Toxic AVENGER

Emerald Fennell is an actor, author, screenwriter and filmmaker with an enviable CV. Her 2018 short film Careful How You Go premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and she returned there in January 2020 with her debut feature, Promising Young Woman – a blistering, candy-coloured meditation on societal complacency and female rage. It’s a change of pace from her previous role as head writer on Killing Eve, but Fennell achieves that rarest of things: a debut that arrives fully-formed. How did she do it?

Fennell: I think what was really good is that Focus came on board before we started shooting, so they already knew what it was. I’ve been so lucky, there were very few notes. And huge trust from them. And, y’know, it was a very small budget and a very short shoot. We did it in 23 days, which gave us an opportunity to say, ‘let’s take this risk, let’s do something.’ I think the film is surprising, but it’s also not surprising at the same time. I wanted it to be real, and to also make a revenge movie about sexual assault. So you have