[SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVENT WATCHED ALL OF NETFLIXSCHAMBERS!!!]
To say the series takes some unexpected twists is like saying thatAvengers: Endgamemade a few bucks.
The things that Im dealing with in my own life.
Credit: Ursula Coyote/Netflix
So I wanted to do something that was very as much as a show as a psychological horror.
I was and am constantly searching for my belief system.
And, what I believe in, where a soul is held, what happens after we die?
Ursula Coyote/Netflix
Have I had past lives?
Is this my first time on Earth?
All these, you know, weird kind of 4 a.m. thoughts.
So, I feel like the shows filled with a lot of 4 a.m. thoughts, actually.
But, it came from me wanting to explore something on that metaphysical sort of astral plane.
But also, I am always drawn to stories that have to do with the loss of identity.
And, this seemed like such a perfect marriage between the two.
Hopefully different audiences can pull different things from.
But, the story of a teenage girl is a psychological horror anyway.
Tell me about those choices.Theres something so terrifying about the desert to me.
Its deafeningly loud the silence.
Theres so many secrets, you cant see far.
And, you know, I know people go out to the desert to do drugs.
But I kind of feel like I am on drugs when Im in the desert at night.
you could get lost; you lose your sense of direction.
Everythings so beautiful but you just get the feeling that theres so much hidden.
And theres such a vastness to it, its so powerful.
A whole lot of research around Sedona, where I have this love/hate relationship with Sedona.
I love it but I also feel like everybody there is either a cult leader or a serial killer.
And that felt like such fertile ground for a psychological story.
You bring up the fact that the Sasha character shes half Native American on her mothers side.
And, thats a giant, giant part.
And then you get outside of it, and theres just … its reservation land.
And I dont think most people have seen that on TV.
Probably because people are afraid to look at your own scars, you know?
But because sort of we explore a lot of belief systems and cultures in the show.
Because like you brought up, you havent seen a lead there.
And shes not a Native American teenager shes a teenager who happens to be half Native American.
Shes not defined by her culture.
Sivan didnt really act in anything major before.
How did you cast her?She didnt even have a headshot.
We had two casting directors that worked together, Alexa Fogel and Rene Haynes.
Rene specifically is very ingrained in the Native American community.
And she goes, I have her.
And I was like, Okay, okay.
She goes, I have her.
Sivan came in in sweatpants and a Tupac shirt and she just blew us away.
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon (American Horror Story) directed the first episode.
The show feels a little Dario Argento and even a little Roman Polanski.
What horror films inspired the look ofChambers?Well, all of that for sure.
We looked at a lot of 70s Italian horror.
Some Japanese horror stuff and evenDonnie Darkoin a strange way.
The opposite of unknown is Uma Thurman.
How did you get her for this?
Youve seen the show; you mentioned the ambition of it which I hope we mostly succeed at.
But were going for a lot in it.
I think everybody involved had to be really f***ing down.
Were going to go for it, and hopefully we wont be scraping ourselves up off the street.
But were going to go for it.
I think I ran back in the writers room and laughed out loud.
Alfonso, Alexa and I went to her apartment and we met with her for about five hours.
And that turned into some of other meetings.
I think she was excited to do something really different too.
She was a producer too and had amazing ideas.
Shes so smart, and creatively wild.
You have a great deal of female directors working on this show too.
Was that important for you?It was.
Im an aspiring, young, female director as well.
So its sort of help your peers.
Give them a leg up.
And Netflix was amazing through it and with it.
But I think the show has a feminine energy to it.
Even in the horror, and just the sultriness of it.
And the sleepiness of it sometimes.
So we wanted some women behind that too.
And even the male directors that we did have, like Alfonso, are quite sensitive.
In our visual books, we actually had some stills from his movieHouse of the Devil.
So he knows that vibe.
We just had an amazing, amazing call with him.
He came, kicked ass in episode three.
So we brought him back for the crazy ride that is episode eight.
They are the actual weight.
Some of them cost like $1,500.
So, heres the strange thing: I was carrying them on set and theyre actually kind of comforting.
Im also a 33-year-old that still sleeps with a teddy bear.
The teddy bear thats in the show.
Thats my teddy bear.
So Im clearly putting unhealthy projections onto inanimate objects.
But its absolutely a real thing.
Your mind will be blown.
Penelope (Lilli Kay) was one of my favorite characters but I still dont fully get her.
Was she buying a wig in the flashback to Sashas heart attack?Yes.
After she gives Sasha mouth to mouth, she smirks.
And what can you say about her?
Are her motives nefarious?You know what?
Id almost say Penelope is less nefarious than you think she is.
I think she has some difficulty with social cues.
She actually, in season 2, becomes a bit of an ally.
And shes seen other things that have happened and gone on in the house since shes been really young.
I mean hes a worker bee of The Annex and they recruited him in jail.
You see him digging an open, shallow grave.
Youd probably find out who was put in there at the beginning of a season 2.
You know, join in the group to turn them over.
Nancy tells Elliott that Ben is dead.
Is that really true?Come back for season 2.
How did you come up with this twist?In the first season, Becky is very misunderstood.
And, Lilith is a character that has been, I think, extremely misunderstood.
And, theres lots of different takes on her in lots of different cultures.
And shes a woman that carries thousands and thousands of years of suppressed rage.
Shes also an icon.
She kind of borders between a demon and an icon, depending on who you talk to.
And, this is a show, above all, about misunderstood and powerful women.
Some crazy s*** will go down if we get a season two.
She might not have killed them.
They might have gone to a different place at the moment.
