Elizabeth Banks confessed she learned a key detail about her new thriller, Skincare, after she started filming the movie.
Banks, 50, explained to Entertainment Weekly on Wednesday, July 17, that she wasn’t aware the film was inspired by a true story until “way later into the process.” (Skincare is fictional, but loosely based on celebrity facialist Dawn DaLuise.)
“I didn’t know it at all,” she said. “I had never heard about it. I was just all in on Hope Goldman and this character and the sort of milieu of L.A.”
Banks explained that she previously used a facialist named Matty, whom she thought was similar to her character in Skincare.
“She was very much this Hope Goldman character in my mind, in that she had her own little place on 3rd Street in LA, and she was recommended to me by an agent — Johnny Depp‘s agent — who said, ‘Well, Johnny went to Matty,’ and listed other clients who had gone to Matty,” Banks said. “So when I read the script, that’s what I was thinking. I was like, I’m going to base it on Matty.”
Skincare follows Hope (Banks) who has plans to launch a skincare line when her rival, Angel Vergara (Luis Gerardo Méndez) opens a store across from hers. Hope begins to suspect that someone is attempting to sabotage her, which leads her on a mission to discover who’s against her.
The former Pitch Perfect star noted that it’s unclear what all of the characters are “capable of,” before teasing, “What you know is you haven’t seen anything.”
She continued, “And so people present themselves as one way, but you get to see this sort of underbelly of everyone as well. I think that creates a ton of tension because you’re waiting for something to explode. You’re waiting for violence to happen because you start to realize that these characters will do anything for their success, and you’re just wondering how far it’s going to go. And that’s what I liked about this film.”
Banks gushed that she had an “amazing experience” creating the film.
“It really is about: what are you willing to do to get what you want?” Banks said of the message behind the film. “She says it in the movie, and I think that’s really interesting, ‘Who are you willing to step on? What sacrifices are you willing to make? Whose life are you willing to threaten?'”
Skincare hits theaters on Friday, August 16.
