Max Minghella on Reuniting With Elisabeth Moss for his Horror/Comedy “Shell”
One expects Max Minghella to cite the influence of his father, the late director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley), on his acting and directing career. But it’s Minghella’s mother, Carolyn Choa, who gets the shout-out for her impact on his new film, the body horror comedy Shell, starring Elisabeth Moss and Kate Hudson.
“My mother worked for the British Board of Film Classification from 1984 to 1994, which [like the Motion Picture Association] decided whether a film was PG or R. She’d come home and tell me a bedtime story based on what she read that day. This was when the mid-budget studio movie was most prominent in the marketplace, and it had a tremendous influence on my subconscious and on me as a filmmaker,” says Minghella over Zoom while at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Shell had its world premiere just two weeks after Minghella wrapped the film.
Minghella calls Shell “the kind of high-class popcorn entertainment that doesn’t get made anymore. We have these big-budget, tentpole kinds of movies or smaller films designed for prestige and to win awards, and not much in the middle.”
Despite the sci-fi/horror plot about Samantha Lake (Moss), an actress who tries to stay young by undergoing mysterious medical treatments at a wellness center run by high-powered CEO Zoe Shannon (Hudson), Minghella was drawn to the campy aspects of the script, which he read while in post-production on his first film, Teen Spirit (2018).
“I always saw the movie as a comedy, first and foremost, and a love letter to a period of film history I actually love. It’s a borderline parody of those movies,” he says. “Teen Spirit was a very personal movie; melancholic and introverted and European, all the things that I am. Coming out of that experience, I yearned for something extroverted and American. I love all kinds of movies; it’s my blessing and my curse, I suppose, to be so broad-based, so I was excited about these characters and a movie that existed in this space.”
One can spot traces of those movies all over Shell, from Paul Verhoeven and Brian De Palma, certainly, but even further back, to Alien, The Exorcist, and even Psycho. But along with the visual flair and jump scares, there’s a substantive story about body image and self-worth and the lengths many will go to achieve eternal youth, beauty, and relevance.
“I am turning forty next year. All of us contemplate mortality, vanity, and age,” says Minghella. “It is a totally universal theme. Yet, I am completely allergic to messages in films. I loathe films that are didactic or moralistic. I want to explore ideas without making judgments, and I hope Shell is filled with rich ideas without saying much too loudly.”
As an actor with a long list of credits but best known for The Handmaid’s Tale, it’s perhaps not surprising that Minghella’s cast, especially Moss and Hudson, deliver such memorable performances. Minghella says he wanted both stars from the start.
“I am a nightmare with casting. If my producers were here, they’d tell you that I am very particular. I don’t audition or meet actors. I try to conjure in my head the person I think is right for each role.” On set, he says, his directing style is to give each actor “space to explore, have fun, and feel safe to fail. I think that’s my job. I have been lucky on two movies that I got the actors I wanted. A lot can go wrong when you’re making a movie, but I feel so lucky to at least have the people I wanted saying these words, and they are so gifted they give you more than you can possibly imagine.”
Even though Minghella has worked with Moss for years on The Handmaid’s Tale, he admits he was hesitant to approach her about starring in Shell.
“My biggest fear was that she’d say yes just out of some obligation to do it. Then she started to introduce the notion of working together, and by the fifth time, I said, ‘I do have a script you’d be perfect for.’ I’m so happy she nagged me because now I can’t imagine anyone else as Samantha; I’m amazed by how funny she is. It’s quite a complex comedic performance in its physicality and I had not seen her do that before.”
Rapport and professionalism helped with a tight, low-budget shoot. “It often felt we were trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole with limited financial resources and time. It always comes down to the cast and crew in the end,” says Minghella, citing Shell DP Drew Daniels as “one of the most extraordinary technicians you’ll come across. He works quickly and without pretension.”
“Lizzie Moss can deliver a perfectly calibrated performance in one take, so it allows you to move faster. I’d rather have more time to explore, but you simply can’t.” He had just three hours to shoot the film’s climactic car chase, for instance, with two hours needed to set up the crash. “Everything needed to be perfect, from the focus puller to the stunt crew. It is a miracle we have a movie, and I am so grateful to so many people for it.”
Featured image: TORONTO, ONTARIO – SEPTEMBER 09: Max Minghella of ‘Shell’ poses in the Getty Images Portrait Studio Presented by IMDb and IMDbPro during the Toronto International Film Festival at InterContinental Toronto Centre on September 09, 2024 in Toronto, Ontario. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for IMDb)
