“There's no antidote to shame quite like making a movie like this,” the actress tells PEOPLE of the new supernatural body horror flick
Credit: Shudder
NEED TO KNOW
- Midori Francis stars as Hana, a medical student battling body image issues, family trauma and more in Saccharine
- She opens up about the new supernatural body horror movie, which she filmed right after wrapping her time on Grey’s Anatomy, in an interview with PEOPLE
- Francis discusses Hana and the off-screen “struggles” she brought to the character in the exclusive chat
Midori Francis has carved a niche for herself playing queer roles in shows including Grey's Anatomy and The Sex Lives of College Girls. She plays another queer woman in the new supernatural body horror Saccharine — but that's just about where the similarities stop.
Writer-director Natalie Erika James' latest film stars Francis, 32, as Hana, a medical student haunted by internalized fatphobia, family trauma and a literal ghost — plus, a massive crush on her gym instructor. As Hana starts taking a weight-loss pill with a sinister secret ingredient (human ash — yes, you read that right), Danielle Macdonald brings the laughs as her ride-or-die best friend, and Showko Showfukutei adds a touch of sweetness as her neurotic but lovable mom.
But ultimately, Saccharine is Hana's story. As the official synopsis phrases it, the film “takes an intimate look into one woman's struggle with body image, self-worth, and shame-driven compulsion, told through a supernatural body-horror with a queer lens.”
Looming eerily over Saccharine's candy-colored lighting and laugh-out-loud moments is a gritty darkness, due in part to its subject matter. James has shared a “trigger warning” for any potential viewers struggling with an eating disorder, and Francis herself tells PEOPLE that she "would never have even approached this if I didn't have years of therapy and an ongoing journey towards healing."
Credit: Shudder
“It's such a wild, visceral ride,” the actress, who first exercised her scream-queen chops in 2023's Unseen, says of the feature, which marks the latest entry in the burgeoning “beauty horror” catalog carved by The Ugly Stepsister and The Substance.
And she should know. Francis is in “every frame” — no small feat given that she shot the horror flick on an ultra-tight timeline just two days after her 38-episode stint on Grey's Anatomy came to an emotional close across the ocean.
“So I wrapped, was crying, said goodbye to all my friends. I was like, ‘Wow, what a big chapter,' and then two days later, I was on a plane from L.A. to Melbourne,” the Dash & Lily actress says. “I got off the plane probably around 6 a.m., and I was in fittings for Hana's costumes by about 8 a.m. — and then we were hitting the ground running.”
“And then I was always joking, ‘I believe you that I'm in Australia, but I could have also just passed out on a plane and I'm in a non-descript location that we're saying is Australia.' Because I'm in every frame, so there was not really leisure time until several weeks in,” she continues. “So for the first week, I was like, ‘I mean, I could be in Australia. I don't know. I've only seen a sound stage.' "
Here, Francis chats with PEOPLE about Saccharine — from the "struggles" she brought to the role, the lesson Hana taught her about herself and what she hopes to do next.
Credit: Shudder
PEOPLE: Your chemistry with everyone in this movie was so great. I was wondering if you had any time to get to know them beforehand, but it sounds like that was not the case at all.
MIDORI FRANCIS: Well, Nat and I, our amazing director, did Zoom like this for months in advance. I already felt connected with her. And then Danielle and I, we were just fast friends. From the first table read when I was sitting next to her, I think I was being mischievous and making jokes, and she was all for it. And then we had a lot of rehearsal time so that we got to know each other. We had a rehearsal where we practiced snorting fake ketamine, as you do as an actor. There was some bonding for sure.
PEOPLE: She was one of those characters who you instantly want to be friends with.
FRANCIS: Yeah, she's exactly like that in real life. She's the friendly mom.
PEOPLE: Tell me more about the notebook. You mentioned at the New York City premiere that you lost it.
FRANCIS: I like to have marble notebooks for each project and then coincidentally, because I was like, "I don't want to waste trees," this had some of my notes from my last season on Grey's into Saccharine. We were moving locations, and turnarounds were tight, and somewhere along the way, it went missing and I was panicked because this is my lifeline. I write down everything — every stage, every scene, where she's at. And then also it had a lot of random poetry in it that I was like, "I don't want anyone to see this." And then thankfully, it was found and they shipped it to me, which was so nice.
PEOPLE: Were you reunited with it then after filming?
FRANCIS: I was. I got the shipment of some things that I had left behind and one of them was this and I was so grateful for it. I hugged it.
