Cuckoo director praises ‘mind-blowing’ trans star Hunter Schafer

Director Tilman Singer has nothing but praise after working with trans star Hunter Schafer.

Singer’s new film Cuckoo, which has already been well-received by critics in the US, opens in UK today (23 August).

The psychological horror stars Schafer as teen girl Gretchen who is forced to move in with her father, his wife and step-sister after the death of her birth mother. Together, the family move to a resort in the Bavarian Alps where they plan to help build a new hotel, overseen by the strange and suspicious Herr König, played Downton Abbey and Beauty and the Beast star Dan Stevens.

Depressed, desperate to leave and suddenly plagued by screeching sounds and haunting visions, Gretchen begins planning her escape. She plots with hotel guest and potential sapphic love interest Ed (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey).

As Gretchen’s visions of a hooded woman in the woods intensify and become more violent, she discovers that the resort has a dark and deadly secret – and her family is caught up in it.

The role is Schafer’s first lead in a feature film, and also the first where she plays a fully fledged scream queen. She is attacked, and, covered in blood, has to fight for her life against a malevolent force. It’s unlike any role the Euphoria star has had before.

Speaking at the Raindance Film Festival in London last month, Singer said he watched in awe as Schafer got into character.

“She goes there on her own. It’s amazing to see,” he said. She has this gift of digging into an emotional pool within herself and a lot of times it’s really painful to her I think, or at least it takes a lot from her.

“But she can do it. I always say she’s relaxed but not casual, which is amazing to see. It feels so immediate, so real. It was mind-blowing.”

Before the shoot in the Alps began, Tilman watched the first season of TV drama Euphoria to find out what the young actress had to offer. Filming for Cuckoo begins in Gretchen’s family’s new house, scenes which were “easy” to shoot. But the next day, Schafer had to tap into something completely different as the horror starts to unfold.

“The next day we had hard-core trauma: ‘You have to cry now’, and Hunter could do that,” the German director continued.

While writing Cuckoo, only the first season of Euphoria – Schafer’s first project – was out in the world, meaning there was little of her work to go on. But Singer’s manager picked her out as his “top creative pick” for the film. 

“She stayed there for me,” Singer said, adding that, because of the pandemic, he had to watch her casting tape rather than seeing what she could do in person.

“She immediately became my first pick. When I got her tape, it was all that: it was being relaxed but not casual, and very real and very immediate emotions that were very true. For me, that was the decision right then and there,” he added.

Cuckoo is in cinemas now.

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