Director Kelley Kali Reveals the Erotic Secrets of Jagged Mind

Director Kelley Kali doesn’t just tear down barriers. She torches them.

The filmmaker, known for her movies The Adventures of Thomasina Sawyer and I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking), now wades into uncharted territory. Her latest outing, the Hulu film Jagged Mind, revives the erotic thriller genre, albeit with a twist: this story is about a lesbian couple.

“When I read the script, the one thing I really loved, that I’d not seen much of — this is an LGBTQ story,” explained Kali through a bright smile. “But it’s not a coming out story. It wasn’t all this drama. It was two women just trying to date like everybody else. We’re just dropped in that world. They’re just trying to find love like everyone else on this planet.”

Jagged Mind follows the relationship between Billy (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) and Alex (Shannon Woodward). The pair meet at an art exhibition, coincidentally as Billy is trying to get over an ex-girlfriend. The two feel an immediate attraction to one another and start to date. Over time, Billy becomes more and more dependent on Alex as she’s haunted by violent dreams and a sense of déjà vu. Billy’s attempts to confront her dreams lead her into a dark world of sex, violence, and a dangerous mystery that leads her to question Alex’s motives and her own sanity.

Sensuality, Abuse, and Jagged Minds

“It’s a crazy relationship. I think we’ve all had one of those,” said Kali. Without spoiling key elements of the plot, she then explains her approach to the story. “For me, as a director, nobody is a villain, even the villain of the movie. My favorite character is Alex. I think she is so complex in that she’s not bad. She’s doing questionable things because she just wants love. We’ve all done a little too much to please the one we love, losing ourselves in the process.” She continued:

At its heart, Jagged Mind is a story of domestic abuse — something almost non-existent in queer stories. For Kali, that offered a great opportunity to do something new with the genre. “[The domestic violence element] was tremendously important to [writer Allyson Morgan],” said Kali. “First of all, we don’t get to see a lot of queer content. And when you do, you don’t see the human side, the messy side of personalities. It’s important to see domestic violence on screen. There are so many people that have had these types of relationships. Everyone makes mistakes. I do my best to make sure [Billy & Alex] come across as human.”

Related:Best Hulu Original Movies of 2022, Ranked

Setting the proper tone — one of sensuality and eroticism — posed the greatest challenge to Kali. While researching the film, she learned she’d wandered into perilous territory when she ended up in an unexpected place. “I kept ending up at porn sites,” laughed Kali. She explained:

“There’s a fetish now for watching sexy scenes from movies. Back in the ’80s or ’90s, when you were an actor doing a sex scene, it was just going to be on that tape. It wasn’t going to the internet. One thing I’m conscious of as a director — especially as a woman director — unless the script really calls for it, if we can get that intimacy without putting the actors at risk of ending up on a porn site. Does the story call for it? Can we execute it in a way that will not expose our actors?”

Getting Safely Dangerous with Intimacy Coordinators

To address both her own concerns and those of her actors, Kali invited an intimacy coordinator to the set. “Our intimacy coordinator worked directly with me and the actors to do our best to comfortably execute sensuality,” said the director. “Back when Basic Instinct was made, they didn’t have an intimacy coordinator. It was just like, ‘Get naked, let’s go.’ Now we care about an actor’s feelings.”

Related: Best Hulu TV Shows You Can Binge in One Weekend

Intimacy coordinators, one of Hollywood’s most recent innovations, work with actors and directors to choreograph sex scenes in such a way that both actors feel safe. To Kali, that helped her achieve an even higher level of verisimilitude.

“I think it’s really that practice with the coordinator that gets the actors into a place where they can relax,” Kali asserts. “Then the truth comes through in their intimacy. I’m very protective as a director. I sit and discuss it with my actors. There’s a lot of thought in those scenes.”

“So we didn’t have to show bodies like in Basic Instinct,” Kali concludes. “But we still make you feel it.”

Jagged Mind debuts on Hulu on June 14.