Back in January, Katarina Zhu’s buzzy film, Bunnylovr, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. As if that wasn’t an enormous feat, Zhu wrote, directed, and starred in it, alongside Rachel Sennott. Bunnylovr tells the story of Rebecca (Zhu), a Chinese American cam girl navigating a toxic relationship with one of her clients while simultaneously trying to rekindle her relationship with her estranged father, who is dying. Zhu’s inspiration for the plot stemmed from the necessity of bringing stories to life that resonated with her own, and while her character was grappling with some harsh realities, Zhu is currently hot on the heels of her next project.
So, as part of our ongoing series about muses that inspire our favorite artists, Zhu shared with us what drives her work.
Is there someone who has served as a muse for your work?
This is going to sound so vain, but, in a way, I do feel like my own muse. When I was in college, I studied acting, so I was auditioning for a bunch of stuff, and the stuff I was going out for wasn’t resonating with me. So, when I write, I’m just thinking of roles that I would want to see myself in.
I wrote my first role in my first feature for myself. I was drawing on my own experiences as inspiration. So, in that way, I do feel like I used myself for at least my first feature as a bit of a muse. But then, I almost feel like muses to me are the places that I’m in, the environments, and less like people. I’m so inspired by the city, and when I’m writing, I feel like the first thing that I start with is the place. New York City is my muse.
Can you expand a bit more on Bunnylovr?
It was really born out of a necessity. In terms of the process of actually writing it, I went away for three weeks and got a bad first draft out. From there, every morning, I would get up at 6 a.m. and write for a couple of hours, and then I would go to work. All in all, it took a year to finish the script. It was a pretty quick timeline.
Where did you escape to in those three weeks? Did you stay in New York?
No. My mom was living in Bali at the time, so she was like, “You should come to Bali.” I was only supposed to be there for about a week and a half, but my third day there, I stepped on a screw. So the trip had to be extended by a week and a half because I literally couldn’t walk. That sort of forced me to finish the draft of this first.
Is there a type of person in your life or a certain place that typically proves inspirational?
A lot of Bunnylovr takes place downtown, in Chinatown specifically. I would write every morning at this coffee shop in Chinatown, and then I would walk through Sara D. Roosevelt Park. It has this track where all of the old Chinese grannies are dancing and the grandpas are playing cards, so I would always try to spend a little bit of time there to absorb whatever was going on. It was very helpful and inspirational for the script, since I would pick up on all these little details of what the men were wearing and stuff like that.
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What’s the last photo in your camera roll that proved to be creatively inspirational?
A picture that I took of this picture. I’ve just started developing my next project, which is why I went back to my old Google doc for Bunnylovr. With every project, I start with a big Google doc where I can vomit things out on. Anytime you’re starting a project, it feels like you’re building from the ground up, like it’s the first time, every time. It was a nice reminder of, Yes, I’ve done this before. It’s very instinctual. I do know what to do. It’s about letting my instincts guide me. And that doc and that image were a reminder of that.
Is there a visual artist whose work you find particularly inspirational?
There’s this photographer that my director of photography and I were referencing a lot in terms of visual inspiration when we were shortlisting. Her name is Rinko Kawuchi, and she’s a Japanese photographer. She makes these really delicate and textural images. She does beautiful things with light, and some of them are quite abstract.
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What do you do when you feel you’re stuck creatively?
I really love to read interviews with other artists, specifically filmmakers. That always helps. When I’m feeling stuck, I love to just leave the thing and then totally immerse myself in something else — go on a walk, see friends, or something. The other thing is, if I’m feeling stuck, I think it’s because I usually feel like the soil isn’t fertile enough. And so I fertilize the soil by watching stuff or reading books, or absorbing and fertilizing. I think that is probably the thing that I do the most.
Any recent standout interviews?
I’ve been reading this website called Le Cinema Club. It has a bunch of short interviews with all types of filmmakers.
What are the films that you feel have inspired you the most?
I recently saw The Conversation, which is a Francis Ford Coppola film. It has a really amazing twist in it, and I want to incorporate a twist like that in my next film. That was really inspiring to me. Growing up, I think my favorite film was The Parent Trap. Amazing film. But one of my favorites of all time is American Honey by Andrea Arnold.
What do you love about it?
I love how sort of meandering it is. I love how it doesn’t have a cookie-cutter structure. I typically hate when movies are over 90 minutes, but I think it’s two and a half hours, and I could watch it if it had been even longer. I just love that film.
If you could describe your types of films or the things you want to convey in three words, which would you choose?
Raw, delicate, and freaky.
