Following a world premiere at Cannes, Ethan Coen held the North American premiere for “Honey Don’t!” at Metrograph in Manhattan on Wednesday, August 13. The dark comedy follows Honey, played by Margaret Qualley, who is investigating a local cult. Aubrey Plaza, Charlie Day, and Billy Eichner co-star in the film, co-written with Tricia Cooke.
IndieWire caught up with Plaza on the red carpet, where she detailed getting ready to play Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss, who ran the “world’s largest high-end prostitution ring” and counted actors, politicians, and other leading men among its clients in the ’90s. “I’ve been on this track for a while,” she told IndieWire.
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“I got it in my head that I wanted to play her a couple of years ago and I’ve never played a real-life person before. It’s a different kind of scale, challenge, that I’m really excited about, and I just think she’s an incredible person, incredible character. The story is insane. She’s done something that probably nobody else has ever done, and she’s still going. I think she’s the ultimate badass icon and she deserves the royal treatment. We shall give it to her.”
As for whether Plaza has talked with Fleiss, she said, “I have not spoken with her, [but] I hope so. I hope to make a little trip to her place in the desert at some point. Spiritually I feel her. I’ve heard she’s very excited about it. We’re in early stages.”
Plaza will be reuniting with Coen next month in “Let’s Love!,” an Off-Broadway play he wrote, with performances starting on Thursday, September 25 and opening on Wednesday, October 15. “He actually came into my trailer when we wrapped ‘Honey, Don’t!’ and he was like, ‘I wrote this play. I think I wrote it for you and didn’t realize it. Will you do it?’ And I was like, ‘I’ll literally do anything you tell me to do.’ So here I go.”
As for Qualley, the Golden Globe-nominee tapped into her musical side for the first time, creating alter ego Lace Manhattan around this film. While she has appeared in music videos for the likes of Bleachers and Rainsford, her vocal chops soar in two songs for the film, produced by husband Jack Antonoff and co-written by director Coen. “It was so fun,” she said.
“Me and my friend Talia Ryder got together to make these videos as if we were pop stars and there’s not much to explain other than girls having fun.” As for whether any of Antonoff’s collaborators, which include Lana Del Rey and Sabrina Carpenter, to name a few, gave her any musical advice, she said, “Oh, no. I wasn’t even involved with the music making. I’m just acting the part.”
She will soon be seen in Ridley Scott’s post-apocalyptic thriller “The Dog Stars,” which filmed earlier this year alongside Jacob Elordi and Josh Brolin. “It was cool,” Qualley said of working with the director. “He’s such a well oiled machine. It was a scale of movie making I hadn’t really experienced before.”
“Honey Don’t!” premieres August 22 in theaters from Focus Features. Check out the trailer here.
