DIVA sat down with the star of A24’s new horror to find out more about the power of queer storytelling
BY ELLA GAUCI, IMAGES BY A24
Imagine you’re a teenager in the late 90s, feeling completely overwhelmed by emotions that are brewing inside of you, desperate to come out. You stumble across another outsider at school, called Maddy, who has been ostracised for being a lesbian. Together, you watch a show on TV called The Pink Opaque – a tale of two teenage girls who destroy monsters. But when Maddy goes missing, and you continue to struggle to find your place in the real world, how do you cope?
That is the premise of A24’s new psychological horror drama I Saw The TV Glow, which stars Justice Smith as Owen, and Jack Haven as Maddy. Having already secured its place as a cult queer classic, the new film is gearing up for its digital release later this month (30 September). While you may have seen plenty of coming-of-age queer films, it’s unlikely that you will have seen one quite as unique, engaging, and sometimes bizarre as this wonderful film.
Fans may know Jack as the beloved queer character Casey in the show Atypical. The American actor has been bringing queer characters to life on screen throughout their career, and I Saw The TV Glow is no different. After coming out as non-binary in 2019, Jack has been a fan favourite star within the LGBTQIA community. It feels oddly strange to be speaking so casually with Jack after watching their spine-chilling performance in this exciting new horror. I wanted to know how they connected with the role of Maddy.
“I connected really deeply to Maddy right away because I could feel that there was so much dread and anxiety in her relationship with reality,” Jack explains. “I really loved that the script felt so poetic in ways that it used modern cliche, teen dialogue. I could feel that it was aware of the canned nature of the way that we relate to each other. I understood it on a really subconscious level.”
From Buffy The Vampire Slayer to Bodies Bodies Bodies, the LGBTQIA community has always resonated strongly with the horror genre. Jack jokes that as a child they had been obsessed with the fictional character Emily The Strange, and had even worn an Emily The Strange hat every day throughout their childhood. Although Jack was wary of horror films at first, by their late teens they found themselves seeking that thrill. “I really love horror movies now,” they laugh. “They are a big part of my life. I’m not scared anymore because I want that intense feeling.”
Despite the recent surge in LGBTQIA stories on screens, audiences are often likely to be engaging with depressing, reality-centred plots when it comes to queer and trans storylines. I Saw The TV Glow departs from this narrative, providing audiences with a nuanced, exciting new take on learning to accept who you are. For Jack, it was one of the interesting exciting parts of the project.
“I think in so many modes of storytelling we have forsaken myth in favour of some really realistic depiction of reality,” Jack explains. “The ways that we tell our histories are often less true than what myth provides us with, which is the eternal human soul going through these lessons.”
They continued: “There’s something so condescending in telling a trans story that is just about shooting up hormones and being judged by your peers or whatever. That’s part of it, but being trans and being genderfluid and experiencing the vastness of the human soul is what transness is. The physical is just a tiny piece of it. It’s just about the way that we are to find love for our body and our soul.”
Without spoiling too much of the plot, I Saw The TV Glow takes its queer characters into a whole new realm of storytelling – literally. For Jack, they hope that audiences can take from it a sense of hope, even if the film does end on a note of sadness.
“When I watch the movie, I feel this thrill afterwards and this shamelessness of like ‘I am only alive in this body and so much of this is an illusion’,” they told me. “I just want people to feel really free and alive and cared for after watching it. Even though it is a devastating ending, it is only devastating in the way of ‘You have to go and liberate yourself’. You have to take Owen and save her.”
I SAW THE TV GLOW is available to buy on digital from 30 September.
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