Gillian Anderson on how Nicole Kidman led her to take more risks

At Camp Miasma you come for the blood but stay for the sex Thu 6 Aug 2026 at 4:30am There are plenty of beheadings and dismembered limbs in slasher Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, but writer and director Jane Schoenbrun lasers in on a different out-of-body experience. The horror comedy features Hacks star Hannah Einbinder as filmmaker and horror obsessive Kris Williams. Plucked from indie obscurity, Kris is passed the task to resurrect 'zombie' IP of 80s slasher series Camp Miasma — but without all of the pesky transphobia which came courtesy of the franchise's gender-fluid, vent-headed killer Little Death (Jack Haven). But before the studio bigwigs can green-light her 'woke' re-imagining, Kris feels compelled to seek out Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson), the ingénue final girl from the original slasher who disappeared from public life shortly after filming. As the two characters entwine, Schoenbrun uses their devotion to genre as a vehicle for musings on sex, the body and why the two don't always connect. "It's not as scary as one might imagine it might be, with the trailer and the geysers of blood, and it certainly doesn't take itself seriously. Which allows, I think, the audience to relax a bit," Anderson tells ABC Arts. "The multiple strands in the film are so much about the state of human beings and the complexity of teenage years, of love, the fear, and what intimacy means, what sex means, all of it. "It has some very profound ideas behind the lightness and the blood and not least what it has to say about the state of transphobia in cinema." You can always turn it off Opening Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard competition, Miasma was lavished with a nine-minute standing ovation before taking out the festival's Queer Palm award. It was a watershed moment for Schoenbrun who would regularly attend the famed festival prior to their gender transition and as a producer rather than a filmmaker. "I used to be a boy and I used to have a shitty job that I didn't like. I used to come to Cannes with that job, and I was at Cannes when I decided to quit my job," they said at a festival panel. "I was like, 'I'm depressed at Cannes'. That was exactly 10 years ago, and now I'm not depressed at Cannes." Schoenbrun has spent most of the 2020s examining their gender transition through the medium of film, first through cyber coming-of-age story We're All Going To The World's Fair and their breakthrough 2024 psycho-drama I Saw The TV Glow — a phrase which has entered the cultural lexicon as shorthand for a sudden self-awareness of one's own gender dysphoria. Miasma is the first film in which the 39-year-old was inspired by their post-transition life. The seed of the film was conceived at a time when Schoenbrun started to feel content enough in their own body to enjoy sex and appreciate the joy of casting off the dissociation which they used to keep them insulated during intimacy. In the film, Kris stands in as Schoenbrun who arrives at Billy's estate (the former star lives in the camp where the original Miasma was filmed) brimming over with words about how important the series was to her development, but is rendered mute when Billy presses questions about who she is. As the women's relationship turns sexual, Kris's intimacy blockage is sliced open wider than the rebellious teens flayed by Little Death in the movie-within-a-movie scenes Schoenbrun returns to throughout the film. "I would hope that people ask themselves the same questions that I think the film is asking, 'Do you feel like you identify with this idea of dissociating and not feeling quite right in your body, especially in a sexual context?'" Einbinder tells ABC Arts. "I hope that folks will reflect on that and if it's true for them." Flesh and fluids A self-confessed horror obsessive, Schoenbrun had decades of research at their fingertips to painstakingly recreate the look, feel and fandom of classic 80s slasher like Friday the 13th and Sleepaway Camp — which came with its own transphobic implications that have been picked apart in the years since its release. But when it came to Miasma's multiple intrinsic intimate scenes, Schoenbrun had to learn alongside their cast. "Jane at one point had declared to the two of us that they'd never shot a sex scene before, and admitted their nervousness around it, which was really interesting to hear," Anderson says. Working in tandem with intimacy coordinator Aryn Mott (Shōgun, Suits LA) made all the difference, Einbinder says. "[We had] really thorough conversations about absolutely every element of it, because, every single micro movement … [we had to] make sure that we both communicated what we wanted to, but that we were doing it in a way that was respectful and good," she says. "It was very important to both of us that not only that we nailed what we were trying to communicate, which is very specific, but also that it didn't feel predatory and the power dynamics were correct." "I didn't want to be predatory, I didn't want to feel creepy, I didn't want to feel too maternal," Anderson agrees. "It was really trying to walk a very specific line, and I'm glad that I put a lot of time and effort into it, because it feels like it worked and it makes sense." An established sex symbol since her breakthrough performance as Dana Scully in long-running series The X-Files, it was Nicole Kidman's career trajectory which encouraged Anderson to seek out projects which veer from the beaten path. "She always knew before anybody else did who those up-and-coming directors were and reached out to them and created projects," Anderson says. "This film has made me realise that I need to do that more because this is a world that I really love to exist in. I consequently feel very happy for my involvement and grateful that Jane asked me to be a part of the journey." Teenage Sex and Death At Camp Miasma is in cinemas now.