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Zoë Kravitz Set For Dark Comedy ‘Biter’ Based On Short Story By ‘Cat Person’s Kristen Roupenian

Zoë Kravitz (The Batman) has signed on to star in Biter, a new dark comedy based on the short story by Cat Person‘s Kristen Roupenian. Kravitz will also produce via her company This Is Important, with Paperclip Ltd and Winterlight Pictures co-producing.

Part of Roupenian’s debut short story collection You Know You Want This published in 2019, which Winterlight brought to Kravitz and Paperclip, “Biter” tells the story of a young woman who fantasizes about biting one of her co-workers.
Kravitz comes to the project after wrapping production on her directorial debut Pussy Island — a thriller she co-wrote starring Naomi Ackie and Channing Tatum, which was acquired by MGM in a competitive situation. The project also builds momentum for Roupenian, who saw a Susanna Fogel-directed adaptation of her viral New Yorker short story Cat Person premiere to much buzz and discussion at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. A writer and director for Biter have not yet been attached.

“As an IP-driven company, short story-based projects have become a huge part of our slate. There is nobody who has broken out in the world of short stories quite like Kristen Roupenian,” Winterlight Pictures founder Chris Goldberg told Deadline. “We are so proud to be working with such an exceptional talent and voice of her generation. We were also blown away by Zoë Kravitz in Kimi and The Batman, and could not be more excited to collaborate with someone so multi-talented and quickly emerging as one of the world’s biggest movie stars.”

“Our team at Paperclip Ltd is excited to work with incredible talents Zoë and Kristen in front of and behind the camera on this thrilling narrative, and Chris and the team at Winterlight are ideal creative partners,” added company founders Yeardley Smith and Ben Cornwell.

Kravitz most recently starred as Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman) in Matt Reeves‘ Warner Bros blockbuster The Batman, which was nominated for three Oscars and grossed over $770 million worldwide. She also recently led Steven Soderbergh’s surveillance thriller Kimi for New Line/HBO Max as well as Hulu’s series High Fidelity, based on the classic Nick Hornby novel. Named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2022, Kravitz was previously a core cast member of HBO’s Emmy-winning Big Little Lies, based on the novel by Liane Moriarty.

Roupenian’s short story “Cat Person” is a darkly comedic thriller that looks at the brief relationship between 20-year-old college sophomore Margot and the somewhat-older Robert from the perspective of both characters, as a means of commenting on modern dating and power dynamics. Michelle Ashford adapted the script for the film version, which stars CODA‘s Emilia Jones and Succession‘s Nicholas Braun. Roupenian also penned the story for Halina Reijn’s hit A24 pic Bodies Bodies Bodies, has multiple other features in development, and is currently at work on a novel.

Founded in 2014 by Smith and Cornwell, Paperclip’s film portfolio includes the thrillers Possessions and Alone, the GLAAD Media Award-nominated drama Gossamer Folds, Who Are You People and John Hyams’ SXSW Audience Award winner All Square with House of Cards’ Michael Kelly, Pamela Adlon and more.

Winterlight is also producing an adaptation of Nita Prose’s No. 1 New York Times bestseller The Maid which has been set up at Universal, along with many more IP-driven projects for film and TV. The company has notably collaborated with authors on a number of short story-based projects including Duane Swierczynski, whose story “Lush” is set up at Lionsgate, and Christian Cantrell, who has taken a story to MRC. Also among those authors is Goldberg, who has a feature based on one of his short stories in development at Netflix.

Kravitz is repped by CAA, Untitled Entertainment and Edelstein, Laird & Sobel; and Roupenian by CAA, Range Media Partners and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.

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Zoë Kravitz on Scents and Making Sense of Hollywood

Discover the fragrance that reminds the actress and face of YSL Beauty of her famous mom, and how she responds to being asked to take her braids out.
I’m in the trendy area of East London—Shoreditch, to be exact—arguably the perfect place to interview Zoë Kravitz, the connoisseur of cool. I enter a palatial suite in the Nobu Hotel. The room is clean and minimalistic, but still edgy, featuring a floating chair that looks more like a work of art than actual seating. To the left, my eyes fall on Kravitz. With her legs perfectly crossed and one hand laid gently on top of the other, as they both rest on her knee, she peers at me and smiles. It lightens up the room.

She begins to fuss with her bangs. Her glam team immediately interjects. They do a little zhuzhing, but it fixes nothing—they were already perfect. I sit across from Kravitz and she proceeds to give me her full attention, as if there are not five other people in the room. I get slightly nervous by the onlookers, but I can tell she’s used to this. After all, she was literally born into this—arguably having two of the hottest people in Hollywood (Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz) as her parents.

We’re here to celebrate YSL Beauty’s heritage and newest fragrance, Black Opium Le Parfum. Kravitz has been the face of the brand since 2017. Through this partnership, YSL Beauty has conveyed its desire to reach a younger, edgier, more Kravitz-esque audience to the masses. The actress has grown with the company, beginning in her late 20s, now on the brink of her mid-30s, but YSL has grown too. “YSL has been so wonderful in terms of getting to know me and allowing me to me be,” Kravitz says. “It feels effortless because I don’t have to transform into something that I’m not to represent the brand.”

