Is God Is brings Black girl rage to the big screen in a completely unconventional manner. The film follows twin sisters Racine and Anaia who are young adults with a tragic past. Their father’s unfathomable act of violence led to permanent burn scars on their body and the loss of their mother… or so they thought. Mom is actually alive but she has a mission for her girls: to kill their daddy a.k.a the Monster.
This leads to a road trip full of fire and blood that moves at a feverish pitch. We spoke to writer and director Aleshea Harris about bringing her story from the stage to the big screen, the catharsis of anger and death, and much more.
Editor’s Note: This interview does contain plot spoilers so please proceed with caution!
Nerdist: I absolutely loved Is God Is. It was such a stirring experience. I live in the South, so I didn’t get to see the Is God Is play, but I heard great things. Tell me about how you crafted the original story and some of the sources of inspiration for its themes and characters?
Aleshea Harris: Sure thing. So, it started with the germ of an idea. The idea that I had was, “What would happen if I were to create a story that took its cues from ancient Greek tragedy, but was populated by people who look and speak like myself?” I started to write it, and just organically folded in things like aspects of spaghetti westerns, which has great overlap with Ancient Greek tragedy and revenge. I love a revenge story!
I was just building a playground for things that I’m interested in. Of course, I’m interested in Black women and conversations about misogynoir, gender, revenge, and rage. All of these things I just find a joy to explore.
In terms of the characters, I didn’t have a specific person in mind. There isn’t a one-to-one for any of these characters, but I wrote the twins from the inside. It was my own feelings of vulnerability, rage, and fear, right. It was a way to play them out. And I also think of these characters, especially God or Ruby the Mother, as embodying many women, many survivors of certain things.
I love that. It’s exciting to see this come from being a stage play to the big screen and making this story much more accessible for people all over the United States and possibly globally. What was the journey like to reformat your story from a stage play to the big screen, and were there some elements that you wanted to pull onto the screen, but you weren’t able to?
Harris: So the journey was a good one, but it was a kick in the pants, because I’d only written for the stage, and the rules are different. I really needed to understand the rhythm and the rules of screenwriting, and it helped that I was in a couple of writers’ rooms. Between when I started and when I actually finished writing the script, a lot happened, and I got a great education, like a crash course.
I also had a great deal of encouragement from Janicza Bravo, who’s also a filmmaker and one of the producers on the film, to stay true to my voice and my sensibilities. She is such a skilled storyteller, especially in this space, and so she was very instrumental in helping there.
As far as things that I wanted to keep that I had to let go of. there isn’t a lot… I mean, I feel like there’s a little more story that I would have liked for us to see from [the Monster’s twin boys], but it’s okay. We got a full enough picture, but I had so much more. There’s more in the play about who these young men are, and it would have been cool to have it here, if for no other reason than to give the actors a little more. I love Xavier and Justin so much! But yeah, generally, I understood that the assignment was you take this story and you build it out for this medium. So it’s the same story, but you have to flex inside of the resources that you have here. So it was joyful, ultimately.
For sure. But the crux of the story definitely stayed where it needed to, and that’s with Racine and Anaia to show their very wild journey with many unexpected twists and turns. Their twin bond is so incredibly striking to me. What was your research process like for understanding the psyche of twins, and how did you help the actresses execute it so beautifully?
Harris: There wasn’t extensive research on twins, to be very honest. I did go back and read about the silent Black girl twins, which you may know about them. I’d read about them as a kid, so I was like, “Oh, let me go back and look at their story again.” But other than that, we know in the culture that twins have a sense between them. They can pick up on things… I like to think of the twins as almost like they’re one being, but in two separate bodies. And I just was very imaginative about what their connection could and could not be.
For the actresses, the most important thing was picking the right people. And Kara and Mallori are incredible, exceptional actors. We auditioned them, brought them back, and when they were in a scene with other actors, they would dominate, you know? But when I placed them in a scene together, they matched. So I knew that these were the women we needed to hold down the spine of the story.
It’s a tremendous task, and they did that. So we rehearsed a bit. I wasn’t in person with them, but we would be online doing table work, as we call it in the theater, where we look at the words and the story, and they ask questions. We sort of dream together before we get on the ground.
I brought a movement person in, [choreographer] Raja Feather Kelly, and we talked a lot about twinning in the body and how to have them literally be in lockstep. I wanted them to build a rapport with each other that some of the time was about just being friends, and they loved on each other beautifully.
Really love that. You definitely saw them moving in unison, and even their individual stances said so much about their personas. Racine stands up straighter with her shoulders back while Anaia would kind of curve her shoulders in, and you could tell she was definitely the one that kept more things internalized and guarded.
Harris: Yes that’s true.
