J Paul Johnson
Actor Sally Maersk, a native of Svendborg, Denmark, has been making her way as an actor in the U.S. for more than a decade now. Thankfully, nothing she’s encountered has been quite as traumatic as what her character—an actor auditioning for the role of a lifetime—encounters in the short film Bananahead, written and directed by Christopher Greenslate. It’s a film that takes Maersk’s character to the depths of madness along the way, proving both a challenge and a delight for the actor.
Maersk plays Andi Sanger. She’s the daughter of a writer, a novelist who disappeared not long after her bestseller Bananahead topped the charts. In a stroke of fate, as the novel is about to be adapted into a film, Andi auditions for the lead role of Christine. It’s a buzzy role that just might jumpstart her career. At about the same time, Andi moves with her significant other into her grandmother’s familial home, where she finds a hidden key to a locked room. Will it unlock the gilded future she’s always wished for? Or is it instead a portal to Hollywood’s darkest realms and Andi’s deepest fears?
Bananahead, which recently premiered at L.A.’s HollyShorts festival, is a complex, layered piece of cinema, playing with audience expectations and genre tropes as deftly as it does its changing aspect ratios and set changes. Maersk herself gets to play not just Andi, but as many as four different iterations of the actress, her mother, and alternate selves. Maersk spoke with Film Obsessive’s J Paul Johnson about her immigration and citizenship journey, her own influences and ambitions, and her work on the set of Bananahead. The transcript below the video has been edited for space and clarity.
Film Obsessive: Sally, I should leave it to you to describe the film a little bit, and let me thank you for coming and joining us today.
Sally Maersk: Thank you for having me! I think it’s always so hard to describe something you’ve been in, so I’ll try my best. But our short is about Andi, who’s an aspiring actor, and her mom disappeared a couple of years ago and was a famous author. And Hollywood tends to turn these type of stories into movies. So Andi goes and auditions for the role of her mom in her mom’s book, and gets the role. And in the meantime, she has moved into her grandma’s house and discovers a room and creepy things start happening.
And creepy things do indeed happen! Where did the concept for this come from?
Well, so Christopher Greenslate and I got connected through my husband. I was a little frustrated with the lack of auditions and lack of work, and there’s power in creating your own work. And so my husband connected Greenslate and I, and we just met up and started talking about our feelings about the industry and sort of where we were at. And I’ve been walking around with this feeling like, sort of a soccer player just sitting on the bench, but really wanting to play in the game. Through our conversations, he came up with a concept, which was just completely different than anything I’d ever thought about and could only come from him. So when he brought me the script, I was very surprised and like, Yeah, let’s do this!
Well, I can imagine that as an actor, there are things about this particular script that are going to appeal to someone like yourself. And one is you get to play a different variants of yourself or people who are like you. Did you had any trepidation about venturing this far down the rabbit hole that your character ends up in?
Yeah, I was really scared in terms of just how you view yourself as an actor and how you think. There’s a couple of moments in the short where, again, without spoiling it, Andi sees a version where all her dreams come true. I think that was a little scary for me to shoot because it’s so close to I think but most actors dream about being recognized and sort of being known for their work. But I think it was such a great challenge. It was such a good script and just really incredible to get to see my teeth into it.
And at the same time, is it a challenge then to tackle those moments in the film where Andi is really, like in the belly of the beast, so to speak, and really really facing her darkest demons?
Yeah. I mean, so I have four different roles in this, and I’m sort of playing up against myself. So which was its own challenge sometimes, and we had a great stand-in and her name was Britt and just such a great presence whenever I needed someone to act with. It was a crazy setup, changing costumes, and just figuring out how to anchor each character to make them have sort of their own weight.
And when you’re on set, with Christopher directing, and it’s his script, are there moments where the two of you are negotiating about how far you’re going to take this?
It was such a safe and creative environment for both of us. We were both very clear that making movies should ideally, in the best world, be fun because it is fun. We’re all coming together and making something we love. The script is great, you know, and it’s good people who are working on set. I think it’s such a special, bare experience for most of us. I think when you’re in that collaborative environment, you know the people we you’re working with, you feel safe. You feel supported. There’s no limit to the risk you’re willing to take because you feel safe.
That’s really cool. And you do clearly have such a good team alongside you with this project. We probably should give some props to like hair and makeup and set design. I mean, we can see it’s you, but It’s really four different kinds or sides of you.
Especially with one character’s makeup! I think I was very adamant about getting that right because it’s so iconic. And it’s very hard actually to figure out how to do that and do it on my face, which is just different from hers in a way. And we had this one moment. It was so crazy when our makeup artist and I, because in and out of costumes happened really fast. We are on a short film, so, of course, we’re always short on time, short on people on set. So, you know, at one point, I had to get so fast in a a costume, like, I was doing one eye, and Arvin, our makeup artist was doing my other eye at the same time because we just had to go so fast!
But it’s so fun at the same time. And then you arrive at set, and you get to take a breath and you beat and disconnect and do your thing.
