[This story contains spoilers from Forbidden Fruits.]
When Victoria Pedretti is on your screen, just know she’s there for a reason.
“This bitch doesn’t want to do anything she has to do,” the 31-year-old actress quips to The Hollywood Reporter, as she’s solely focused on projects that have an impact on people.
Over the last decade, Pedretti has cemented her status as a modern-day “scream queen” with her intense performances in Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting horror anthology series and later the hit Netflix series You, starring opposite Penn Badgley.
Now she’s delivering for audiences again in the comedy horror film Forbidden Fruits, directed by Meredith Alloway. The movie follows Apple (Lili Reinhart), who leads a secret witch cult with coworkers Cherry (Pedretti) and Fig (Alexandra Shipp) at a mall store. But when new hire Pumpkin (Lola Tung) questions their sisterhood, they’re forced to confront inner darkness or meet violent ends.
“I’m really interested in the conversations that it can cultivate,” she says of the pic. “It’s a fun film, but it’s a Trojan horse for a lot of larger conversations about consumerism, about grief, about friendship and abusive community dynamics.”
Below, Pedretti opens up about why she was attracted to starring in Forbidden Fruits, bringing Cherry to life on screen, why her character approaches sex in a “sport-like way,” her dream roles and more.
Going back to where it all started, what made you first want to pursue a career as an actor?
As most of us who work in entertainment in any kind of way, whether it’s in journalism or otherwise, I feel like we really enjoy films and television and theater. I was obsessed with escapism and stories, and I was glued to my television my entire childhood. I loved the magic of stepping into a theater and the lights going down. And just being able to immerse myself in a story really helped with life in so many ways. And I thought it could be really powerful if I could offer people that.
Watching Forbidden Fruits, I felt like it was a dark, twisty and witchy version of Mean Girls. How did you get attached to the project and what was your reaction when you first read the script?
It’s rare that you read a script that is fun in this way, while also simultaneously dealing with a lot of very unfun topics and things that I think are very humanizing and universal and specific. And it just really resonated with me. I got involved with it a long time ago, maybe three or four years before we actually shot the film. And it was amazing to just stay in touch and be on that ride and then see it come to fruition was so, so amazing. It was cool to have that much time to be able to think about the project, but also for it to mature.
Your character Cherry comes off as this ditsy and insecure girl at first, but by the end of it, you realize there’s so much more to her. Talk to me about how you wanted to portray Cherry on screen.
It had me thinking a lot about those kinds of women that we know. There are so many women that are underestimated, so many women that present themselves in ways that people can find distracting or make assumptions about because of it. Whether it’s that people are really nice are not particularly intelligent, you know, that seriousness is associated with intelligence. Also thinking a lot about these iconic sex symbols of women and how often the process of sexualization happens while there is simultaneously this process of dehumanization. And maybe this is me taking my own work too seriously, but I find that really interesting.
I was very fascinated with Marilyn Monroe as a little, little girl because it was cool that she kind of put on the surface what we’re all doing, which is playing characters. The self is a really complex thing that we don’t even get to know fully, so why not play with the way we present ourselves to the world and talk to the world? So much of the tragedy of Marilyn Monroe is that she was made out to be stupid because she was beautiful. She wasn’t allowed to hold the fullness of all of that. And that is so tragic and something that I think a lot of women experience.
Cherry is also really the only character that has intimate scenes in the film. What did your conversations look like with the intimacy coordinator when it came to preparing for those?
It’s interesting because you say intimate, like all the characters have intimate scenes. I found the sex scenes to be incredibly lacking in intimacy, like actual emotional intimacy. Our intimacy coordinator was great. I’m very into that. It is interesting to portray sex scenes that portray sex in a way that feels like it moves the story, that it exposes something about the character. So that was the conversation for me that was really important, [which] was why are we showing Cherry having sex? And it’s because the way she involves herself in sex is one, hugely performative.
