EXCLUSIVE | 'His Kill Fan' star Brooke Butler on about playing an edgier character in LMN's music-thriller
‘His Killer Fan’, LMN’s latest music-centric thriller, follows the story of rockstar Josh Halliday and his super obsessed fan Ariana Kent, played by Brooke Butler. With its “tortuous tale of friendship” and “fanaticism”, the film has managed to turn quite a few heads.
In an exclusive interview with MEAWW, Butler revealed more exciting details you ought to know about if you’re planning on watching the film.
Butler said she landed the role of Ariana after multiple auditions, which required her to prepare two 25 pages worth of dialogues and even sing. Even though the audition wasn’t an easy task, Butler describes it as a “great departure”. She explained, “I feel like I'm usually cast as kind of a sweet Carrie. So it was nice to get to play an edgier character. And then I also got to sing, which was incredible.”
Without revealing many details, talking about her role in the film, the actress said, “She's simply a girl who had an immense amount of talent with no support. I wanted to show the episodic side of someone who's not necessarily "bad person" or creating the character, but rather someone who was simply never asked if she was okay.”
“And I think, a lot of times, those are people who are just never recognized. And so Arianne is someone who's extremely talented and knows what she wants for her life and continues to not be seen. So this is one girl's struggle to be seen,” she added.
The role of Ariana couldn’t have worked better for Butler, as she’s been singing from an early age. Yet, her role as someone who loves music inspired her to learn piano. But, the actress noted that she and her character are worlds apart.
Butler explained, “She [Ariana] comes from a good place of wanting to succeed and wanting to remove herself from the home life that she's grown up in and make something out of herself. Unfortunately, she didn't have the foundation to go about that in a way that allowed her to flourish, which I think is what makes me different from her.”
“I've had a great foundation and a wonderful family and has known where to put those talents and where to put those things. I don't think Arianna had that though. So that was kind of the warning story of someone who has all this talent and then also scale, but doesn't know where to put that outlet,” she said.
Meanwhile, sharing her experience of working with Cooper, Brooke said, “Ryan and I had a great time. We were like two peas in a pod. I think we went and played mini-golf one day and we really wanted our chemistry to be good and to be there even though he doesn't fall for my charms in the movie, but everyone was.”
For the unversed, Butler has played the role of young Darlene in Netflix’s hit series Ozark. When asked how it was when she met Lisa Emery, who played the grown-up version of Darlene, the excited Butler said, “I did meet Lisa Emory and she’s just a golden actor. She comes from New York. She comes from the stage. She's someone I admire for her work. I wanted to get her to walk down. I wanted to get her voice down. I wanted to do this character that she had created.”
“So that was a part I absolutely loved doing, but couldn't have been done without Lisa Emory. And that cast was a well-oiled machine. Them being on set was probably one of the best experiences of my career so far. So yes, I like playing those strong female characters. I think that's kind of the direction that my career is going in,” she further added.
And when asked if we can expect to see her in the forthcoming seasons of ‘Ozark’, Butler joked, “Not that I'm aware of at the moment, but you never know when they'll need another flashback. So yeah, I hope they do. People seem to like her.”
'His Killer Fan' will premiere on February 19 at 8 pm ET on LMN only.
