When we sat down to talk about Love Lies Bleeding, a sexy, grimy thriller-slash-love story set in the late ’80s, Katy O’Brian’s energy was palpable. Yes, this was a standard junket interview conducted over Zoom, and yes, she’d probably answered the same questions eight times already by the time she’d reached our late afternoon slot, but nevertheless, even across the internet, she delivered the same jolt that she did on the big screen as her volatile bodybuilder character, Jackie, in the film.
Love Lies Bleeding, which premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival ahead of its theatrical release over the weekend, is a pulpy, satisfying blend of murder and smut—a blood-and-sweat-soaked tale of ambition, companionship, and horniness set out in the desert. Spandex and loud ’80s fashions abound. Kristen Stewart plays Lou, a bored gym manager who instantly falls for the driven, magnetic, absolutely ripped bodybuilder Jackie. It doesn’t take long, however, to realize that these might not be great people, and that they also might be even worse for each other.
O’Brian had been eager to tell a queer love story, and Love Lies Bleeding—from Saint Maud writer-director Rose Glass—felt like just the right one. “When I was reading the script, I loved that it wasn’t just two perfect characters, and it wasn’t necessarily just about coming out,” O’Brian said. “It's these two really toxic, kind of awful people that happen to fall in love, and I think that that’s kind of real. They’re willing to do anything to keep that love.”
In other words: “It’s a women’s love story, but it’s very barbaric.”
(Warning: Spoilers for Love Lies Bleeding are ahead.)
When asked about the film’s setting in an old, bare-bones, very ’80s-style gym, O’Brian’s engines really started revving up.
“The ’80s is such an iconic era for bodybuilding,” she said, as her voice sped up just a little from enthusiasm. O’Brian herself has been into bodybuilding and martial arts for years. She started karate at age 5, thanks to some Kindergarten bullies, and she first tried out bodybuilding as an adult, during a time in her life when she was unhappy, living in Indiana, and working in law enforcement. When she first picked up bodybuilding, she recalled, “It was cool to see what I was able to do, and to see the discipline that it took to get there.” Because of this passion, she is intimately familiar with the appeal of a good old-fashioned gym.
Katy O’Brian in Love Lies Bleeding.
“It’s a whole thing,” she said, for bodybuilding gyms to keep that aesthetic. “You’ll see iron—anything with iron. It’s probably not going to be the newest, sexiest equipment… I tend to be attracted to those old, rusty barbell, small, intimate gyms. You get to know everybody, and you get to kind of have a little bit of community.” Beyond the bodybuilder-friendly vibes, O’Brian observed that the ’80s setting allowed Love Lies Bleeding to get a little silly in unexpected places—and not just through the costumes, hair, and make-up.
O’Brian actually has a fair amount in common with Jackie, save of course for the latter’s occasional violent streak. Beyond the bodybuilding, both she and her character are queer and from the Midwest, and both pursued their dreams and found love along the way. (O’Brian and her wife have been married since 2020.) But while O’Brian mostly sees her character as a “puppy” in love, her rage does nearly come to define her by the end of the movie. At the very least, it leads her to commit a terrible act that she and Lou must scramble to cover up.
Still, O’Brian sees where that streak in her character might come from, given what little we know of her life and backstory.
“I think that we all have a little bit of that inside of us,” O’Brian said. At first, she referred to women and queer people, but then she took it back, noting that everyone goes through “shitty experiences,” although certain people are more prone to have them over and over and over again.
Katy O’Brian and Kristen Stewart.
“I don’t know any woman that hasn’t been harassed at a gym or maybe touched inappropriately, or something like that,” O’Brian said. “That builds up inside of you. I think that this is a character that that’s happened to so many times that this is just finally a little bit of a breaking point.”
While Jackie tends to be a livewire of emotion, we can tell from the beginning of their love story that Lou is holding something back. She’s cool, calculating, always watching and never quite in the moment. In the original script, O’Brian recalls, the couple’s dynamic was more abusive—Lou would have a breakdown and direct her anger at Jackie, who would do whatever she could to fix it. Usually, the solution would involve violence.
“She just wants her person to love her,” O’Brian said of her character. “She just wants the treat, the reward of that love. And Lou is this, like, lonely person who has the same old blasé life—over and over, every day is the same. She’s found somebody that excites her.” Drug use is a recurring theme throughout the movie, and while Jackie’s substance of choice is clearly steroids, Lou becomes a close second.
Stewart and O’Brian had to be vulnerable from the start as they developed their characters’ dynamic. They shot their intimate scenes first, with the help of an intimacy coach, so they had to find a way to get comfortable in record time, even when the set-ups were less-than-cozy.
Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian.
“One of the intimate scenes, we’re in the bedroom in this apartment, and it's 100 degrees,” O’Brian recalled. “I’m not exaggerating at all—we’re in New Mexico. It's 100 degrees. And they've put so many layers on me to separate me from her. It’s like tape, another thing, tape another thing. And then, I’m not even joking, a cut-out yoga mat. And then more tape. So anytime my pants come off, all of it flies off. So it’s just like this giant waste of tape and yoga mats. It's just, like, silly little moments like that where you’re like, ‘We’re in a movie.’”
As ridiculous as some of the set-ups might’ve been, O’Brian emphasized that Stewart was a breeze to work with on these scenes and made everything feel comfortable. She mostly just wanted to make sure that Stewart knew that she, too, could pull these scenes off without making things weird.
That said, sometimes weirdness is precisely what Love Lies Bleeding aims for. In the film’s unforgettable climax, Jackie actually grows into a giant woman to protect Lou from her conniving, rat-tailed father (played by a delightfully tacky Ed Harris). The moment could’ve skewed toward ridiculous, over-the-top violence, but instead, it unfolds as a sparkling, gorgeously lit moment of self acceptance
“Rose wanted it to be this breath of fresh air,” O’Brian said. “We didn’t want it to be this super violent, intimidating thing. We wanted it to be this woman who was so confident and self assured that she’s like, ‘I have arrived.’”
Actually filming the scene was another one of those laughable “I’m in a movie” moments for the actress, as she pretended to fight with a Ken doll that was meant to stand in for Ed Harris and tried to make it all look serious. “This is a big moment in the movie, but I’m playing with dolls and there’s no one else here and I’m half-naked,” she said with a laugh. “It was fun, though.”
As silly as the moment might’ve felt to stage, in some ways, it also might serve as something of a thesis statement for the film that contains it. “It’s this glam moment,” O’Brian said. “I’m self-actualized, love is what I’m going for, that’s all that matters, boom.” In that moment, 2024’s horniest movie flexes its muscles and sashays off the stage with its trophy.
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