VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Jennifer Esposito On Her Feminist Mob Drama ‘Fresh Kills’

Jennifer Esposito discussed her new movie Fresh Kills, which she wrote and directed, in her new exclusive uInterview. The film is set to premiere this week at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.

The movie features a crime family living in Staten Island, New York, and the two daughters of the family, Connie and Rose, and how the area they live in affects them seen through a feminist viewpoint. Esposito not only created the movie herself but also stars in it as Francine, who is the mother of the two girls.

She explained to uInterview Founder Erik Meers, how her childhood connects to the film.

“I grew up around some very tough young women and it stayed with me, it just stayed with me and I didn’t know anything else really,” she said. “But there was something more about the women that seemed more rageful and, like I said, it stayed with me.”

Even when she moved out of Staten Island when she was 18 and got a job, her childhood experiences lived with her. 

“I think it was a feeling of being stuck in a slot or born into something that maybe necessarily I didn’t choose and being female and being in the business that’s what it felt like to me that there were separate rules for me as a woman that I didn’t necessarily agree to,” she said.

When creating the script she already knew that there would be a lot of woman-on-woman violence, which is unique to her film as typically we see male-on-male violence.

Esposito is trying to break that stereotype and even said that “a lot for males were, they were very uncomfortable with that kind of violence, seeing that. Whereas some of the women were like oh amazing!”

She explained this dynamic of women are, “not supposed to be angry, we’re not supposed to express anything but sweet and you know sugar and spice kind of thing. And that’s not all of us and we look at that in this movie.”

Esposito specifically noted how some men reacted to seeing the violence in the script.

“And he was like what? What wait a minute! It’s like why do we glorify on one end and then we criminalize it on the other end and it doesn’t make any sense to me,” she said.

Esposito also reflected on how much she loved being a first-time director.

“I wanted to fully tell a story and this was with me for so long that the directing, that was like finally feeling I’m home,” she said. “That felt very right.”

She explained how there are some parts that were tricky to film due to financial restrictions since it is an independent film. 

“Three different time periods in 22 days with very little money and very little help,” she noted.

But she clarified that she doesn’t mind the obstacles and actually loves it.

She described how the movie relates to her life. “It’s not based on my life but I am pretty much everyone in the movie so I like to say who I am is Rose, who I had to become was Connie,” she said.  

One central theme of the film is the idea of the community wanting to hold back these girls from fulfilling their potential because it doesn’t conform to the ideas that the community shares. 

“It’s about these two sisters … and what they do to survive in this place that they didn’t have a choice in being,” she said. “You know I always like to say it’s crabs in a bucket, you know if one is trying to crawl out they’ll kind of grab you and pull you back down.”

One of Esposito’s favorite scenes is where Rose is able to have a moment to herself on the street and reflect. She describes this scene as challenging to shoot but was insistent on keeping it in the film. 

“I said to everyone hear me when I say this, this scene will not be cut. And I’m all about getting what we need and moving but this was such an important scene to me, to the character, but I know how deeply it hits.”

She describes the scene as “heartbreaking” and “one of the most beautiful scenes in the film.”

Fresh Kills is set to premiere on June 16 at the Tribeca Film Festival. Tickets are available online now.