When Brandy decided to take on the role of Belinda in the Front roomshe knew she was stepping out of her comfort zone.
The singer-songwriter and actress stars in A24 – which opens in cinemas on Friday, September 6 – alongside Kathryn Hunter and Andrew Burnap. In the horror film, her character is thrown into turmoil when her father-in-law dies and she and her soon-to-be-parent husband take in her mother-in-law, Solange (Hunter).
After she moves in, it’s clear that Belinda and Solange don’t see eye to eye – and things start to take a turn for the worse. When Brandy, 45, was filming, she really got into the character and it took a bit of effort to break away from it after it was over.
“I stayed in character. I’m kind of methodical, so that stayed with me,” Brandy, 45, tells PEOPLE exclusively. character.”
Brandy plays a woman who lives with a racist mother-in-law in Chilling The front room Trailer
Brandy’s last horror film was from 1998 I still know what you did last summer. What attracted her to this role, she says, was the script and the knowledge that it would be a challenge.
“It scared me, so I wanted to do something like Belinda to see if I could pull it off, to see if I could expand my range as an actress, my depth,” says Brandy. “And I wanted to work with [filmmakers] Sam and Max Eggers and Kathryn Hunter and the amazing cast we have.”
To prepare for the role, she hired a coach to explore Belinda’s “complex” emotions. She also wanted to make sure she could “hang out with someone like Kathryn Hunter.”
Brandy in the ‘Front Room’.
courtesy of A24
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“She’s such a phenomenal actress. I wanted to be able to react to her and stay as present as possible,” she says, adding that sometimes it was hard to “collect myself” because she’s “so funny.”
As Brandy waits to see the reaction to the film, she’s honest about feeling “very nervous.”
“It’s a lot of pressure,” she says of taking on the lead role in A24. “I want them to love it. I want them to connect with the characters. I want them to see themselves in the story. Of course, I don’t want anyone to have a mother-in-law like I had.”
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Brandy in ‘The Front Room’.
courtesy of A24
She continues, “But just seeing my struggle, my journey and seeing what I had to overcome and finally be freed. It was a victory for me in the end, I want people to love that and cheer for that.”
The front room written and directed by the duo Max Eggers and Sam Eggers. Brandy also recently starred in a Disney+ movie Descendants: Rise of the Red, which was published in July. She also starred in the holiday film 2023 Best. Christmas. Ever!
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The front room it’s in theaters now.
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Source: HIS Education