I think the twist at the end will really shock people. You feel like they are going to make it together, but the lawyer was right on the money when he said you can seek vengeance, but you don’t know where the blood is going to land. And it lands in such a heartbreaking way. Why did it feel like the right decision to end up leaving Anaya in the world without her sister for this dark yet almost cathartic ending?
Harris: So, it is painful. It’s painful for me. I watched the movie last night, and I just got weepy, because it’s so sad to lose Racine. It felt right because, in some ways, it felt cosmically correct that this twin, Racine, who was on a rampage and has a taste for blood, and who has her father’s eyes and spirit. We get that breadcrumbed throughout the film. I also strongly believe that Anaia could not have gone off and lived the life she needed to live and protect her child with this sister beside her.
Yeah, I imagine that Racine wouldn’t have stopped killing whenever it felt right to her, which wasn’t what Anaia was about. It’s a bloodlust that once you get a taste of it, anything can set you off and set you in that dark direction. Yeah.
Harris: Absolutely, yeah, I think that that’s the direction she was headed, honestly. She had a taste for it.
Poor Racine, may she rest in peace! Outside of your leads Kara and Mallori, you had such a supreme cast including Vivica A. Fox, Janelle Monae, and Sterling K. Brown. What was it like to bring them on board and work with them on set each day?
Harris: It was surreal that these people were so excited about the story I’d written. They are people I’d grown up watching, people who seemed so inaccessible in my everyday life. For them to look at me and tell me how much they loved the story, and to trust me as a first-time director was incredible, invaluable, and is a fuel that I will definitely take with me. So bringing them in was a joy… On set, I felt protected by them, I felt cheered on by them, so I have to say one of my favorite aspects of working on this movie was working with these tremendous actors.
That’s beautiful. Sterling K. Brown gets the most screen time as the Monster and there are so many disturbing layers to his character. I loved the scene with him and Anaia in particular, where they’re having this physical and mental sparring. He’s really tugging at her sensitivities and her deep longing for wanting a father and a normal familial connection. Were there specific elements that Sterling brought to the role that you hadn’t thought about before?
Harris: Well, Sterling is a brilliant actor, so there are nuances in the vocal choice that he made. When we finally heard him speak for the first time, I didn’t tell Sterling how to land on that voice. It was a vocal choice employed that helped to tell the story of this man who was in suburbia now.
In the culture’s consciousness, we usually see Sterling as a very charming, sweet, nice guy. Is God Is was subversive of that, and he was on board with it. He understood the assignment. He knew that we needed to be able to present both the depths and the griminess of this figure, but also this other side, which in its own way is sincere, you know?
He definitely took me by surprise! I don’t think I have ever seen him be the villain in anything! It was a delight to see him take on this role. When people leave the theaters after seeing Is God Is, what are the primary themes and messages that you hope they take away from this story?
Harris: I hope that people sit with a number of questions. In the face of harm, what is a healthy response? Now, I don’t know what that is. I’m not positing anything. And what does it cost someone if they’re seeking revenge? What does it cost the revenge seeker in terms of their relationships, in terms of their own body, their own safety? I’m thinking a lot about Black women’s rage.
Obviously, I think we are entitled to that rage. But what does it do to live in that space? We’re so often pathologized for it, and our feelings are dismissed. I hope that Black women feel affirmed through this movie. Maybe there’s a catharsis, you know? I hope it feels ultimately good. It’s challenging, it’s heavy, but it’s also a lot of fun. So I hope people feel like I had a good time.
I believe it does have that balance between heaviness and fun entertainment. I am also sure that there will be people who look at the premise of this Black story with trauma at its center and wonder why they should watch it because they don’t want to see another movie about Black pain. What would be your response to that?
Harris: Thank you so much for asking that. There’s tremendous nuance in this story. I will stand beside the fact that this is not your downtrodden Black people who are just sad because people treat them poorly for being Black. We know the truth of our story, and there are other stories where that’s an aspect of the story. This story is race-conscious, it’s trauma-conscious, but it is not saying that that is the center of our being and the only obstacle that Black people have to overcome.
This is talking about family dynamics in the same way as a film like Kill Bill. I went and watched Kill Bill, and felt people’s pain. But I also had a good time and just enjoyed the scope of that story and the characterizations. I want people to be able to do that with us. I know we don’t live in a vacuum, but I think that in the face of anti-Blackness, we can still have fun. So it’s a complicated conversation, but I hope that folks understand that this was written with love for my folks, and that I want us to have a good time.
Beautifully stated. One more question for you. At Nerdist, we celebrate all things considered to be nerdy or geeky, like comics and gaming. Outside of filmmaking and theater, what do you nerd out about?
Harris: I love The Sims! As a storyteller, to get to tell the story and have a bird’s eye view and create families, it brings me so much joy. I can’t play it now unless I have loads of time, you know? But when I was a younger person, the first couple of games, especially Sims 2, went so hard. I’d play for hours and hours, all day long.
Is God Is hits theaters on May 15.