Alex Scharfman on casting Jenna Ortega in ‘Demise of a Unicorn’
Alex Scharfman’s characteristic directorial debut, Demise of a Unicorn, is an A24 movie starring Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega.
Nonetheless, Scharfman’s journey thus far was not a simple one. With over 15 years of expertise as a producer and screenwriter, he refined his craft and caught the eye of Paul Rudd.
Rudd took discover of Scharfman’s script, The Cats of Baxley, which led to the event of Demise of a Unicorn. The movie tells the story of a father-daughter duo who by accident collide with a child unicorn, resulting in a pharmaceutical household’s pursuit of the creature’s medicinal advantages.
Scharfman forged Ortega proper earlier than her breakout function within the Netflix collection Wednesday. “We sent [Death of a Unicorn] to her the weekend before Wednesday premiered [in November 2022],” Scharfman recalled.
“So I don’t know what we would’ve done if we didn’t get Jenna. It’s such a hard role, and she does such an incredible job with it.”
His expertise working with producer Lars Knudsen and watching Robert Eggers develop his movies influenced his strategy to Demise of a Unicorn.
“It’s not like I was his research associate or anything, but just passively being around his research and reading his scripts and seeing where his brain was going with his next project, it’s a pretty incredible thing how researched-based he is,” Scharfman stated.
This expertise impressed Scharfman to create an in depth unicorn lore for Demise of a Unicorn. “I knew that I wanted [Death of a Unicorn] to be a modern monster movie adaptation of unicorn lore from antiquity.”
Demise of Unicorn is in theaters now.