The film strikes me as one that is really really impressive from an aesthetic and technical standpoint. Christopher’s playing with different aspect ratios. The cinematography is really marvelous. When you’re on set, do you get a sense of how complex and layered this project really is going to be when you get to the endpoint?
Definitely. I think being part of the process so early on, it was very important for Christopher also to bring me along with each step, which I really appreciate. He’s been such a great mentor as well as a friend. Rasa (Partin, the DP) is just incredible. And it’s because a lot of scenes were just on my own. It was so nice to have Rasa on the other side of the camera and sort of a safe anchor. Oftentimes, you know, the director somewhere else sitting, so it’s so nice to have that presence with you. Mojo (Wen) created incredible set design. Being part of the step by step [from the start] was incredible and we had such a great experience.
So you came you came to the US from Denmark, specifically to act? Was film always the venue you imagined working in?
t’s probably more theater. It’s crazy how life turns out. Yes, I was born and raised in Denmark, but went to New York for the first time when I was nine years old, and I was like, This smells like home. I love this. I want to live here. And when I was old enough, I started applying to schools over here, acting schools. We have a great one in Denmark, too, but it’s incredibly competitive. And going to school here is a great shortcut to get to stay here. And I applied to a couple of New York, and then I applied to arts here in LA and got into LA Arts. I was like, I guess I’m going to have to love sunshine now because Denmark is not a sunny country! But I then just fell love with LA. I’ve been here ever since, for almost 12 years.
And so I have to ask, how much like your own experience is that of Andi Sanger? Are we working in an entirely figurative realm here? Or are you bringing, you know, some of your own experience into that role that you play in Bananahead?
I think you only have yourself. Of course, it’s creating Andi’s memories in sort of creating her life. But I think you only have yourself and I’m only me, right? So I can’t help but bring some of m y own baggage with me in some way, even though you sort of try to make your character their own as much as possible.
Are there other films or actors that you kind of have in the back of your head, you know, ones that might be particularly inspirational or influential for you when you’re making a film like this?
Oh, my God, that’s a good question. I think you grab images from different things in a way. And my favorite movie is Interstellar. Like, I will watch that any day all the time. I watched it in 70 millimeter at the Chinese Theatre down the street, and it was incredible. So, I think, you know, images will pop up in your head, and you sort of take that with you. This project felt very film noir to me. So of course, like, looking at, you know, Out of the Past or In a Lonely Place.
Well, one thing I will say for sure, you have impeccable taste in film! Nolan’s film Interstellar seems to divide his fans a little bit because I know there’s a portion of his fandom that feels it’s a little too mawkish and too sentimental. And I’m one of those for whom, thank God, a Christopher Nolan film with a beating heart! What could be better?
I mean, obviously Dark Knight Rises is also out of the trilogy, but yeah, I think Interstellar is just such a beautiful film—the score and the acting and how it’s put together. Yeah, there’s not a day that goes by where don’t at least have some kind of thought about how it makes me feel, and you just hope to create something that people can connect to. I swear that.
And you know In a Lonely Place is one of my absolute top fives for certain. I’s one of those films that really elicits very strong emotions, and, you know, it’s set in Hollywood and has the writer and people kind of taking on roles and recrafting narratives to suit their own imagination. So it wasn’t the film that occurred to me when I was watching Bananahead, but I can kind of see the connection there.
That’s really interesting. I think it’s just more for me in terms of acting or, I think about performances or images from movies and In a Lonely Place is one of the saddest endings.
Well, I’m sure we could nerd out about all kinds of great film noir! But I should ask you a little bit about just the experience being with Bananahead, as it makes its debut, gets it start on the festival circuit. You were at HollyShorts with the film?
It was crazy. I mean, it’s felt so wild to be there. And there’s so many short films, and you get to meet other creatives who are just so passionate about their projects, and you go to see their shorts. And Yeah, it was really cool to see it in a big theater with a lot of people. And I also get to see that some of our jump scares really worked! Of course, I know they’re coming now, so I can just sit and watch, but it was also a little bit of an out-of-body experience, a really cool experience. HollyShorts was a great place for us to, I think, also just for Bananahead, sort of kismet in a way.
And then is it off to other festivals as well?
We have the Lovecraft Festival in Oregon coming up and then Peephole in Mexico.
And let me just ask what’s next for you? Are you continuing to work with Christopher, you off on different projects? What’s in the future?
Yes, so we just wrapped Drainomania which is our next shot. I get to play with Gabrielle Maiden, who’s an incredible actress. That was again, just such a fun experience—it’s really fun also have someone onset with me most of the time. And then we’re working on a feature film inspired by Hedda Gabler, the Ibsen play. But, hopefully, I’ll just continue to make movies with Incredible collaborators.
Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us. Sally. Congratulations so far on the success of Bananahead, and I wish you more as it ventures out on its festival circuit journey, and wish you the best with everything to come. Thanks for talking with us at Film Obsessive.
Thank you so much. I really enjoyed talking to you.
