“Smile 2” DP Charlie Sarroff on Lighting a Curse-Afflicted Pop Star in the Big City
Life as a pop star isn’t as great as it looks, if the smiles surrounding global sensation Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) are any indicator. Smile 2, director Parker Finn’s sequel to 2022’s surprise hit Smile, demonstrates the horror of having a public psychological breakdown triggered by the triple threat of hidden trauma, the immense pressures of fame, and a deadly curse.
After an addiction-induced meltdown and a car accident that killed her boyfriend, Paul Hudson (Ray Nicholson), Skye is freshly sober and planning a comeback tour. But a visit to an old friend, Lewis Fregoli (Lukas Gage), for off-script painkillers exposes her to the smiling affliction, as a deeply unwell Lewis transforms into a terrifying grinning caricature who kills himself in front of Skye. Skye keeps what she witnessed a secret, but she soon experiences the same hallucinations that come with the affliction, as the evil smile comes over the faces of fans, her backup dancers, and even her assistant (Miles Gutierrez-Riley). Her life falls apart, and whether at rehearsal or in her penthouse apartment, the pop star is desperately alone.
Cinematographer Charlie Sarroff, who also lensed Smile, heightens the film’s fright factor by using the camera to deepen Skye’s sense of isolation. But the show must go on, and even as the star’s visions grow increasingly real and violent, she rehearses and performs, which means Sarroff and his crew lit and shot arena-level pop performances, in addition to a private, horror-fueled meltdown. We spoke with the cinematographer about setting the stage for a credible pop show, playing up the star’s unusual experience of the smiling affliction, and how he created a unique sense of New York City on location and on set.
As you got into planning, were there specific horror tropes you wanted to lean into or avoid?
With Smile, we don’t necessarily want to lean into as much darkness. There are certain horror tropes there — jump scares and all that sort of stuff — but we did want to try and find something unique with Smile to develop its own language. We definitely play a lot with lensing, being on wide lenses, and being very close to Skye Riley. We just feel that it gives the audience a sense of vulnerability and anxiety, being really with the protagonist and not really seeing as much from her point of view and making her feel as alone as possible.
We’re also very aware that she doesn’t lead a normal life.
Obviously, this is set around a pop star, so she’s in an environment that can be quite glossy, heightened, and quite wealthy. We didn’t really want to shy away from that. We wanted to make sure that we had credibility going in and coming out. When she’s on stage, it feels like a real show. Lester Cohen, the production designer, did a really good job in helping craft the spaces that she lives in, which I was able to light to make feel unique like somewhere someone like her would actually live.
How did you approach the closeups and unusual angles used in this film?
That was definitely a language we developed in the first film, but with this one, we wanted to push it and go a bit bigger and bolder. Those interesting angles, being top-down and inverted, it’s really just represent that Skye Riley’s world is flipping upside down and turning on her. Everything that she thinks could be real may or may not be real. And again, it’s just to give the audience a sense of anxiety and confusion, to really get under the skin and create more tension.
How did you light and shoot Skye’s performances?
They kept me up at night. It was very important to us to create an environment that was credible. The Beyonce movie was out at the time. A few of us went to see that at the cinema in prep, and we took notes and looked at things that we liked and didn’t like. We watched a lot of shows, looking at the different designs of the stages. I think a really important thing about being a cinematographer is surrounding yourself with people who are really great at their job. One thing I made sure to do is to talk to a really good lighting designer who does live shows and bring that element in because it’s quite different from lighting a film with film lighting.
Where were you shooting the performance scenes?
We shot it in Albany, New York. We were able to get the arena there for about five days. It was a really crazy experience, seeing the team turn the stage from an ice hockey game or a rock show or whatever it was the night before. It was a lot of stress, but the way that those people work is amazing. Hopefully, we pulled it off.
How was shooting around New York?
The stages were based in Newburgh. We were in Albany for a week, and we shot a lot of different areas around two hours upstate from the city, like the Beacon area. My main camera assistants, operator, and grip had come up from New York City. My gaffer, Joel Minnich, is actually from New Jersey. I would say it’s a mix. There were some people in wardrobe that were from [upstate New York]. In Albany, a lot of the stage crew people who work with the arena were all locals. I like to try to be loyal to a crew that you love and like working with because there’s a shorthand there. I always try and fight to have people, if they’re not too far away, to have them on again.
The story also feels very New York. How did you use the cinematography to convey a sense of the city?
If the film is set in a city, I think it is very important to spend some time there shooting exteriors unless there’s an endless VFX budget and huge VFX extensions. It was really important to Parker, as well. He’s all about doing things in-camera and being authentic. We were able to spend about a week there during main principal photography. For example, the Manhattan Bridge and the bar’s exterior are actually in New York City.
How did you make Skye’s New York life feel specific to her character?
We just wanted to get a lot of scope and really feel the city and make it feel like this menacing place that could be quite lonely. That’s [conveyed through] Skye Riley’s penthouse apartment being up there on its own and having the view out to the city. We actually used LED panels for that. We opted to go shoot plates from the perspective of a building in downtown Manhattan, and then we just played them on these LED screens that PRG provided, and I feel like that helps give you that sense of realism. So all of that penthouse apartment was on stages in Newburgh, but you see the traffic moving and that atmosphere as the pollution gets in the way of lights and gives it the twinkle that you see.
Something that looked really different was Skye’s flashback to the argument scene in the car before they crashed. How did you approach that?
The camera needs to be right in between them. It’s not a big car. It’s an unbroken shot. It creates suspense and certainly makes you very uncomfortable. I really enjoyed that sequence. The vast majority of the film is shot on the Alexa 65. In this case, it was the Sony Rialto. You can remove the sensor and the lens and make it very small and compact. And it’s a brilliant camera as well, suited for much smaller spaces.
We spotted “Sarroff Mints” printed on the tin where Skye hides her painkillers. Was that your Easter egg?
That was a nice little gesture by Martin, our props master, and Lester, the production designer. I’m not getting any royalties! I didn’t really know that was happening until the day and then I was like, cool.
Smile 2 is in theaters now.
For more films and series from Paramount and Paramount+, check out these stories:
Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II” Unsheathes Ferocious New Trailer
Featured image: Director of Photography Charlie Sarroff, left, and Naomi Scott on the set of Paramount Pictures Presents A Temple Hill Production A Parker Finn FIlm “SMILE 2”
