UB Spotlight: Director + Cast Talk ‘Is God Is’ @ NYC Premiere

Directed by Aleshea Harris, the suspense thriller comedy “Is God Is” opens in theaters May 15th, via Orion Pictures.

Last night the premiere for the film was held by Amazon MGM Studios in New York at BAM!

“In Is God Is,” two sisters embark on an epic quest for revenge, confronting a charged family history that will push them to extraordinary lengths.

The film is Aleshea Harris’ directorial debut and is based on Harris’ adaptation of her award-winning play of the same name.

Starring; Kara Young, Mallori Johnson, Janelle Monáe, Erika Alexander, Mykelti Williamson, Josiah Cross, with Vivica A. Fox and Sterling K. Brown.

Produced by Tessa Thompson, Kishori Rajan, Riva Marker, Janicza Bravo, and Aleshea Harris.

Executive Produced by Stacy O’Neil, Nicole King, and Kenneth Yu.

From Writer/Director/Producer Aleshea Harris:

Is God Is exists because it was the kind of story I needed. I needed its scarred but beautiful twins. I needed its no-holds-barred punk sensibilities. And I needed its refusal to apologize. I could never have imagined that my little play would have found life in theatres all over the world. With this adaptation from stage to screen, I’m grateful for the chance to invite even more audiences to join Racine and Anaia on an epic road trip to their destiny.

It has been a tremendous relief to give Black women’s rage in Is God Is center stage rather than succumbing to the impulse to sidestep the “angry Black woman” stereotype or satisfy the “when-they-go-low-we-go-high” dictates of respectability. To allow the twins and their mother the space for nuanced and justified rage feels like restoring grace to scores of Black women who’ve been pathologized, scorned or ignored for expressing such a basic human emotion.

Alongside (or beneath) that rage is love. The unwavering self-love of a woman who knows she deserves better and will not stop until someone is held accountable. The compassionate love of a woman who holds another’s pain as her own and thus takes up arms to avenge. Something feels radical to me about Black women, who are so often expected to put ourselves last, putting themselves first.

There is no compromising here, no doubt that what Racine, Anaia and their mother have endured is to be taken seriously. But it begs important questions for us all to consider: Should one seek revenge?

TWINS: Racine & Anaia

There is no journey without the twins. And on that journey, each of the characters they encounter as the traverse the country required a particular set of strengths and abilities making the trip exciting and emotional for Racine and Anaia.

Parsing the role of Anaia, Harris knew she needed someone who could cover great emotional distances with fluidness and assurance. “Mallori has all kinds of accessibility and I knew that I needed one who could go really far. I also needed someone who wasn’t going to play Anaia like this downtrodden, brow-beaten girl who is just sort of sad. That was something that I was thinking about as we were auditioning and calling back actors.

She understood that she needed to sort of stay in that sweet spot. There is a sadness that she has to carry,” Harris acknowledges. “But also, she knows: ‘If you touch my sister, it’s gonna be on!’ In some ways, she needs to be passive, and a little afraid, but that did not dominate her spirit. And when she needs to fight with her sister, she can embody that strength that she isn’t allowed all the time. That’s what I was looking for. When I saw it in her, it was, ‘Yes! Do that!’

Racine was an entirely different conundrum. “I knew Kara from the theater. She had come to Florida to do a reading of a play of mine and she was incredible. So while we were casting, I had an idea: ‘What about her?’”

“I had her read for Anaia first, but that wasn’t who she was. With Racine: there’s just something that just felt dangerous about her. You felt like there was a lot just sitting here and you don’t know what she’s going to do, and I saw that Kara had access to that.”

Face-to-face with each of them, immediately, Harris discerned that both actors were acutely present. They both possessed “a tremendous understanding of their instruments.” However, equally, if not more important, she noted that they both understood their context as Black women in the world. “To me they are like dream actors who can just download quickly who they are and what we need to see, in order for the machine to work. Both can do that beautifully and the chemistry is so good.”

Early in the process, when they were paired with other people, they each tended to dominate the other actor,” Harris remembers. “They were like stealing the scene. But when I paired them together, neither one of them could steal it from the other. That’s how I knew. These are the women,” says Harris. “These two took such good care of each other. They were so tender with each other and it is absolutely critical to the success of the movie.”

With Anaia behind the wheel, Racine riding shotgun, Harris ratchets up the stakes, stokes the tension, as the twins feel their way deeper into a past they were not present to bear witness to, while also navigating toward a future that feels increasingly precarious.

The wound-up intensity is relieved at turns with flashes of humor—moments played variously as wry, sardonic, or broad. It’s a way for Harris to keep both the actors and the audience on their toes.

“There’s so much ugly in our world, that’s even in my narrative,” Harris acknowledges “But even though I’m addressing things that are ugly, it’s the humor that puts a different spin on it.” It’s a breath, a re-orienting pause, a chance to reposition to see oneself—or a way forward. “Humor is how we survive as a people,” she explains. “I’m not interested in fetishizing our pain. I think all of these women are fun. Complicated. There’s so much foolishness in this story and it delights me.”

