Rising Film Star Kika Magalhaes Talks ‘The Eyes Of My Mother’ (INTERVIEW)

With The Eyes of My Mother now available on VOD, iTunes, and Amazon, audiences at large finally get a chance to experience one of the breakout hits from this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Director Nicolas Pesce has crafted a bold and engrossing new take on psychological horror, taking us deep into the minds of madness with a clever and artful eye.

So much of the film and its effectiveness relies on its star, Kika Magalhaes. As Francisca—a broken woman who longs for inclusion in a world she doesn’t understand—Magalhaes takes a journey into psychopathy, forcing the audience to confront the inner humanity of a cold-blooded murderer.

Its sparse narrative rests entirely on the shoulders of its star who, like her director, makes her feature debut in The Eyes of My Mother. For her efforts, Magalhaes has earned wide acclaim. Rolling Stone named her one of the 12 breakouts from Sundance this year, and landed a management deal with Anonymous Content on the strength of her performance.

I had the chance to speak with this rising star about The Eyes of My Mother and the experience of bringing Francisca to life, in addition to the excitement of all the buzz surrounding her performance. You can check out the buzz for yourself in theaters, if you live in a city where the film is playing, in on VOD today.

The Eyes of My Mother is such a visceral take on horror and slasher, and I was wondering about your background in the genre? Are you a fan of horror movies?

I am absolutely a movie nerd. I love movies. I wasn’t very familiar with this kind of horror. After meeting Nick, he told me to watch a lot of horror stuff. Hitchcock, Audition, Under the Skin, all this stuff that I was not very aware of. So I became a horror fan after meeting Nick. He was the one who created this obsession in me now. I’m thrilled to watch more horror.

How does it feel to have played Francisca, a character who now kind of ranks among the top monsters in horror?

I was not expecting to a role like this. Me as a person, I’m so different from Francisca. I’m a really happy person, I love people, I have a lot of energy. This is so different from me and I never thought I would have a role in such an interesting, weird, slow, black and white movie. So when Nick told me that he wrote this thing, always thinking of me for the role, I always wondered what made him see that quality in me.

You can almost see that in Francisca. As monstrous as she is, she’s really just lonely and sad and doesn’t have the ability or context to figure out what to do about that.

Right. I think we sympathize with her because we understand—she does all those crazy things—but we understand that she just wants to be loved, you know? We see the way that she grew up, with a father who never even looked her in the eye, and seeing her mother die right in front of her, it absolutely triggers something in her. I’m very happy that we had the scenes with her childhood so that we explain that background and I think that through those scenes of her as a kid, we can sympathize with her more because we know that something is wrong. Maybe if we wouldn’t have had those scenes we would just think that she’s just a serial killer. I think that was awesome to show that because we always think that people are bad, but there’s always a reason why people are bad. The world made them bad, and that’s what happens with Francisca. She never had love in her life so that’s what she wants.

I know that Nick drew heavily from his experience reading about serial killers. Did you have to do any research into that as well?

I did a lot of research. I was involved in this project a year before we shot it, so me and Nick we would talk for hours about serial killers. The script went through a lot of changes. I watched a lot of horror movies. I read a lot about the Manson story, Ted Bundy. I was going a little bit crazy myself reading all the horrible things all the time and watching so much horror. It was very interesting, a very interesting process.

You had kind of a busy year on the festival circuit with The Eyes of My Mother. Audiences and critics seemed to respond surprisingly well to it. How do you think wider audiences are going to respond to it once it hits VOD and the limited theater run?

Oh my god, I’m a bit scared! We premiered at Sundance. That was the first time I saw the movie. I was scared. When I saw it the first time, I thought no one would talk about my performance or anything, and that people would not pay attention because it’s so quiet and sterile so when it started to get huge I was like “Oh my god.” It’s amazing. I have to say that I’m a bit scared about general audiences. I don’t know if people will like it because it’s so weird and in black and white and slow with little dialogue. I guess in this world we can never please everyone and as an actor we have to get used to being criticized all the time. I think that people will either love it or hate it.

Even with all the nervousness you have with that, it’s hard to deny that you’re having a pretty great year. Rolling Stone named you one of the 12 breakout stars of Sundance. You signed with Anonymous Content. You’ve got a lot going on right now.

I’m so blessed. Rolling Stone, Variety, seeing my name in a lot of amazing magazines that I grew up reading and dreaming of being in one day, when they started having those articles about me I was so surprised and so blessed. I couldn’t even believe it. I thought that no one would say a word about me because the role was so quiet. I was so happy. Anonymous Content, they were the ones who called me. My manager Carolynn Govers she is a wonderful person, she is my friend now. She signed me and she didn’t even see the movie. A friend of hers was at the festival—I don’t know who it is, but I want to tell them thank you so much—this person saw The Eyes of My Mother and they told Carolyn that she should sign me. I had a Skype call with her and she just signed me at that moment. It was so amazing.

So do you have your next roles lined up? What’s the horizon looking like for you?

It’s looking very good. I’ve been working on a few things this year, little independent movies. I booked a role for next year, it’s a bigger budget. I can’t really say much about it yet, but it’s a comedy so that’s going to be fun. It’s a very smart comedy, I’m thrilled to do it. We’re still in pre-production but we’re planning on starting early next year. It’s a first-time director. I can’t speak much about it yet because we’re still in pre-production but there are some big names attached it. This one is not for festivals, it would be directly in theaters.

The Eyes of My Mother is out now in limited release and is available on iTunes, Amazon, and VOD. Read our review here.

Read our interview with director Nicolas Pesce here.