The Cast of Do Revenge Talk Soulmates, Camp & The Catharsis of Rage

Is there anything more fun and camp than a candy-coated teen thriller? Think Jawbreaker, Heathers, Cruel Intentions. Now with Do Revenge, we have a new film to add to this queer fave canon. Its bubblegum-bright aesthetic is juxtaposed against the dark, sociopathic tendencies of elite, wealthy teens. Plus it's queer, so what’s not to love?

We expect nothing less when director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson is at the helm. Before Do Revenge, she lent her eye and ethos to the beloved (if criminally underseen) MTV series Sweet/Vicious as well as the trope-subverting romantic comedy Someone Great. 

This time around, she’s telling a Hitchcockian tale through a teen thriller lens. Think Strangers on a Train meets Mean Girls and you’ll get the vibe. The film follows Drea (Camila Mendes) whose fragile It-Girl status is shattered when her sex tape is leaked by her boyfriend Max (Austin Abrams). Outcast and righteously enraged, she finds a kindred spirit in the new girl, Eleanor, who has her own axe to grind with the former classmate who outed her as queer and made up lies that she’s a predator. Together they hatch a plan to help the other “do revenge” against those who wronged them.

“I think there’s something really fun about not just having a movie about rage, but being able to make it so femme. It’s a dark story, but it’s not a dark world,” Robinson tells PRIDE. “So having the contrast of that...candy coated, color-soaked, beautiful camp environment, and then telling a story about unbridled rage was a dream.”

At the film’s heart is the relationship between its leads, Drea and Eleanor, or as Hawke explains, they’re more like misunderstood soulmates. “They actually have a tremendous amount in common and are dealing with really similar problems. But because of a variety of things, they don't really learn how deeply true that is [and] that they’re soulmates until the end of the film, and I think that's kind of the story of the film,” Hawke shares with PRIDE.

Both she and Mendes were excited to play against their typical heroic character and take on antihero roles on Stranger Things and Riverdale, respectively, this time around. “We still do save the day a little bit. We ruin the day first, destroy the day,” Mendes tells PRIDE. “I think that was something really refreshing about playing our characters in [the film] is that we actually got to be anti-heroes, and we got to play these complex, flawed women.”

Watch PRIDE’s interview with the cast and director below

For Hawke, embracing those flaws in her character was surprisingly cathartic. “Sometimes when you do the wrong thing, you feel so alone, because all of the people in movies and the characters you like never do the wrong thing. Then you’re like, ‘Oh my god, I’ve done the wrong thing. And now I’m a villain. I’m the villain in this story. I told a lie, I hurt someone’s feelings, I did this bad thing.’ And it’s so lonely,” she shares. “I feel like it’s always nice to have those characters that you can watch...where they do get to be flawed, and you do get to see them do the wrong thing and make up for it. That for me, as someone who does the wrong thing sometimes, is really meaningful.”

For Robinson, who also co-wrote the film alongside Celeste Ballard, writing these complex, sometimes even villain roles were about bringing a grounding reality to the film. “I think complicated is real. I feel like people are always striving to make sure that characters are likable. For me it’s not about likability, it’s about truth,” she says. “I think if it emotionally resonates, likability is there because it feels real.”

Also real is the film’s truest villain, Max, a character who uses allyship as a mask to hide his misogyny and sociopathy. He’s a character that’s chillingly familiar to anyone paying attention to the halls of elite schools or Congress.

“[Celeste and I] had a lot of conversations about performative allyship, performative wokeness, even performative gender. I think that [Max] rides that line in terms of wanting to appear fluid,” Robinson explains. “[We also discussed] unpacking that in terms of creating a villain that felt real to today. Because everyone is a wolf in sheep’s clothing today. And I think that is so much more interesting than just the mean jock that we would have seen in a movie years ago.”

One person who does have some sympathy for Max is Abrams, who needed to find the humanity in the character in order to bring him to life. “I think it’s best to have sympathy and empathy for all the characters you’re playing because they’re doing what they’re doing for a reason,” Abrams tells PRIDE. “It was fun to play too because those [are] all parts that we have in ourselves. And to tap into more than the ego or vengefulness that we have in ourselves was fun to explore.”

While the movie is definitely about seeking justice — to a degree that’s not always healthy — it’s also about forgiveness. That’s something that resonated with Alisha Boe who plays Tara, Drea’s fair weather friend who comes to regret her choices. “We’re not all gonna get it right the first time, we’re all going to mess up in some way. In society nowadays, there’s this expectation of you to be perfect from day one. Always know what to do and be correct at all times,” Boe explains to PRIDE. “I think it’s nice to see that’s just not the case, it’s just not reality. You’re gonna mess up and hopefully not at the expense of someone else. But if it is at the expense of someone else, then own up to it and learn from it and do your due diligence to beg for forgiveness and never do it again,” she laughs.

That’s ultimately what Robinson hopes audiences take from the film. “Don’t do revenge. I just don’t want anyone to watch this movie and be like, ‘Got it. I’ll do that,’” she laughs. “The end of the movie is where they decide to go to therapy. Do that. So don’t do revenge. Do therapy.”

Do Revenge premieres on Netflix on September 16. Watch the trailer below.

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