Interview and article by Nik Mohan

In ‘The Face of Horror,’ romance and terror are never quite as far apart as they seem. Anna Biller’s lavish gothic world gives Kristine Frøseth and Jonah Hauer-King the space to play with desire, repression and the uneasy power dynamics at the heart of the film, resulting in two performances that become increasingly complicated as the story darkens. Speaking with Top Film during TIFF, Frøseth and Hauer-King reflected on building that relationship together, stepping into Biller’s meticulously crafted world, and finding the emotional truth beneath a film filled with heightened beauty, dread and twisted humour.

For Kristine Frøseth, the film offers a character whose transformation is as emotional as it is physical. She plays Eleanor, a young woman initially consumed by her love for Edward, only to find that devotion warped by betrayal, violence and abandonment. Biller’s film ultimately turns Eleanor from the picture of romantic longing into something far more ferocious.

“Rehearsals were so specific with Anna [Biller] and I,” Frøseth said. “I was working from Zoom every week and we’d go through every single. And I’d read it out loud to her, and she like no, no, just try it like this and do it like that. And I’ve never really worked like that before.”

It’s rich territory for Frøseth, whose recent work has moved between period drama and darker, more psychologically charged material, from ‘The Buccaneers’ to ‘Her Private Hell.’

“I don’t see myself as a very feminine person,” Frøseth said regarding the costumes she dons in the film, comparing to her everyday personality. “I wear baggy clothes, and wearing the dress [from the film] felt a little bit more like I was performing.”

For Hauer-King, familiar to audiences from ‘The Little Mermaid,’ ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’ and ‘World on Fire,’ Edward presents a considerably darker proposition. The interesting challenge is not simply playing him as a villain, but finding the human impulses beneath a character capable of extraordinary selfishness and cruelty. Within Biller’s heightened Gothic world, Edward needs to remain recognisable enough for the betrayal at the centre of the story to sting: “When we got to set, in became abundantly clear that Anna [Biller] had a good vision — a visual language in way she wanted to tell the story. I loved it because you sort of knew where you stood. She really had an idea in her head of where these characters were, she allowed us to be collaborative. She showed us a lot of films and pointed us to late 40s, 50s, early 60s, films — which was really helpful to all of us.

Hauer-King also touched on the costumes that helped define the immersive world on-set: “The costumes did a lot of the heavy lifting. I was like okay this is different and unusual to anything I’ve done. It’s so easy to fall into a cycle and comfort zone that feels more natural and easy to you, and I think that’s way we all went after it. I’m proud we did that.”

“Sometimes I would get a little nervous about being in these extreme emotions,” Frøseth commented on Biller’s directing style. “I had never acted in this way before, and it was just like okay, can I trust you to try this out?”

In the case of the Edward, Hauer-King said he did “understand his insecurities” in order to not dehumanize his character into a mustache-twirling villain. “He has a lot of shame. He’s a second son, he didn’t inherit anything, and he has a lot of anger around that. He had all of this aspirational ambition to be the person he wanted to be, and it was quite difficult for him to be that. He felt like he deserved more. He’s a product of his own time.”

‘The Face Of Horror’ is indeed shot on 35mm film, and for the actors, it made a difference in the way they approached the production. Hauer-King complemented Director of Photography David Mullen as the genius behind the film’s older aesthetic look. “He’s kind of an academic in his own right,” Hauer-King continued. “That’s really fun to be around. You could ask him a simple question and he could talk for hours about the history of cinema and why you’re shooting something the way you are… Every shot was lit very specifically.”

“For me, I learned a lot about technicality,” Frøseth chimed in. “Everything was so intentional, and you have to keep your focus in a different way. Sometimes it would change the way we structured the shots, sometimes we’d shoot the scenes depending on how it’s set up because we didn’t have time to do cross coverage.”

An actor’s dream is when they’ve come away from a project as an improved version of themselves. Growing and learning is a critical part of the game, and it was something both Frøseth and Hauer-King reminisced on.

Frøseth: “I learned how to love myself differently and to challenge the narrative I create for myself as much a possible. I learned I can go broad, that I can trust that it’s okay to make a mistake.”

Hauer-King: “Taking big swings — to take risks in character choices, get out of your comfort zone, go after characters who are very different to you.”

Before concluding, pair took the time to reflect on their collaboration for the film, and how they brought out the best in each other’s performances. “Kristine has some really difficult moments [as the character],” Hauer-King said, “it’s such a journey the character goes on from different emotions to going to the places that I’m always encouraging us to go to.” Frøseth concluded: “You just had to commit — we’re gonna go there.”

By the time ‘The Face of Horror’ reaches its conclusion, the relationship between Eleanor and Edward has been transformed beyond recognition. What begins in longing ends in resentment, fear and retribution, with Frøseth and Hauer-King giving that descent the emotional weight it needs to land. Their performances help keep Biller’s heightened gothic world grounded in something recognizably human.