“Aleshea wanted us to have a foundation even before we met on set,” Mallori Johnson recalls. “She had the foresight to have Kara and I meet two or three weeks prior to shooting. She had such a clear understanding of who the sisters are. We got sent went to Louisiana to do rehearsals, but we weren’t rehearsing in a traditional sense.

She had a movement specialist, Raja Feather Kelly (Broadway’s A Strange Loop) come in and we just moved together. We played these games where we would look at each other and try to finish each other’s thoughts, and work in tandem. It was a brilliant way to start. We were just feeling each other out as these two separate beings moving in one unit. Moving as one. So much more than just our physical language. It was like mind melding.”

“It really was about shadow work,” Young agrees, “about connecting. We were in workshop for like two weeks, just practicing with Aleshea’s direction and Raja’s guidance in New Orleans, which is such a magical place. It added to the mix.”

While she had crossed paths with Young in passing in New York, a year or so prior, Mallori Johnson was very much aware of her work. Touching down in New Orleans, it felt like they already shared a tight bond. “You know that indescribable thing where you meet someone and you just feel you instantly have a connection?” says Johnson. They began to build on that. In short time, they were inseparable, “We spent so much time together, and it wasn’t as if we were forced. But we’d text each other, work on scenes, talk for hours, go on walks together. and this was even before we started shooting, Kara taught me so much about what it means to be relentless in your dedication.”

When Young got the call to audition for Racine, she understood the weight of the duty: “I’d seen it on stage in 2018 it blew my fucking mind. This was like a cult play but I was able to get in and see it.” It settled in deep, says Young. It felt sacred. “I mean Aleshea wrote our modern-day Greek tragedy. But you can also relate it to our deep African stories — there are so many layers. And when you see the script on the page? She writes these beautiful spells — the way she spaces out her words.

Everything is meticulous. Every space. Every period. Every comma is intentional. That’s why you can’t fuck it up. You can’t improv it. The language, it’s too special. It was like jumping into an ocean. There was so much freedom within the form of Aleshea Harris.”

How trauma cuts its path is a study in contrasts. As for Racine, says Young, “I was constantly creating a story within a story for her.” While she was not as visibly scarred, the horror of that night is a shared life-altering episode. “It did belong to her as well. She’s marked in ways you can’t see.” Going in, says Young, it was essential for her to understand not only hers but her sisters’ backstory—their relationship, their past. How many times did Racine have to be the protector?

What was the sweep of duty that that might entail? “I like the fact that Racine is holding so much of them both,” says Harris. “I had a full understanding that that fire is still burning inside her, and it is manifesting in the way that she’s navigating the world.

So when Anaia is hesitant, and doesn’t want to go on the journey, Racine is the energy. And even though Anaia takes the wheel, it’s Racine who is making the choice to push the pedal.” They are strong, they are survivors, and though it’s come at great cost, “They have made a beautiful life for themselves. There’s super beauty in their sisterhood. This is the love story of two sisters.”

On the other side of joy, lives their pain. “There was a lot of research about burn victims and what they go through,” says Young, “We would share stories and talk with each other. We dug into stories about people who have suffered in their life, [so we could] get at the constant underlying trauma they live with. The belly of it,” says Young.

“It’s our internalized externalized. Our rage. And I don’t use rage as a pejorative — it’s the symbolism of trauma — and how we are carrying it. And again, Racine is like a fire, and it is always burning. Sometimes it’s low, but it’s always burning.”

In Johnson’s case, she wanted to go deep to find ways to telegraph Anaia’s interior, all that might be buried within. “She is this girl covered in scars, but that’s not how she feels about herself. She has an internal life and wants so much more. The spirit of her is beautiful”

Johnson’s pursuit was to convey this depth despite the challenges of making Anaia seen beneath the heavy make-up and prosthetics her role required. “The process started as three hours, and got quicker as we went along.” says Johnson. “They [the prosthetics] were challenging in one way—one of the best opportunities I’ve ever had to truly sink into a character, but I didn’t know how it might affect my performance. I’d never worked with them before. When I began to see some of the footage I noticed ‘Oh, this one eye looks more shut than usual.’ Or, ‘My mouth is downturned.’ So, I really had to push through my new face, to work through it, to understand how the camera saw it. I would sometimes sit in the chair, feeling my face being covered in scars. It changed the way I moved, the way I looked people in the eye, the way I positioned my head. The way I understood Anaia.”

Over time, however, “The more I stepped into her skin, the more she allowed me this small freedom in myself, it gave me an understanding of what it means to move, breathe and live truthfully in my body.”

“Kara and Mallori gave me so much”, Harris reflects, “All the time together, really moving through the text made the difference,” says Harris. “They were fully open to the process. But even more, they felt like teammates from jump. They were so down and easy to work with.”

Costume designer Angelina Vitto made sure the twins lived in their own world: “The way they dressed mirrored each other. Aleshea wanted the girls to feel tough but still cool so we referenced 90’s icons like Aaliyah and Gwen Stefani.

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