CANNES, France — Cannes is often described as heaven for cinema, but the premiere of “Her Private Hell” offered up a “surreal” moment for star Sophie Thatcher.
Thatcher said the film played to a packed late-night crowd following a rain-soaked red carpet that quickly turned into an improvised photo moment. “It was raining, and they were playing Rihanna,” she said.
Director Nicolas Winding Refn “kept doing action hero poses, and we all just went along with it, so there’s all these pictures of us in the rain doing superhero poses.”
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She said the atmosphere helped loosen the cast ahead of the screening. “Something about the rain made it feel so epic,” she said. “I was really happy.”
Thatcher added that the experience of watching the film on the big screen was heightened by the late-night Cannes schedule and ongoing press demands. “None of us got a lot of sleep,” she said. “It’s been nonstop.”
She said the festival rhythm meant little time to see other films. “I haven’t been able to see anything else, which is kind of a bummer,” she said.
Indeed, she was getting ready for another late-night event, prepping in a red McQueen for a party at Hotel du Cap. She attended the show last season and was “really, really impressed. Seán [McGirr] is “incredibly talented.”
On the premiere red carpet, Thatcher said she worked closely with Louis Vuitton on a look that referenced both film history and the visual language of “Her Private Hell,” as well as drew inspiration from Monica Bellucci’s appearance at the “Irreversible” premiere at Cannes in 2002.
Vuitton created a dress with a leather armor on top and sheer skirt. “It was perfect. It was perfect for the movie because there’s a lot of leather in the movie and it’s very symbolic.”
She said she also continued the same visual language into the press conference the following day, with a leather look that referenced French classics.
Thatcher said her approach to styling is built around mood boards that pull from cinema, photography and European cultural references. “My entire mood board is Monica Bellucci and her daughter” Deva Cassel, she said. “I think she’s so stylish and kind of gothic, but not too far into that. It’s very elevated and beautiful.”
She said platform play a significant role in assembling references. “Pinterest is a funny algorithm a lot of the time,” she said.
Thatcher said her influences include a range of European actresses across decades. “Isabelle Adjani, Isabelle Huppert, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sonja Kinski,” she said. “A lot of actors from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s.”
She said French style in particular remains a recurring reference point. “There’s a lot of French influence,” she said. “Which is perfect for trying to lean into that at Cannes.”
Turning to the film itself, Thatcher said her collaboration with Refn was highly fluid and unconventional in structure. She said she met him twice before receiving the script and was given only a short time to read it.
“We had two meetings before I got the script,” she said. “Then I got the script delivered to my house and we had three hours to read it. It’s a very dense script and very abstract.”
She said the material continued to evolve throughout production. “The script was constantly changing and evolving every day on set,” she said. “He would come in and say, ‘I had a dream, and now we change it and do it this way.’”
Thatcher said dialogue was frequently adjusted in real time. “We would be changing the dialogue in the morning,” she said. “People have asked if we were improvising, but I would say it was like slow improvising, because everything was always changing.”
The film was shaped by director Refn’s account of a near-death experience, which he described as a creative reset that redefined the project’s emotional core.
She said the process created a sense of instability but also creative freedom. “It felt like a living being,” she said of the film. “Anything could happen, which is terrifying but also very exciting.”
Thatcher said the experience shifted her approach to acting. “It made me embrace the unknown,” she said. “I’m such a perfectionist. I want everything in order and I want to know what’s going to happen.”
But Refn’s production forced her to abandon that approach. “With this, you had to trust fall into everybody every day,” she said. “It opened me up in a lot of ways.”
Thatcher said she now expects a higher level of creative involvement on future projects. “I was very much part of the world building, and I want to bring that onto every project now.”
Thatcher said working closely on scripts and set decisions gave her a new perspective on filmmaking. “Even just rewriting the scenes with everybody was really informative,” she said.
She said watching the completed film reinforced that shift. “My twin and I, and my boyfriend, we were all talking about how we want to make something together,” she said. “Because it felt like we could do it.”
Thatcher said she currently shares a home in upstate New York with her partner, her twin and her twin’s partner, describing it as a creative environment. “We’re all just working on music and making art,” she said. “It’s a very positive environment.”
She said she has several upcoming projects, including “Cavendish,” the sophomore film from British filmmaker Christopher Andrews, described as an “irreverent and original” period thriller set against the witch hunts of 17th-century Britain. That film explores female vengeance and bends the idea of a period drama.
“I’m open to genre,” she said. “As long as it’s not strictly horror. I’ve done that before. Now I’m just trying to open it up.”
Thatcher said the festival itself remains an intense but productive environment. “It’s been nonstop,” she said. “But it’s also very exciting.”