Melissa Barrera's new horror comedy Your Monster is a lotta things. It's part musical, for starters, but it's also a romance flick – as much about falling in love with yourself as it is… the hairy half-beast living in your closet. In the multi-tasking hands of writer-director Caroline Lindy, the Abigail star wasn't fazed by the mix of genres; after all, she'd toe-tapped and doused herself in fake blood on screen before. She was frightened, though, by the thought of flexing her funny bones.
"I was like, 'This is perfect', but I hadn't done comedy in a while. I hadn't done comedy, really, since I left Mexico, so I hadn't used those muscles. I was scared because, like, maybe I wasn't funny? I didn't know," she laughs in an interview with GamesRadar+. "And I was a little skeptical of why Caroline thought that I could do this, because I'd never done anything like it. So, yeah, I was terrified, but I always feel like when something scares me, I should do it."
Shining a light on the under-the-radar theatrical releases that you need to know about, with a new article every Friday
In Lindy's semi-biographical feature-length debut, Barrera plays mild-mannered Laura Franco, an aspiring Broadway actor whose life gets derailed when she's diagnosed with cancer and unceremoniously dumped by her longterm boyfriend Jacob (a deliciously despicable Edmund Jacobson). After a stint in the hospital, Laura moves back into her childhood home and with her mother out of town, she slips into a routine of moping around, gobbling pastries, and venting to her local delivery guy by means of impulsive Amazon Prime orders.
Rewatching Fred Astaire movies and rehearsing for her upcoming lead role are Laura's only real comforts, though the latter proves short-lived when she learns that Jacob, the director of the show, is auditioning out the part he once promised her. "[Caroline and songwriters The Lazours] had seen me in In the Heights, and I think they did a little bit of research on my singing, and so they wrote it according to my range. Though, I mean, they believed in me a lot in writing that song the way that they did," Barrera says of the musical within the musical.
It's then that Laura realizes she's not the sole occupant of the townhouse. At first, Monster (Tommy Dewey) is irritated by the fact that his once peaceful abode has been co-opted by a whimpering, knitwear-wearing sad sack, and gives Laura one week to find a new place or she's "out on the street". But in true enemies-to-lovers fashion, the pair start having a positive effect on one another; Laura mellowing Monster out and softening his more brutish tendencies, as he convinces her to push for a role in the show, opens her eyes to how badly Jacob treated her, and encourages her to stop shying away from her rage.
"It's the ideal kind of love. When someone loves you for your flaws and for your snot and for the, you know, saliva dripping like you just woke up and you're messy? When someone loves you like that, it's the safest kind of love," smiles Barrera. "I feel like that's what Monster is there to teach Laura. He lives in her closet, obviously he's obsessed with her, but he loves her in every iteration of herself and for everything that she is and does, and even in her darkest, most shameful shades, he still is there for her.
"I think that that's why the relationship between Laura and Monster is so beautiful, and that's why people have been loving [the movie, which is already out in the US] so much," she goes on. "Everybody wants a Monster. Everybody wants someone who will love you unconditionally, but also make you a better version of yourself. A stronger and more empowered version of yourself."
Barrera had never met her "so talented and so funny" co-star Dewey before Your Monster, and the first time she ever saw him acting was when she watched Lindy's short film version. "I rarely saw him out of the prosthetics. During the entire shoot, I would show up to set, and he would already be in the chair halfway done," she remembers.
"I rarely saw his face until we wrapped; we had a few lunches with Caroline; we'd workshop some scenes over Chinese takeout – and that was it. It was a blessing to actually fall in love with him as Monster. Now I love him as Tommy, but sometimes when I look at him, I will shut my eyes and be like, 'I'll just listen to your voice, because I miss Monster'. I really do. With indie films, you don't have the luxury of time. But we just clicked. Luckily, too, because they didn't audition me and he was already attached to the project. It could have been disastrous!"
Given his unusual appearance, the majority of the time Laura and Monster spend together is behind closed doors. The only time they venture out as a couple is for a Halloween party thrown for the cast and crew of Jacob's show, under the pretence that Monster is actually just a regular guy in a costume. With that, it's not hard to come to the conclusion that Monster isn't actually real, but a manifestation of Laura's darkest – at least, some might say – emotions. It's left ambiguous but either way, it's a clever twist on a tale that's rather predictable (as any good rom-com is) on the surface, and gives the film an unexpected depth.
As fabulous as Dewey is, the film is undeniably a Melissa Barrera showcase, combining the actor's known talents while giving her the platform to deliver her most vulnerable performance to date – and cementing the fact that she's so much more than a scream queen.
"It kept being rewritten; she never stopped writing, tweaking little things, which is the beauty of having a writer-director in a movie, because they can just keep playing right up until the day," says Barrera. "It was a very collaborative process. Not to take any credit away from Caroline at all, because she is a genius for this. But she was very generous and very open during the entire thing, so we talked about everything."
While they're both musical theater nuts (Barrera even studied it at school), the similarities end there – particularly when it comes to their aesthetics. "Laura is probably the character that is most unlike me, so we had a lot of conversations about her clothes and about her hair. I really wanted a big change. I felt like I needed to look at myself in the mirror and not recognize myself," Barrera recalls.
"That's why I got the short hair and the bangs, because I was like, 'That's so not me'. I stole [the glasses] from Caroline. I was like, 'Can Laura wear glasses? Because I feel like it'll help me a lot to channel you.' I didn't actually tell her that I wanted to channel her, I was sneaky, but I wanted to steal a lot of her little mannerisms. All of Laura's wardrobe is incredible, I actually kept it all, I have it in my house, but it's all clothes I would never wear. It was so unlike my style and all of that really helped me feel who Laura is. As soon as I looked in the mirror wearing those orange overalls with the little hearts, and with the glasses and everything, I was like, 'Okay.'" Funny bones, activated.
Your Monster is in UK cinemas now. Ensure you don't miss the year's best films with the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series, as well as our guide to the most exciting upcoming movies heading our way.