It seems as if YSL Beauty is undergoing a transformation of its own. Historically, the luxury, high-fashion brand wasn’t accessible to the fashionable youth, but through YSL Beauty, it’s reaching a whole new audience. Its suite of products currently speak directly to the Gen-Z and young millennial demographics, who want dewy skin and items that look good and are good for the complexion. “I think it’s going in a really beautiful direction,” Kravitz adds, referencing the Nu Lip & Cheek Balmy Tint with Hyaluronic Acid that I’m wearing, and how it’s not a product I expected from the brand. “They’re branching out—getting, younger and fresher. Even the colors are changing, and it’s exciting.” We proceed to rave over the new shade extensions for its widely coveted Rouge Volupté Shine Lipstick Balm.
The Black Opium Le Parfum is synergistic with Kravitz: a warm and spicy presence that mesmerizes the senses. For those who are familiar, the aroma is a more intense version of the Black Opium Eau de Parfum. I begin to think more about scents and wonder if a particular one reminds her of her mother. “Yeah—nagchampa,” Kravitz reveals of the incense that’s often burned to encourage a sacred space and meditative environment. “She’s always burning it in the house.” Nagchampa is made from a magnolia flower, sandalwood, and halmaddi, a tree resin. Combined, it has a sweet, musky scent.

As I continue to sit with Kravitz in the large hotel room, she seems to relax more and more with each passing minute. We bond over being Black women, and it feels more like a friend catch-up than an interview. She shares the contact information for her hair braider with me (yes, the one that gives her those iconic microbraids), what scents remind her of her famous mother, and, despite all these years in the industry, how she remains authentically herself.

People say “like mother, like daughter.” In what ways are you like your mother? How do the two of you differ?
My mother and I are very similar people. We have a similar sense of humor, and we are both not great at pretending—meaning, if we’re not feeling you, we can’t hide it. I’m a lot more social than my mother. She’s definitely a homebody. She lives away from the city and I love to be in cities and to be around people—that’s where we differ the most.

How do you manage to consistently show up as authentically yourself in an industry known for projecting its own standards?
I have moments where I stray, or I do something that’s not authentically me. And I immediately feel it, and it feels icky. I feel depleted when I’m spending energy trying to be something that I’m not, and trying to fit into a box that I don’t fit into. So it affects every part of me when I don’t feel like I’m being myself. It affects my competence and it affects the way I’m able to communicate and connect with people.

You’ve become known for your braided hairstyles. In recent years, we’ve seen more braids on the red carpet, but you’ve been wearing braids—particularly your microbraids—long before it was trendy. Have you ever felt any pushback or discrimination for your hair in Hollywood?
[Pre-George Floyd], I was constantly just fighting [about my hair] and being asked to change it. I would do a shoot, and this still happens to be honest, where they’ll say, “Can you take your braids out? Because we want to do something else.” And I always reply, “Pretend this is the way it grows out of my head. You don’t ask people that have long blonde hair to change their hair every time they do a shoot.” It’s interesting that I’m often asked to pop them braids out. Do you know how long this takes? And it’s also the way I wear my hair.

What is the longest you have ever sat to get your hair braided?
Twelve to 15 hours, something crazy like that. The key is to have to braiders at a time. But you know what’s funny, I now kind of like it. It’s almost like being sick. Having the excuse to just—I stay home, I watch films, I smoke weed, and I just get my hair done. It’s actually a great excuse to not have to do anything, and it’s great.
There has been a lot of talk about how the entertainment industry mistreats Black women. How has it changed in positive ways, and where would you like to see improvement?
I think there’s more of a consciousness around making sure that Black women, Black people, get to be a part of stories that go beyond stories about being Black, and then also finding ways to bring that truth into a story. For a long time, it was about being—if it was a Black woman, with a white man, it was about that, you know what I mean? It couldn’t just be a love story between two people. I think that’s really exciting. And ways I would like [the industry] to continue to grow—I want more Black directors. I want more Black female directors. In terms of telling our story, I would be excited to work with more Black female directors. So let’s make more room for that.

The Black Opium perfume bottle has been compared to a black vinyl couture dress designed by Yves Saint Laurent. What are some of your favorite looks that have come to life on the red carpet?
Anthony [Vaccarello, creative director of Saint Laurent] is a wonderful collaborator. He’s made me some of my favorite dresses, because we really get to work on things together. I love some of the things he made for the Batman press tour. This one dress for the London premiere that had these cut-outs, which was sexy and beautiful; and then we made that crystal see-through dress for the Met Gala a few years ago, and that was crazy. I love working with Anthony.

When do you feel that your light shines the brightest?
My light shines the brightest when I’m with people who love me and know me for me. When I feel safe to be myself and not really second-guessed. When I’m being creative—you know, in some kind of creative zone, I think that sparks something in me. I love when I’m acting or if I’m directing or if I’m writing and I’m really in that focused place. That’s where I’m turned on.

What sparks your creativity?
It’s the zone where something really captures all of you, gets all of your attention, and everything else kind of melts away, and all that matters is this thing that you’re working on that you care about. Whether it’s a character or directing or whatever it is—I think it’s just something that captures all of your attention and you give everything to that. It’s such a beautiful feeling.
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