interview with lucy owens
Lucy Owens
Writer and Director of
“The Magician”
Interview conducted by Holly McKibben
photography provided by GoldCat Studios
Illustrations by Peter Hombre
published in Issue Seven
Lucy Owens (“Bloom” and “Ruby Woo”) is the writer and director behind “The Magician,” a short film about protagonist Neil shirking his desires and the tarot reading catalyst that pushes him to pursue them. While Owens takes something away from every production process, “The Magician” was where she felt most comfortable giving the actors room to explore. Her work tends to be internal, focusing on relationships and themes of mortality and faith in religion, or lack thereof. In the spirit of introspection, I consulted my own tarot cards to guide our interview.
Ace of Wands
New opportunities, inspiration, past success and a fertile ground of potential.
HM: When was the first time you felt like, “Oh shit I can do this?”
LO: There’s been different stages of that throughout all of my filmmaking career, including when I was a kid. I remember making my first short and getting it into iMovie and seeing the full edit come together and being like, this is an amazing feeling. I just made something that people can now watch. I fell in love with it and it solidified it for me.
Six of Wands
Reversed: failure, being overlooked, comparing your journey to others.
HM: How do you bounce back from a major setback?
LO: Just as many great, amazing, validating moments, there are moments where you’re like, “What the hell am I doing? This is stupid, I’m just beating a dead horse” or “I’m not where I want to be.” Those happen often. The first couple of times they happen, they’re really devastating and they can deter you from wanting to do it anymore. If you can push past those, you come to realize those moments are fleeting and they pass. It’s never as bad as it feels in those moments. You can’t listen to that fear part of your brain. You can’t base your life off of that.
HM: Especially when you move somewhere to pursue something and know that’s where you should be and you’re going to have a lot of opportunities. But you also know you’re going to be surrounded by a lot of successful people.
LO: In Tempe, Arizona there’s not a huge film scene. I felt like a big fish in a little pond in many ways. I didn’t want to move to LA. I felt like that would be too intimidating and it would scare me out of wanting to do it. I came to Austin as a middle ground. Even here, our film competes with people’s films that have ten times the budget. Or people who have connections in the industry. Trying to work your way into that, but also not being afraid to make stuff even though you don’t have that, is difficult.
The Fool
Stepping bravely into the unknown, hero’s journey, rose-colored glasses, unsure.
HM: When was the last time you felt like The Fool?
LO: I actually love The Fool card for the positive aspects. I feel like I try to channel that a lot because I tend to get a little stressed out or bogged down in details. I can be a little bit rigid or analytical. I think about The Fool a lot and try to channel the free spirited energy of jumping into the unknown, not really knowing what’s ahead of you. Not knowing if you’re going to flop or succeed and doing it anyway with joy and optimism. I feel like The Fool in a negative context all the time, also. Sometimes you’re just going through life. Being kind of wishy-washy about what you want is totally human but it also makes you feel like the biggest idiot sometimes.
Ace of Swords
Cutting to the heart of the matter, vision, breakthroughs, self-advocacy.
HM: How did you learn how to advocate for yourself and find your voice?
LO: The way that I was raised. My mom is a super strong woman. Both of my parents, they’re role models for me and they raised me in a way to feel confident in my abilities and to not shy away from asking questions. Or pursuing things that I’m passionate about. They’re very supportive about me wanting to move to Austin and jump into this film career, even though it might not mean a lot of lucrative return for a while. I owe a lot of that to them. On a different note, I’m like a really shy person, I’m not very social. I don’t open up easily. I don’t make friends easily. So it’s an interesting juxtaposition. And part of the reason I love film is because as soon as I get on set trying to make something, suddenly I have all the courage in the world to talk to people because I’m serving the project. It’s not about me or my ego anymore. It kind of helps me serve a purpose outside of myself and get out of my shell a little bit.
Ace of Cups
Reversed: feeling out of balance, disharmony, incompatibility.
HM: When you are feeling out of balance or in a funk, creatively or personally, how do you even it out? Fill up your cup instead of letting it all drain out?
