Kalyn CorriganThere’s a moment midway through Jimmy Warden’s uproariously funny home invasion thriller Borderline where one of pop icon Sofia’s assailants, Penny, pauses her interrogation of her hostage long enough to ask the starlet to join her in song. Together, the women play the piano and belt out Celine Dion at the top of their lungs, the chaotic ramblings of the night’s earlier squalor temporarily ceasing. As their quarrel enters into a stalemate long enough for “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” to rise and swell into the moonlit air, the power of music momentarily unites two wildly different camps, and for a second, despite the events preceding the scene, it looks like Sofia (Samara Weaving) and Penny (Alba Baptista) might actually have formed a real bond here — yet, just as quickly as it came rushing in, the peace treaty is suddenly revoked, and the pendulum swings back in the direction of violence yet again.
In the film, a dangerously persistent stalker named Paul Duerson (played by Smile 2’s wickedly enthralling Ray Nicholson) breaks into the residence of one of Los Angeles’s hottest fictional 1990s superstars, Sofia. Although he’s made attempts to contact the musician before, including a previous run-in with her bodyguard Bell (Euphoria’s Eric Dane) that nearly claimed the poor man’s life, Paul’s recent jailbreak from his mental health facility fuels the fire burning within his misguided soul, and this time, he’s determined to lock down his obsession for good. In a bonkers twist of events, Paul, along with his accomplices, enters the star’s secluded home in the Hollywood hills with grand delusions of a wedding. With her life on the line and help from her loyal bodyguard, Sofia must escape the stalker’s sinister grip before they tie the knot.
“When I read the script, I was just very aware that Nicholson was so funny, and actually quite charming, in this unhinged way,” Weaving tells me about her first impression of her latest project. “I really wanted to get to a place where my character wasn’t scared in the sense that she was crying, and screaming, and playing into the victim of it, which she definitely could have. I watched The King of Comedy, and Jerry Lewis’s performance, where he almost rolls his eyes at these insane kidnappers — that was really the inspiration. I wanted her to get to a place where she could be the comedic foil for these characters, just so that the audience didn’t lose any empathy for Ray Nicholson.”
Samara Weaving as Sofia (Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing)
After she burst onto the scene with her breakthrough performance in McG’s hilariously gruesome 2017 stunner The Babysitter, Weaving quickly earned the much sought-after moniker of “Scream Queen” in the eyes of many film fans. This title was further etched in stone after Weaving made impactful appearances in other exciting new genre films, like director Joe Lynch’s cheerful takedown of office politics in Mayhem, the jarringly futuristic, Daniel Radcliffe-led Guns Akimbo, E.L. Katz’s post-apocalyptic survival screamer Azrael, and of course, the highly lauded Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s twisted dark-comedy Ready or Not, a smart and subversive crowd-pleaser about a bride being hunted down shortly after reading her vows as part of an ancient family tradition.
“The genre is great because I can do such a medley of things,” reflects Weaving. “I get to just try out the whole scope of human emotions, and not a lot of genres allow characters to do that. That’s what I love about it.” As a former competitive slalom skier, it doesn’t hurt to have her natural coordination, either. “I love doing stunts, and I’m quick at picking up choreography, so that’s really fun,” she says. “And I just have a lot of Epsom salt baths at the end of the day. So I don’t, you know, keel over.”
Borderline marks the directorial debut of filmmaker Warden, who, after years spent working as a producer, recently skyrocketed to stardom after penning the riotous horror-comedy, Cocaine Bear. “He was really great to work with because he knows me so personally,” says Weaving about being directed by her husband. “I don’t know when else that is going to happen. He would give me notes like, ‘Okay, look at him like you look at me when I leave my laundry on the floor and don’t pick it up.” She laughs, “We had such a great shorthand. We didn’t have to pause and discuss things. He could just say one thing, and I knew what to do.”
Jimmy Warden, writer and director of “Borderline” (Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing)
Weaving and Warden met on the set of The Babysitter roughly eleven years ago and immediately hit it off, resulting in a long courtship, and eventually, marriage. “It’s been really wonderful watching him,” says Weaving about seeing her partner take on the title of director. “When we first started dating, he was working for a director, and he was writing first thing in the morning, and on his lunch breaks, when he’d get home from work. Seeing his career just take off, and now he’s directing, it’s just so lovely to see.”