She approaches it in almost a sport-like way. It’s not about connection at all. And I haven’t seen that a lot. It’s how she’s trying to get her needs met while simultaneously giving all of her actual intimacy, loyalty and love to Apple, and almost like objectifying these men in a lot of ways, which is quite sad because they’re bringing her gifts. They really like her and she’s just not giving them the actual intimacy and openness that maybe they deserve if they’re choosing to put themselves in this position together. And I’m really proud of how there is nudity in this film, but the nudity doesn’t come with the sex. The nudity comes with just two girls speaking together who are comfortable around each other, enough to be naked while having a conversation that is about a lot of things other than sex.
I feel like the mall is its own character in the film. Given that mall culture has slowly been dying in recent years, do you think this movie can help bring it back?
Oh, I lived at the mall as a kid. It was this place where I could be free and run around with my friends and not even buy anything a lot of the time or just scour the sale rack at Forever 21. I can’t help but love them all. It’s also this huge symbol of institution and capitalism, and in the film, it’s really being used to represent that. The world we live in is kind of a huge fucking mall. So do I think it will revitalize mall culture? I don’t know. … I wonder if it could even give us a reinvention of the mall.
Cherry’s gruesome death was definitely one of the most shocking moments in the movie — what was your reaction when you first read that in the script? And what was it like filming that scene?
I think I squealed when I read it, probably. And then I was like, “How would one do that?” There was a conversation where they were talking about not showing as much of it. So I always kind of imagined it cutting away, but it’s so important you see the gruesomeness of it. It was awesome to do. I love doing stunts. It’s fun to play your own hand being devoured by an escalator. Personally, I thought it was kind of absurd, but since then I’ve heard that people have died [on escalators]. Maybe not in that exact way … honestly, I was told not to Google it and I chose not to (Laughs).
What are you looking forward to most once fans can see the film?
Talking about the movie. I’m really interested in the conversations that it can cultivate. There’s a lot there. It’s a fun film, but it’s a Trojan horse for a lot of larger conversations about consumerism, about grief, about friendship and abusive community dynamics. It’s so hard to even know where to focus in a conversation about the film because I think it touches on so much, [but] I don’t think it beats you over the head. It doesn’t feel like a moral story, so I love that.
Having already taken on the psychological, horror and thriller genres, do you have a dream genre you have yet to do?
I mean, I’m in New Zealand right now, so I’m like, “I want to be in a fantasy film. I want to play a hobbit or an elf.” And I’ve always loved historical fiction. I love a period piece. It’s always just exciting to do what you haven’t done before.
You’ve been praised for your performances in The Haunting of Hill House, You and The Haunting of Bly Manor. With the success you’ve seen in your career, what’s one of the biggest challenges you’ve been able to overcome to get you where you are today?
It’s always reminding yourself that nothing is obligatory and there’s no one way of doing things and just continuing to try to find my own path. I’m not like everybody else. I shouldn’t do things the way everybody else does. I still care about the life that I’m living outside of my work and just continuing to pour more and more into building that for myself … Also, having creative projects that are driven entirely by my own. Well, not entirely, it’s still collaborative, but not in an effort to make a living; more so in an effort to stay creatively alive because once your passion becomes your job, it’s very easy for the passion to kind of dissipate because you’re obligated. Again, obligation. This bitch doesn’t want to do anything she has to do (Laughs), which that’s relatable from what I’ve heard.
I didn’t pursue this [career] because I thought I was going to be in movies that screened in movie theaters. I started doing this because I wanted to make an impact on people, even if that was on a small scale, even if that was doing a play that very few people got to see or a film that very few people saw. So keeping that intention alive is really essential and not easy. It’s a balancing act.
If you had to describe what makes Victoria Pedretti, Victoria Pedretti, what would you say?
Being so far from home, you really realize the power of where you come from, and I’ve been reflecting on that a lot. I’m my parents’ child, for sure. That’s a huge part of who I am and where I come from. I’m from Philadelphia and the surrounding area, and when you’re far away like that, or even in L.A., that becomes evident. Also, whatever the hell I showed up with, some essence that I could not begin to describe in this moment. And whoever I am is always changing also, and making room for that is really important. But I would say that I really don’t like to do what I am obligated to do. That’s for sure a big quality that has already shown up in this conversation, so I’ll acknowledge that (Laughs).
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