LO: It’s something I’m still figuring out for myself. One big thing is to get off of social media for a while, and media in general, and spend some time in the real world. Concentrate your time with people you love or in nature. Or consuming art that you like instead of what’s being fed to you via the algorithm or what other people are bragging about at the moment.
The Moon
A dark path between two towers, deciding between fear and trust, intuition.
HM: Is there a tough path or decision you’ve had to make and how did you persevere through it?
LO: The moon to me is very much about trying to suss out what is illusion and what is truth. So, like my characters, a lot of my battles are internal and a lot of the decisions that I have to make are internal. I can’t necessarily think of a big decision that I’ve had to make, but it’s just a series of little decisions that culminate into something big. Even sitting down to write and making yourself do it is something that you have to battle against fear in order to do. There’s so many illusions that you can fall into when you have the desire to sit down and write, where you can kind of go, “My idea is not fleshed out in my head enough” or “It’s not going to be good enough” or “I’m too tired” or “I’m not in the right headspace.” It’s about being aware of those things that are sneaky and those things that are not serving you. Doing the thing you want to do anyway, regardless of those and understanding that they are illusions and that they’re not truth. Buying into that will stop you from, I guess, pursuing your dreams. As corny as it sounds.
The Empress
Reversed: negligence, insecurity, creative block, dependence.
HM: The last card that I pulled was the Empress in reverse.
LO: (laughing) Jesus.
HM: This card is all about divine feminine energy. Obviously when it’s reversed… not so much. What is your relationship like with femininity and how it plays a part in filmmaking?
LO: I felt the same thing when you said that’s what the card pulled was. It’s interesting because in order to sort of be a director and command a presence on set, it feels like you have to be incredibly masculine. Not only in like your appearance and stature, but also in the way that you talk to people. I’ve experienced, not necessarily lack of respect or anything like that, but just a general feeling of people not being used to my energy as a director. Because I’m more soft spoken and I want to sit down with you one-on-one and talk things through, rather than shouting commands. I don’t necessarily think you need to be masculine in order to command a room, it’s just something that I’m still figuring out for myself. Trying to control a group of people being soft spoken doesn’t necessarily work very well. You do have to raise your voice a little bit and be a little bit more direct in the way that you approach things. But I tend to have a more feminine energy which is a little bit more open. Maybe to some people more nebulous. Something that’s more of a feeling and an intuition and less rigid, like, “This is what we’re doing and this how we’re doing it.” It’s more of a flow state.
HM: Especially, I feel like, if you’re working with friends and people that you’ve worked with before. I would probably feel uncomfortable wanting to have to snap people to attention. Like, these are my friends.
LO: Exactly.
HM: Obviously, if it’s unruly, you get nothing done. But it doesn’t feel natural for what you’re doing, being in a creative space.
LO: Yeah, absolutely. Personally, I like to cultivate a really fun, comfortable environment on set. Actors will really open up and bloom when you are more that way with them.
HM: I was thinking about this question. There’s almost this line between you don’t want to pigeonhole yourself as a female director--only talking about either women’s issues or things specifically from your perspective--but you don’t want to shy away from it either. You shouldn’t feel like you’re pigeonholing yourself by talking about your experience.
LO: Right? You should be able to just tell your story. I definitely don’t gravitate towards political things in my work. My stories are always very human. My characters tend to be pretty complex and flawed, whether they’re male or female. I write both female and male characters equally. I don’t tend to really push the “I’m a woman, hear me roar” sort of narrative, but it definitely comes through in my work. I think there’s something really cool about seeing a film that has the female gaze. It lends a different energy.
Next on Owens’ docket: a feature length screenplay called “Blue Ones.” After taking too much of a designer drug on the night of her son’s band concert, Cindy wades through dark suburbia on foot to prove she isn’t a deadbeat mother. At the time of our interview, the first draft was nearly complete. Owens has also collaborated with Carleton Ranney and his screenwriting class at the Austin School of Film to further develop it.
