Karyn Kusama reveals how she knew Michelle Rodriguez would become a star

Not every filmmaker manages to get their debut film included in the Criterion Collection. But not every filmmaker has the necessary clout with their debut film Girl fight does.

Decades after its release, Karyn Kusama’s debut film Girl fightis still relevant – it is no surprise that it launched her career as a director of subversive horror dramas (Jennifer’s body, The invitation) and unforgettable television (Yellow Jackets, Stop and catch fire, The Man in the High Castle), along with the introduction of Michelle Rodriguez as the star. Girl fight comes to Criterion Collection on May 28featuring a brand new 4K digital restoration supervised by Kusama, new interviews and commentary from the director, and a sleek new cover art by Jillian Adel.

Girl fightthe story of a troubled high school student who secretly takes up boxing to release her frustrations and who struggles with high school emotions in and out of the boxing ring. At the same time, the film subverts the cliches of boxing movies. Rodriguez plays Diana Guzman, a teenager who frequently gets in trouble for fighting at school and is estranged from her father (Paul Calderón) at home. As she secretly tries to release some of that tension, she shows a real talent for the sweet science. At the gym, she meets a boy (named Adrian, which makes Diana Rocky in this equation) and a new father figure in her trainer (Jaime Tirelli).

Manufacturing Girl fight was a long process for Kusama, who wrote the film after taking up boxing herself in 1992. Production companies begged her to cast a white woman in the lead role, but she stood firm, insisting on a Latina in the lead role and finding Rodriguez through an extensive audition process that focused mostly on non-professional actors. After financiers backed out two days before pre-production in 1999, legendary filmmaker (and Kusama’s former mentor) John Sayles and his creative partner and producer Maggie Renzi stepped in and helped finance the film.

Ahead of the film’s release at Criterion, Polygon spoke with Kusama on a video call. We talked about revisiting her first film for restoration, when she knew she had a star in Rodriguez, and whether Girl fight could now be done in the same way.

Polygon: Congratulations to Girl fight will be included in the Criterion Collection. When did you hear about it and what was your reaction?

Karyn Kusama: It must have been last year, Criterion contacted me and said: “We would really like to remaster Girl fight and release an edition of the film.” I was overwhelmed and so excited. I’m a Criterion nerd, as you can imagine, so it was literally a dream come true. To me, it just felt like the ultimate seal of approval.

Does it mean more to you because it was this one?

I think what I appreciate is that it’s my first film. And as someone who now has 20-plus years of time and experience to look back on the film, there are so many things I could do differently – I could improve it, I could cut it, change it, refine it. And the idea that it can work for anyone, although I would love to go back in and completely reshape it, is gratifying.

Watching it now, I was impressed by the balance between the boxing elements, the family drama, the character study, Michelle Rodriguez’s great performance and the high school romance. Looking back, how do you feel about the balance of all these elements?

I never felt like I wanted to make a purely boxing-focused film. In some ways, the true story is about this character entering a new world and finding her place in it, and opening up to a kind of vulnerability that she can’t show at home. It’s so much about this tension between the closed emotional world of her family life and the more expansive emotional world of – paradoxically – a boxing ring. So that was something I knew I wanted to do. But I don’t know at the time if I really weighed all of that up.

To put it bluntly, I wanted to tell the story of a young woman who wasn’t quite comfortable with traditional expressions of femininity. So it was all about finding a path to self-acceptance, to a kind of openness, to the kind of weirdo she would ultimately be.

If you watch the film now, what would you like to change?

I think I would probably lift some scenes and tighten up some scenes. I think I would know a little bit better how to achieve the same emotional impact with fewer cuts or fewer takes. I would just get to the heart of the matter quicker. But I think some of what I’m dealing with in the film is also inherent, you know, which is a lot of amateur actors, a lot of young, raw performances. And in some ways, I hope that’s part of the charm of the film.

And it helps that the three central members of her family are so strong.

Oh, good. Yes, I think so too. Of course Paul Calderón [who played Marie’s father] was a wonderful and well-known actor at the time, and he was still an anchor for the rest of the cast. But you know, it’s funny, I always find with movies, it’s a process for me of making the thing, hoping that I’ve done the truest thing I could do, and then moving on and not looking back. And what’s really strange about doing the Criterion edition is – the process of looking back is both wonderful and painful. I watched the film a lot. So I had a lot of time to think, Oh, I could have done that. I should have done that. A lot of would have, could have, should have.

Image: Screen Gems/Everett Collection

Do you think anything has changed in the industry in the last two decades? Girl fight now, easier or more difficult?

That’s something I have to think about. Because, of course, in some ways, we all want the answer to be, “Everything is better now.” I think the harsh reality is that we’re still almost even more entrenched in a star-driven system. So I think it would be even more difficult now to make a film with a completely new face at the center of the film.

And luckily for me, when I Girl fightMichelle ended up having a really electrifying, charismatic star power that allowed her to continue making films. But now I find it’s still very, very hard. As for the questions about representation? I think the conversations are more consciously about what is acceptable. But I think ultimately there’s still a lot of resistance to a complicated or complex representation of the world we actually live in.

What did you learn from working with Michelle Rodriguez on the film about what makes a movie star and how to present that?

Oh, that’s a very good question. I mean, first of all, she has a weird ease as an actress. The first time I auditioned and worked with her, I had to kind of remind her to stay in character and stick to the script and all the basics of being an actor. What she didn’t have was shame. She had a quality that was just like: I am here. The world can begin now. And that quality of guileless confidence is really important. It demanded attention.

And I’ve learned that that simple kind of intensity is actually not common everywhere. It’s not like every actor I work with has the same intensity, although I’ve certainly worked with actors who have had more training, more experience, more discipline. Michelle has a kind of indescribable charisma.

Was there a particular moment with her when you thought: Oh, she is differentor is that just something you learned during filming?

It’s really funny because I have such a vivid memory of all those first auditions and there being hundreds of people in front of us doing interviews and short auditions. And we recorded them all. And because I’m kind of obsessed with thoroughness, I decided to just go through all the tapes.

And the moment I watched her video, even though she was untrained, totally inexperienced, totally unprepared, every negative thing you can imagine, she held the screen with such totality that I felt Huh, that’s interesting. I have to keep looking at her, I have to keep engaging with that presence. And so we kept bringing her back. But that initial feeling for her was definitely something that I look at now and realize: Oh, that was her. That was her star potential.

Would you have predicted that she would one day play the leading role in major franchises like “Fast and the Furious”?

I couldn’t do it then, but she realized it herself much earlier than I could have. Because she always knew what she liked. As soon as she read The Fast and the Furiousshe said: I know I have to do this and I know it will be a global franchise. She understood this part of the conversation much better than I did.

Have you had any opportunities to work with her on projects of this magnitude? Would that be of interest to you?

You mean like the huge franchises?

Yes. Doesn’t seem quite to your taste, but you never know.

No, that’s not really my thing. And a lot of it just has to do with the idea that you have to do something that’s part of a very big picture with a lot of history and a lot of relationships that people already bring to the characters and to the worlds. For that reason, I’m not sure I’d be the best candidate for that kind of work, but you never say never, I guess.

You’re in a really interesting field that allows you to work in both TV and cinema. What are you focusing on next and what direction are you going in?

I need to get back to making personal films. That’s really learning, looking around, experimenting, failing, trying and so on, you know. So that’s the next thing for me, I just need to figure out what the next film is going to be.