PEOPLE: When did the notebooks start?
FRANCIS: I've always journaled, since I was a kid. I have the most angsty emo millennial journals of all time. Really, you can't imagine. “I hate Thanksgiving,” and just pictures of family members X'd out. So I've always loved to write poetry. I've loved journals, but I believe this might've started… actually doing Dash & Lily in this more formal sense because it was such a massive undertaking and we were shooting so wildly out of order. And I had all eight episodes given to me in advance and I knew the journey I wanted to be on. It's like a safety blanket.
Credit: Shudder
PEOPLE: Are you a messed-up movie person? Because I say this lovingly, but this is a messed-up movie.
FRANCIS: Well, one of my favorite movies growing up as a kid was Pinocchio, and that's on the darker side, and Matilda for sure. I remember when we showed it in class, there was a boy in my class who started crying at The Trunchbull and I was so annoyed because we had to turn it off and I was like, "This is the best part." And Labyrinth, which I wouldn't say is a messed-up movie, but it's definitely a wild, bizarre movie. But I'm not by nature a person who's like, "I need to see the most effed up thing on earth."
PEOPLE: What's the scariest thing to you, that makes you avoid a movie? Is it the gore? Is it the ghosts? Because I mean, this movie has all of it in droves.
FRANCIS: I think I'm less scared of ghosts personally than the idea of just a straight-up dude breaking in and coming in with a knife. I think that feels a lot more realistic to me. So there's got to be a real reason I'm watching something like that where it's just a man slashing women.
PEOPLE: I just spoke with Obsession's Inde Navarrette, who said she scared herself on set a little bit. Were there any moments when you spooked yourself or would look at the monitor and be like, "Oh, God."
FRANCIS: That's so funny. I had in one of my notes, “Google frightening images.” I was like, "I wonder what that was about." But I think it was me having a little key document on my phone of images that could freak me out quickly. So that is something I definitely did to myself.
There was also one part when the person who was behind the cadaver [Anna Adams] was being slowly released on cords down into my face and that was, I think, terrifying for both of us. I couldn't move because [Hana] was in sleep paralysis, and I've experienced sleep paralysis before a few times where you're in a state in between awake and sleep and you can't move, but you feel that there's something threatening in the room and it was scary. It was scary.
Credit: Shudder
PEOPLE: You also said something at the N.Y.C. premiere about the timing of Saccharine amid the current Ozempic and weight-loss drug craze. Could you speak a little bit more to where this movie sits?
FRANCIS: I think Nat spoke about that in an interview recently because the timing of [her film] Relic during the pandemic, I know a lot of us were very worried for our elders and a lot of us were stuck in a house — themes that were scarily on point with that film, but obviously I don't think she had any way of planning that. Similarly, as far as I know, she started writing this in 2019. I remember we were on set in our first week when The Substance came out, so I don't think she timed it in any way. We know these topics have been around for a very, very long time, so I think it's coincidence or maybe synchronicity, universal synchronicity. But I do think we're at an interesting moment in time where it seems like maybe, as a result of some forward momentum in progress, we are now seeing a bit of sliding backwards, which is sad.
PEOPLE: I know this film was so personal to James, as the best body horror films often are. What was it about Hana that felt personal to you?
FRANCIS: I've had my struggles with eating disorders. My family has been touched by addiction, and I think that the more mental battles can bring about a lot of shame. I think about the little girl I was, who was maybe always having to put up a facade or protect those things because I was too scared to talk about them or to embrace my darkness. Now being this actor, it's incredible that my job happens to provide a pathway and a vehicle to explore those sides of myself, and I'm really grateful for that. There's no antidote to shame quite like making a movie like this. I could also tell through reading the script that whoever wrote it, obviously being Natalie Erika James, had an empathy and an understanding of the feeling of being trapped inside your own compulsions. I knew it was authentic.
Credit: Shudder
PEOPLE: Was there something that made you nervous going in? Because I feel like no matter how healed someone is from something, bringing it to life on screen has got to be difficult at times.
FRANCIS: For sure. I think that I would never have even approached this if I didn't have years of therapy and an ongoing journey towards healing, which there's no endpoint to that. I think I more just had concerns of making sure that we told this story in a way that it's not a PSA, it's an art film, and Hana herself is dealing with ideas of fatphobia, obviously, because so does society and so does somebody struggling with an eating disorder.
PEOPLE: Did you learn anything about yourself through Hana?
