Jenna Mattison
By
Niy Birden
In Jenna Mattison’s directorial debut for “The Sound”, we experience Rose McGowan as Kelly, a completely in-for-it-all ghost buster who finds herself uncovering secrets of the death of a suicide victim in a subway station. Through social media and thoughtful, star-studded interactions both living and dead, we get to see the emotional breakthrough for a character based in survival and deep emotional and mental pain. But the character of Jenna Mattison I’ve found, is a far more interesting character, and like Kelly, has many sides.
Q: The film seems like an antithesis of your acting work- Is this by design?
J: You know, I had an injury about 10 years ago, and went through subsequent surgeries over 5 to 6 years and that essentially ended my acting career. And during that time period, I went deaf on one side…it was insane. And when something that intense happens to you, it changes your perspective a lot. And it kind of makes you a more soulful person, may be in ways darker? [laughs] So when I wrote the sound, it was definitely different than my previous writing because it was a very different experience for me. And within that, my writing as a filmmaker changed.
Q: Did you put a lot of your experience in the film, or find yourself seeing some similarities in there?
J: I wouldn’t say that, but definitely the importance of sound, you know, for someone who has had their hearing damaged. And you realize..how much, how we hear. And how we see the world, because it also changes because it gets heightened. You just realize how important it is. And so I got really interested in sound, and then this sort of you know, came out of that.
Q: How do you compare the creative process of doing a darker plot vs softer characters? Which inspire you more?
The Sound
J: I’m into all sorts of different things, so I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m really one or the other, but I do really enjoy sort of getting into characters and people that are a bit broken, that their lives (past) have shadowed their view of the world and kind of made them a bit darker, so yeah I guess in that, that is a reflection of the person I’ve grown to become since my injury and, you know…the [sarcastic]“nightmare that happened to me” [laughs].
We then started talking about how her injury was an empowering one, especially since women are really held into looking a certain way on screen.
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