Horse Girl’s Alison Brie reveals harrowing schizophrenia twist is inspired by her own ‘traumatic’ family history
HORSE Girl’s Alison Brie has revealed how the film’s harrowing schizophrenia twist is inspired by her own ‘traumatic’ family history. The 37-year-old actress plays Sarah in the psychological drama, a woman who tries to hide her social awkwardness and isolation while working at an arts and crafts store. While Sarah is introduced to a new […]
HORSE Girl’s Alison Brie has revealed how the film’s harrowing schizophrenia twist is inspired by her own ‘traumatic’ family history.
The 37-year-old actress plays Sarah in the psychological drama, a woman who tries to hide her social awkwardness and isolation while working at an arts and crafts store.
While Sarah is introduced to a new man by her flat mate, things soon take a turn as she begins to experience surreal dreams which feel incredibly real.
As well as starring in the film, Alison co-wrote the script with director Jeff Baena and it’s a project close to her heart.
She told Deadline: “My mother’s mother lived with paranoid schizophrenia and I grew up hearing stories about my grandmother and my mother sometimes traumatic childhood.
“I sort of just lived my whole life knowing that mental illness existed in my bloodline and I was just kind of kicking around the idea of a thriller or something in the sci-fi realm of how terrifying it is not to be able to trust your own mind.”
The equestrian element of the film came from Jeff, who revealed it came to him while on a hike with Alison.
He said: “There’s this sort of a combination of a bunch of ideas that we kind of had. It just seemed like a really cool fit.”
In a trailer for the film, Sarah starts to struggle to separate her dreams from real life, and tells a doctor: “People always said that my grandma was so crazy.
“Now I think she wasn’t crazy at all, because I’m feeling it.”
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Sarah is seen waking up in odd places with no idea how she got there, as well as her flatmate asking her to explain weird scratch marks in the walls.
Sarah starts to believe her weird experiences could be connected to her grandmother.
At one point, Sarah also questions if anyone believes in alien abduction, before telling her colleague (played by Molly Shannon): “I can hear the future.”
Sarah then adds to her doctor: “I know that it sounds crazy, I know that it sounds really crazy, but it just feels really real.”
Horse Girl will premiere on Netflix on Thursday, February 27.