got murdered and all that. I just wanted it to feel original. But it was super helpful to have interviewed all these different people and done all this intimate reporting that I knew that I could zig with instead of zag.
This is something John [Malkovich] and I talked about a lot, but if Moretti felt too much like David Bowie, we would go in a different direction. If it felt too much like Prince, I wanted to go in a different direction. Too much like The Weeknd, we’d go in a different direction. I think that one of the things I’m super proud of in the storytelling and John’s performance is how original Moretti appears and is.
I ask because a lot of people were drawing comparisons to Kanye, and that time he invited journalists into the desert for a listening party...
I was there. [Laughs] But I had written a draft of this [already], so the idea existed before I went to Kanye’s place in Wyoming. I hate to disappoint if that’s a disappointing answer.
Green and Malkovich worked hard to avoid pastiche with Moretti: “If it felt too much like Prince, I wanted to go in a different direction.”
I’ve got to ask about your influences otherwise. I caught some references to Melvin Van Peebles and Watermelon Man on your Instagram, but were you channeling any particular filmmakers with Opus?
I just wanted to be a Black filmmaker. There’s a sense of gratitude and connection that I feel with Black filmmakers that came before me. I was watching all these Blaxploitation films... Pam Grier in particular, she’s always hiding something in her afro — and I didn’t want to give Ayo an afro, but I did want the hair to feel big. The hair is on its own journey with all its symbolism, but that, to me, is a nod to Black women in film. Their hair is both a seductive weapon and an empowering thing, such a strong tether of identity and a cinematic tool. I always knew I wanted to do something to nod to that. So there’s a lot in Opus that, I don’t know, it felt very random to me until I watched the film as a whole with people who know me. Then it felt deeply, deeply personal… Which I think is cool, but also can be terrifying.
It’s like, “Here’s my essence.”
Yeah! “Here’s everything I’m into, so be nice.”
You’ve said recently that you think elevated horror is bulls—t. Could you elaborate on that?
I just think it’s like a pretentious term. A horror film is a horror film; a horror thriller is a horror thriller. Elevated horror to me can only exist if there’s not elevated horror, and I just don’t believe in elevating something. To me, Get Out is a brilliant, beautiful, poignant, thoughtful, provocative horror film, and I think Saw is a brilliant kind of masterful, super, super influential horror film. To try to separate the two in a genre, to me it feels anti-film, which is something I’m very anti.
I appreciated how this film is about more than just a scorned artist, but about how we’re all complicit in the machine. Did you start writing Opus knowing that you wanted to skewer everyone here — not just the celebrity or the journalist or the fan — or did it start off more specific?
It starts with me skewering myself. I think that that’s where it starts, right? I’m guilty of this thing. There are celebrities and political figures and humans that I have put way too much belief in as a person. And I have participated in tribalism myself, and so I thoroughly appreciate it feels like you really get that the film is not a revenge story, but something that I think is much bigger and more important than that.
The ride itself, I really want it to be fun, and I think we should go to the cinema to have a really, really good time with it. I feel like I owe that to you. And then what you owe me is to be open to whatever I may want us to interrogate together. Maybe you disagree with how you think I feel, and maybe I disagree with how you feel — but I think if the ride is fun enough, we’ll still be on it together. That was my intention with Opus.
Blaxploitation icon Pam Grier was a huge influence for Edebiri’s final girl.
Finally, I’d love to hear the story of casting Ayo. I hear it involved a slight mishandling of screeners.
Yeah. I’m worried now because I’ve been asked about it. I hope Hulu or whoever owns Hulu doesn’t get upset with me, but I had screeners for The Bear and I knew her through my friend Lionel [Boyce], and I just think she’s so talented. My dream for Ariel was for her to be a young Black woman who never does something stupid in the movie. She never falls when she’s running. She never runs into the room with the boogeyman or whatever. And I wanted a Black woman that looked like she could be in my family. I wanted a Black woman who could give this range of emotion [in her] performance. And what was cool about it is I saw The Bear and it was like, She’s perfect for this film. She’s everything. And then quickly, the world was like, “Ayo Edebiri is everything.” So I don’t want to make it sound like there was some crazy sell: Ayo’s talent makes her the easiest person in the world to pitch. But there was a really special moment where it felt like I knew the answer and the world didn’t yet. It didn’t last very long but—
But now, at least, it’s like you’re riding the wave.
Yeah. And I had such a great experience working with her and editing her and watching all these choices that she had made. I love that I’m making films in a time where Ayo Edebiri is a leading woman. How cool is that? I just think there was a period where Black actresses really got both pigeonholed and overlooked. And I’m not saying that that problem is completely eradicated, but Ayo Edebiri is a movie star. Quinta Brunson is a star. And I feel super fortunate and lucky that this is the period in which I get to make films, so that I can work and be inspired by Black women like that.
