Haley Bennett really did put tacks in her mouth, but there's so much more to Swallow
Director Carlo Mirabella-Davis’ feature debut, Swallow, stars Haley Bennett as Hunter Conrad, a stifled housewife who, in small acts of rebellion, starts swallowing inedible objects like marbles and thumbtacks. But that’s just movie magic, right? Bennett didn’t actually put those things in her mouth? “Everybody really asked me to avoid doing it, but I wanted to feel what it felt like.,” Bennett told us. The actor—who serves as one of Swallow’s executive producers—was fully committed to the film from day one and knew she’d need to go the extra mile to uncover its deeper themes: “It’s about breaking free from our traditional roles…. to reveal our truest selves, our purest forms.” In our interview, Bennett also explains why she saw herself in Hunter Conrad, tells us about filming while pregnant, and reveals the one thing she didn’t put in her mouth.
Swallow—which we hailed as a “radical feminist metaphor” when we caught it at Fantasia Film Festival—will be released by IFC Films, hits theaters and VOD on March 6.