Exclusive: Valene Kane on filming Timur Bekmambetov's new Screenlife film ‘Profile

Now playing in theaters from Focus Features is director Timur Bekmambetov’s Profile, which is shot in Screenlife format, something that Bekmambetov has pioneered in his other films Unfriended and Searching. The film made its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in 2018 and won the Audience Award there.

Profile follows an undercover British journalist in her quest to bait and expose a terrorist recruiter through social media, while trying not to be sucked in by her recruiter and lured into becoming a militant extremist herself. Profile stars Valene Kane (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) and Shazad Latif (Star Trek: Discovery) and is inspired by the 2015 nonfiction bestseller In the Skin of a Jihadist by a French journalist who now has round-the-clock police protection and has changed her name to Anna Érelle.

Profile plays out entirely on a computer screen in the Screenlife format, pioneered by Bekmambetov. It was written by Britt Poulton (Them That Follow) and Bekmambetov and Olga Kharina.

Best known for her performances in all three series of BBC Two's BAFTA-nominated The Fall, in which she played Jamie Dornan's first lover, Rose Stagg, Kane also played Lyra Erso in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. In speaking with BlackFilmandTV.com, Kane goes over her experience on Profile.

What went into saying yes to this project?

Valene Kane: Working with Timur, working from a real book playing a real character, and working primarily with improvisation, because that's what I love so much. It's rare to get a project where it's completely improvisation. 

 How much research did you do getting into the role?

Valene Kane: I went over the top doing research because I felt the subject matter was really far away from anything that I have done. Those stories have been in the periphery in the news for so long. I was never close to anyone who's ever involved so to read a story with so much specificity was unique. I wanted to make sure that I honored her and her story and wanted to depict her as real as possible. I wanted to feel like a journalist. I didn't want to feel like an actor playing and journalists, so I did as much research as I could.

Once you were done filming, is this something you walk away from? Is it just another project or does this stick with you a little bit?

Valene Kane: It gets stuck with me a little bit because the film itself is subversive and the way that we shot was so subversive. We improvise so much of that, to get to a place where you can improvise in a different accent, improvise on a story that you don't know that much. You really have to really delve in and know everything. I wanted to make sure that I knew what girls were going through and know why they were going. I researched the places that they go and the type of recruitment that happens so that we can improvise and feel free. For sure, it took a while to shake off that role. We were all it was a very intense because we shot all day. There was no trailer and no setups. We just shot continuously and had lunch, and then you shot. It was like rehearsing for a play.

How was filming most of your scenes in front of a computer?

Valene Kane: We all adapt to everything, don't we? This pandemic has shown us how quickly we can all adapt to anything. So I think the Screenlife aspect was a huge challenge for me. I was really excited and honored to be a part of something so innovative in filmmaking, but it definitely presents challenges because I was my own DP and my own grafter. I was in control of everything that you see happening on the screen. That was was tricky but also liberating. I felt so collaborative. I didn't feel like an actress. I felt like a creative.

Did this process enhanced your technology skills? 

Valene Kane: Maybe. I'm kind of over it now. I just want human contact. We’re all just desperately seeking human contact, especially with acting. It’s also visceral acting, you know? I think I've got it down pat. I've done a few zooms, but there's nothing like, showing up to read through a new project and smelling that new actor and seeing how they move and starting to understand the dynamic that we'll have. You got any build on that. 

In working with Timur, what did you get out of his directing techniques that helps you out as you go on to your next project?

Valene Kane: He just had so much faith in us. He gave us so much scope. It didn't feel like he was a dictator. It was his project and his idea. To be able to go to Moscow and sit with him at his studio in his editing suite, and for him to genuinely care about what I think and ask me if we should do something different, and care about my response? That gives me so much confidence that I am a creative in my own right, and that I have things to bring to the table? I would with him again, in a heartbeat, on a project like this.

Ss we're heading back to theaters, hopefully, there's still a lot to people to watch whether it's on platform screen platforms, and TV theaters. Ae have options, what is the sell to seeing this?

Valene Kane: I think there's something so unique about this film. There is something so unique about filming live. The lines are blurred between audience member, voyeur, and participant. That's what's so unique about this project. There’s an aspect of watching the film where you feel like you're the one making the clicks, opening the folders, and making the calls. It feels like you’re a participant. We all know so well these noises, the Skype calls the text message. There's something about all these being blurred an audience will want to see.