The past year of Leslye Headland’s work has been a love letter to her teenage self.
The multitalented screenwriter-director-showrunner-playwright is on the eve of closing her acclaimed Broadway debut “Cult of Love,” a project she jumped headfirst into after finishing the edit on her 2024 Disney+ Star Wars series “The Acolyte.”
“Broadway is a big deal. And I would say to 13-year-old Leslye, to do a Star Wars story then Broadway? It’s mind blowing,” Headland recently shared with Variety.
The “Russian Doll” co-creator’s upbringing is top of mind in “Cult of Love,” which was originally staged at the Berkeley Rep. The relentless dramedy about the deterioration of a religious family on Christmas Eve – which bagged Zachary Quinto, Shailene Woodley and Headland’s spouse Rebecca Henderson for its New York run – is inspired by its author’s own childhood and relationship with faith.
The play (which was explored in depth Gordon Cox’s Variety podcast Stagecraft) will lead Headland back to feature films. She’s currently drafting and developing a film adaptation of “Cult of Love.” Due to scheduling complications, however, numerous fandoms will be disappointed to learn that Headland is no longer attached to direct the Netflix film adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.”
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For more on her candid and standout stage drama and Headland’s next creative steps, read our full conversation:
How autobiographical is “Cult of Love”?
This, for me, was pastiche. And not in a negative way. I wanted to do [my take on] “August: Osage County.” The biggest autobiographical thread for me is the Christian upbringing. It’s interesting that when people speak about it, it’s always qualified as a “strict Christian upbringing.” But to me, it’s unstructured Christianity that’s more insidious. It’s what we’re seeing in our country right now – a lot of “pick and choose” values. I started writing it in 2016 when Trump was elected the first time, and I thought it would be interesting to write a dysfunctional family play at this moment when our country is a dysfunctional family. Religious trauma is evergreen, though. All of these characters are using the same language about faith, but they couldn’t be farther apart.
“Cult of Love” fits into two of my favorite genres: the holidays and dinner parties from hell. There’s also an amazing reference in the play to a child genius movie we don’t talk enough about, “Little Man Tate.” How did that get in?
I watched it at a young age, and looking back it was a bit inappropriate in terms of not really grasping the more adult parts of it. I did feel a little bit like my mother was really pushing the child genius concept on us.
Did you show an aptitude for what you currently do when you were younger?
Yes. My parents very much encouraged it, but not as a career. They came around later. I would write poetry, I would fill composition books with genre, like an American Girl doll book or “A Little Princess.” A poor little rich girl who goes through a secret garden, whatever. Fan fiction started as I got older. I really fell in love with “Star Wars.”
More on “Star Wars” in a moment, but I want to point out how skillfully and accurately “Cult of Love” portrays addiction – especially in how it impacts an entire family.
Whether it’s you or it’s a parent, a dear friend, a lover, a partner — addiction touches every single person. I heard addiction once described as “treating the problem with a problem.” That would also describe the narrative arcs of my plays. My feeling is that the only way to address addiction is with some form of a faith. I think there’s a fallacy around addiction, that it’s only self-destruction. Addicts start to engage with that behavior as self-preservation and survival. I have a similar feeling about cults. Nobody joins a cult because it it’s terrible and abusive. An idea has been sold to them. It doesn’t seem bad at the time. One of the reasons I was excited about working on a Star Wars project was because nobody wakes up and wants to be the bad guy. The average person does not sink into addiction or obsession or dangerous cycles for fun.
You went right into prep for Broadway after you finished the edit on “The Acolyte.” Those are two very different beasts.
I was very exhausted. I felt really depleted, which sometimes is a good thing. You don’t have time to question everything. The first instinct wins. Broadway is a big deal. And I would say to 13-year-old Leslye, to do a Star Wars story then Broadway? It was mind blowing.
Where are you at now with your creative ambition?
I think the industry is in a strange place right now. I don’t even mean that totally negatively. When you came up in the era I did, the idea was to become Tarantino. Wes Anderson. Chris Nolan. Aronofsky. Spike Jones. But Truffaut said every auteur makes a movie, breaks it apart and then makes the same movie. Then there are a lot of guys that make a lot of money in huge IP. If you think about the Jon Favreau trajectory, which I really think is interesting – breaking in the late ’90s with an incredible movie like “Swingers” all the way to the live action “Lion King.” Like that job is literally shaping the American theatrical film experience.
Are you looking for a third route?
I assume that I continue making narrative, because it’s sort of the only thing that I’m good at. And I think I’ll probably continue working making a play, making a film, making a television show, breaking it apart and then making the same thing all over again.
Will you adapt “Cult of Love” as a film?
Yes. It would be it interesting to see that as a movie. The most compelling thing to me, regardless of genre, are characters and performances. This is a nice, big ensemble where everybody gets their knife in. Seeing something like that in the world where people can experience it for more than an 11-week run would be fantastic.
So this is officially in motion?
Absolutely. My cinematographer Chris Teague has come twice to “Cult of Love.” We’ve talked a lot about visuals rather than how to textually adapt it. The music would be interesting, too. Diegetic music like ours is always really cool to execute.
What’s going on with the film adaptation of “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo”?
I am no longer working on that project. I remain a huge, huge fan of the book and of the people working on it. It’s one of those things where you know it’s going to be a huge success. I thought, “Damn it. It’s not going to work out with me involved in it, but it is going to be wildly successful.” It is the type of book that if I’d read it in my twenties, I would have had a completely different life. It’s so beautifully done.