Despite their instant chemistry, Borderline was Weaving’s first time appearing in a movie with her husband at the helm, and she felt a slight trepidation. The actress is well aware of how a business partnership like this can sometimes yield varying results for couples in the entertainment industry. “Going into it, we always thought it would be great, but who knows? We could have really clashed, or not worked well together.” Luckily, their involvement in the production was entirely positive. “It was really lovely knowing that Jimmy and I can work together, and have such fun,” smiles Weaving. “Now we know that it’s so much fun, and we can do it again, and again.”
Borderline proves to be an impressive feat for first-time filmmaker Warden, and the surprisingly touching dynamic between leads Weaving and Nicholson plays a large part in its success. “Ray brought such an in-depth perspective to [Paul] because he didn’t play it like a straight villain,” muses Weaving. “He was really charming, sweet, and really funny. Watching him, I felt torn, because I didn’t want him to kill anyone, but at the same time, I wanted to help him. I think he did such an incredible job.” She continues, “There’s a scene at the end, where it’s just a shot of him in a car, and I think that really sums up his character. It’s so heartbreaking, and I think as an audience member, you forgive him, in a sense.”
Ray Nicholson as Paul (Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing)
Strategically set in the nineties, the movie certainly benefits from taking place in a time when everyone wasn’t so plugged in. “Obviously, there’s not a lot of cell phones, and it’s harder to contact the police,” relays Weaving, “But it also added this other layer. For celebrities in the nineties, there was no social media, so they didn’t have a lot of agency over their press narrative. They were at the mercy of magazines, television and gossip columns. But I think that kind of influenced how strong Sofia’s character was.”
Borderline boasts many nods to the vocalists from the era, using bubblegum music to highlight the wild mistreatment of stars at the time by both the paparazzi and toxic fans. Also, the movie just plays a lot of bangers. “I mean, how good’s that soundtrack?” Weaving grins. “All of those songs were written into the script, and the producers worked really hard to get the rights. They really made the movie, and they added such an incredible layer to it.”
In Britney Spears’s bestselling 2023 book The Woman In Me, she describes a moment during the making of the music video for her song “Me Against the Music” where she found herself in total admiration of her collaborator, Madonna. “During our shoot together, I was in awe of the ways Madonna would not compromise her vision. She kept the focus on her. Going along with Madonna’s ideas and being on her time for days was what it meant to collaborate with her. It was an important lesson for me, one that would take a long time for me to absorb: she demanded power, and so she got power,” wrote Spears.
(Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing)
Similarly, Borderline star Weaving found a source of strength in her portrayal of her character Sofia through the power of her celebrity, and used that strength as a guiding light for her performance: “I thought because of her career, and who she probably has to deal with on a day-to-day basis (being a pop star in the ‘90s), she would be very brave, and sure of herself, and would have dealt with insane people all the time — not to this level, but I wanted her to get to a place where even though she had no power in the scene, she had power over her attitude towards it. And so that lent itself to being more of the comedic foil in the scene, rather than terrified and hopeless. Playing against that, I think, was an idea that I really liked to explore.”
Coming up, Weaving will appear in Ready or Not 2, the sequel which sees filmmaking team Radio Silence (Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett) returning to direct. “Listen, I’ve read the script, and it’s perfect,” Weaving beams. “It’s exactly what I want. I think the audience will be really, really happy. A lot of pressure not to disappoint, but I don’t think we will. I think it’s going to be great.”
The actress is also excited to keep making movies with her husband Warden, although she doesn’t plan to follow in his footsteps as a producer any time soon. “I hate it,” she jokingly admits. “I love living with a director and writer, and I can go to him for advice, and vice versa, but I tried my hand at producing for a few years, and I absolutely hated it. I was like, ‘Why am I doing this? I’m doing this job because I get to play make-believe for a living, and it’s a dream. Why am I ruining it by having to be a grownup about it?’”