Marmalade Director Keir O’Donnell On The Instant Chemistry Joe Keery and Camila Morrone Had On Set
From Veck in Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Todd Cleary in Wedding Crasher, Keir O’Donnell has played many memorable characters, proving he’s more than talented and skilled within the acting realm. Now, O’Donnell is adding brilliant director and writer to his resume. Marmalade, O’Donnell’s directorial debut, follows the recently incarcerated Baron (Joe Keery), a sweet southern boy who will do anything to help his ailing mama. Baron strikes up a friendship with his new cunning cellmate Otis (Aldis Hodge) who conveniently has a history of successful prison breaks. Before devising a plan to escape the confined walls of their shared prison cell, Baron begins to narrate the colorful story of how he met the alluring love of his life Marmalade (Camila Morrone). He also describes in detail their Bonnie and Clyde-esque scheme to perform a bank heist in the hopes of a better life. Pop Culture Planet’s Danielle Forte sat down with O’Donnell to discuss the on screen chemistry Camila Morrone and Joe Keery brought to the film as well as what inspired him in creating this story.
O’Donnell has a love of films from the late 80’s and 90’s that were stylistic in nature and had heists, especially the Bonnie and Clyde genre where you find yourself rooting for the bad guys. “I would say there’s a thin line between being an homage to something or just stealing from movies that you love,” he laughed. “I did a bit of both.” Two films that were heavy on his thoughts while creating Marmalade were Raising Arizona and True Romance. Both films include people going to extreme lengths for the people they love and now O’Donnell can include his own film Marmalade in that category.
What makes films such as Marmalade so enticing to watch is the conflicted feelings you have throughout viewing the film. In the film, after all of the sneaky twists and discovering Baron isn’t so sweet, you find yourself still rooting for his character. O’Donnell explains that he’s always been fascinated by that very idea. “Like Bonnie and Clyde, you’re weirdly rooting for them as they’re doing pretty terrible things,” he shared with me. He achieved this visceral feeling in his own film by researching other films. He found that it was always the male tempting the woman along, but in another fantastic, juicy twist, Morrone’s character is the one leading Baron on in his story to commit this heist. “I wanted to let the audience get ahead of the film a bit, and then all of a sudden flip it upside down.” While it could’ve been hard to get the audience to retain the sympathetic feelings for Baron throughout the script and on screen, casting Joe Keery was what this film needed to achieve that very feeling.
O’Donnell knew his script and the character of Baron was something a great actor could really sink his teeth into, the challenge was finding the perfect actor that could do so. Then, came along Keery. “I had seen Joe in the early stages of his career and he had such a sweetness and a genuineness in all of his characters that he’s played, and I immediately thought that those were the quintessential things needed for Baron,” O’Donnell said. Keery loved the script and was actually looking for a role like this. After many discussions of how to walk, talk, and overall play this character, Keery transformed himself into the complex character of Baron. Morrone’s character was no easy task either, with O’Donnell citing that her character was so specific and had to lead both Baron and the audience through the film. O’Donnell was thrilled that Morrone offered an “electric, magnetic, dangerous, and wildness to the character” that was exactly what was needed for Marmalade. When it came to the first day on set, the two ended up having instant chemistry.
To see Keery and Morrone’s remarkable performances as well as O’Donnell’s ingenious script come to life, Marmalade is now streaming on Apple TV+ and Prime Video and in select theaters.
