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Lily Loveless gets beaten down, but not broken in “SEVEN PM”

When filmmaker Anetta Jones cast Lily Loveless in her short film, SEVEN PM, she knew she’d found the actress who could bring heartbreaking nuance to her main character: the lonely, debauched socialite Fox. What Anetta Jones didn’t know is that Lily Loveless was also bringing her own built-in fanbase with her.

Lesbians are nothing if not loyal to the actresses who play their favorite characters, and Skins‘ Naomi Campbell is our all-time favorite. So when photos from Loveless’ performance in SEVEN PM surfaced online last week, there was a simulations cacophony of cheers and wailing – “Yay! More Lily Loveless to love!” and “Oh, but why is she so sad? Who did this to her?” Here’s your answer: Anetta Jones did it to her! But Lily asked for it!

24 actresses auditioned for SEVEN PM before Jones tapped Loveless for to play Fox, a young Londoner who lives a “hedonistic yet monotonous blur of self-destruction and escapism, [whose] daily fix of hope keeps her going.”

Here’s how Jones describes SEVEN PM:

Fox awakes each day to face the same scene of self destruction. Events of the night before a blur, she could have been or done anything or anyone. She goes through the motions of the day business as usual; rushing in a desperate bid to make her daily 7pm appointment. But how is this moment meaningful? SEVEN PM tells the poignant story of a girl trapped in the debauchery of her own habits, seeking significance from her insignificant routine … [It is] a fleeting glimpse in to a day in the life of a lost girl.
I caught up with Anetta – who is traveling the world after her film’s strong showing at London’s East End Film Festival – to chat with her her about SEVEN PM, Lily Loveless, and her future feminist film-making aspirations.

  AfterEllen.com: Can you talk a little bit about the casting process and why you chose Lily for the of Fox. There were 24 actress up for the role. How did you narrow it down? Anettea Jones: The casting process was incredibly important for me as Fox is essentially SEVEN PM – as the film is about her life. She is a very complex character; I wanted her to seem at once both bolshy and weak. In the auditions, I was looking for the full emotional range of Fox’s personality – bravado, vulnerability, defensiveness, bitchiness but at the same time someone who the audience could like, empathise with and be on her side.

This is quite a delicate balance to strike! Also there is very little dialogue in the short and so it was very important that the actress could display these emotions in her body language and facial expressions alone. Many of the girls whom I auditioned were very talented and I was impressed during the casting how many of them expressed that they felt a connection with the character

I had narrowed the actresses down to a top three but I was still unconvinced that I had found my Fox. That’s when I received a personal email from Lily herself who had read the script that I had sent to her agent. She was very keen in playing the character and so I called her in for a reading and she was absolutely perfect. I was unbelievably impressed and absolutely delighted – and so Lily became my Fox.

AE: Were you familiar with Skins at the time? You filmed between series three and four of Skins, when the whole Naomily thing was ramping up to global domination; were you aware of it? AJ: I had of course heard of Skins before casting Lily; however, I hadn’t seen beyond the second series and so I didn’t know Lily’s acting yet. So before Lily came in I watched a few episodes and I saw her unique way of really connecting with the audience and how she is able to strike the balance between outspoken and vulnerable. I had no idea, however, when we shot the film that her popularity would soar to such an extent with the Naomily phenomenon. I am unsurprised, though, and she deserves it because she is a powerful young actress. AE: Skins co-creator Jamie Brittain and I spoke not long ago about The Lily Loveless Tear Effect. We agreed that she is so soulful on screen that when she cries, everyone watching turns into a blubbering mess. Judging from the stills and what you’ve told me about the film, Lily looks pretty wrecked in Seven PM – so I can only assume you meant to break the hearts of every lesbian in the world world? True or false? And if true: Why, Anetta? Why?! AJ: Ha ha ha! It is all Lily’s fault! She is too convincing! She inflicted her mystical Tear Effect on me too! I remember when we were filming one scene where Fox is crying on the side of the road and we had to keep re-shooting it because we were getting too much noise pollution. Despite the emotional intensity the scene required, Lily required very little direction and was able to seamlessly repeat the scene despite how exhausting it must have been for her. And whenever I shouted “CUT” I would always rush over to her and worriedly ask her if she was ok because she was acting so convincingly cut up and upset.

It really impacted on the whole crew who began talking in very gentle tones to each other and looking quite down! But Lily’s fans can rest assured that most of this scene was edited out to keep the short film punchy. And also no matter how much the makeup artist smudged Lily’s eyeliner or hairsprayed her hair into a matted mess, Lily always somehow managed to look like a beautiful wreck! She makes a hot mess!

  AE: You came up with the concept for SEVEN PM by watching the interaction between two strangers on a street in London. Are you always inventing stories for people you see on the street? AJ: Yes, I am quite strange – or perhaps bored? – like that. One of my favourites was when I saw a girl about the age of fourteen sitting alone on a beach in the south of Italy and she was looking wistfully – or so I thought – at the ocean, just drawing things in the sand. I noticed another woman sitting further along the beach who kept watching her although the girl didn’t notice. In my head the woman was longing to tell the girl that she was her mother and that she had been following her for the last two years and had always been in the background of the girl’s life unnoticed. But she never had the guts to speak to the girl because the girl had always thought her mother is dead. Kinda dark I guess. I have an overactive but apparently somewhat grim imagination!

AE: What’s next for you, film-wise? AJ: I have co-written a short animation film with Maria Lazanitou my Assistant Director on SEVEN PM. It is called Wonderland and she is the producer and director. It’s a very creative story about a girl who goes to Tokyo to find out the truth about her brother’s death. Whilst there she discovers the world of Japanese Host Clubs – a legal form of I guess “social prostitution” where women go and pay huge sums of money for male company, entertainment and flattery rather than their bodies. It is a fascinating phenomenon and Maria is using a variety of exciting media in the animation. I am also writing a short art film about a married woman who wakes up one day and discovers that she has grown wings! It is a conceptual piece with feminist undertones. I hope to begin production in 2011. AE: What’s your dream project? AJ: It would be an absolute dream to shoot a documentary series about the treatment of women all over the globe, from places where we might assume that women are more suppressed like in the middle east to right here in England where I would want to show sexism and oppression on a more subtle level – where people don’t think it is an issue and instances where women keep women down.

AE: What’s next for SEVEN PM? AJ: Film festivals! I am going to submit SEVEN PM to as many festivals as I can and get it the exposure I believe it deserves! After which it would be amazing to have it picked up by a shortfilm distribution company. And of course we’ll make it available online for all the fans!

For more information about SEVEN PM, follow Anetta Jones on Twitter (@junglecheetah). RophyDoes.com will have high-res stills and more detailed information about the film tomorrow. And we hope to have a trailer for you when Anetta Jones returns home from her world travels!

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