FRANCIS: That's a really good question. I just had so much empathy for Hana at the top of the film. And I think by having that empathy for Hana, there were potentially parts of myself that I also gave empathy toward. It's so easy for us, I feel like, when it's ourselves to be self-flagellating or to be hard on ourselves when we feel insecure or not confident or shy or when we say the wrong thing, but playing Hana at the top of the film and especially knowing where she was headed and feeling like, "No, I don't want her to go there," I had such love for that quiet girl who was just trying to figure things out. So maybe my love for her insecurities and my love for her quiet nerdiness, her awkwardness, gave me a little bit of love for those parts of myself because as I've gotten older, I'm like, "I want to be confident. I want to be all this."
PEOPLE: So many of your beloved roles are queer characters. Are you seeking them out or is that what sticks out to you or is it just pure coincidence?
FRANCIS: I think right after Dash & Lily, I did an interview, and they were like, "What roles do you want to play next?" And I just threw it out there. I was like, "Well, I've never really played a super queer role. That'd be fun." And then I think Sex Lives came after that, and then they really never stopped coming.
Credit: Shudder
PEOPLE: I was just wondering if you actively seek out queer roles or if the cookie just crumbles that way.
FRANCIS: The cookie is crumbling, and I'm so happy to do it. And I think where I'm at now with that is what I liked about this script is, sure they are queer women. There's a lot of queerness happening. Hana happens to be somebody who prefers women in this film, but the queerness is not the point. She's just Hana, and that's just a facet of it. And I do think right now I'm most interested in allowing the character to be the most interesting part of the story.
PEOPLE: Are you interested in being in more horror movies, even though I know you just said you're not a huge fan of watching them?
FRANCIS: Oh, no, I would love it. I think that especially now, horror is in such a fascinating place. There has never been… In my opinion, I've never seen such an appetite outside of the niche audience. It feels like a mass desire for this genre. And you're seeing some of the most auteur directors tackling it, some of the most beautiful filmmaking. And then from an acting standpoint, I think it's a fabulous vehicle to actually get to do stuff. I look at some scream queens like Jamie Lee Curtis and Sarah Paulson, some of my favorite actors of all time. So it's definitely a genre that if it wants me back, I'm down.
PEOPLE: I would love to see you as the killer.
FRANCIS: I think I just had an interview where someone asked, "What do you want to do next?" And I did casually throw out I've never played a villain. Maybe this is about to be my villain era. That would be pretty cool.
Credit: Shudder
PEOPLE: Hana goes through so many stages: How much time were you spending in the makeup chair at each end?
FRANCIS: This is something I talked to Nat about up top too, was the sensitivity around prosthetics and body suits and those types of things. But because this is literally a weight-loss film shot out of order over the course of eight weeks, it needed to happen on both ends. So stage one, you have some prosthetics and a bodysuit, and then stage seven, you have some gaunt-looking prosthetics around the collarbone and then some really hollowed-out cheeks to show the weight loss end of things. And yeah, it took a lot of time. It took a lot of… Shout out to our amazing prosthetics team. I was there in the middle of the night, essentially.
And then sometimes I was sitting there playing… Nat had this Saccharine playlist right off the bat that she shared with me and actually let me pick some songs to put in, which was very nice. So I was listening to pretty twisted music while I sat there in my headphones getting ready for the day to get in character. Some of it was not even music. It was just like…
PEOPLE: Do you remember any of the songs that you threw in there?
FRANCIS: Yes. Okay. There was the Saccharine soundtrack and that was all, that's what I'm talking about where it was like you can't really call it a song. It was more like horrifying sounds. And then there were Saccharine tunes and those were more fun. There was “Genesis” by Grimes. There was “Body Ache.” And I put in the song “Body Terror Song” by AJJ, which was way too happy, but it's like a bop. I think I put in Mitski's “Nobody.” I was making it a little happier, but it still had the themes.
PEOPLE: Finally, on a non-Saccharine note, I know Sex Lives was canceled at Max, but the showrunner is looking for a new home. Is that something that you would want to return to?
FRANCIS: Totally. I have not heard a peep, but I know that show meant a lot to a lot of people and I'm sure that there'll be an audience for it — but I've not heard a peep. I think [my character] Alicia, I'm trying to remember what happened at the end of that. She went to go work at a mayor's office or something. So I don't know. Alicia's doing her thing. I think she set sail into the sunset.
Saccharine is in theaters now and will later be available for streaming on Shudder.
If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, The Alliance for Eating Disorders provides a fully-staffed helpline at 1-866-662-1235, as well as free, therapist-led support groups.
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