Nicolas Winding Refn talks leaning into genre and unreality in ‘Her Private Hell’ 4%
By Sammie Purcell2%
7/24/2026, 1:01:00 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 5 faulty reasoning types, including Hasty Generalization, Overconfidence Bias, and Appeal to Emotion, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 7.8% saturation with 188 hits. Analysis detected 448 faulty-reasoning hits from 2,407 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 18.5% and a BS Rank of 4% (20,356 of 21,187 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 96.10% of the article peer group.
In the lead up to the release of his new film “Her Private Hell” – his first film since 2016’s “The Neon Demon” – filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn has spoken extensively about a near-death experience that he says left him dead for 25 minutes during heart surgery.
That experience left him reeling, he said, and filled him with a desire to return to the world of filmmaking, and make a movie like he’d never made before.
“Her Private Hell” is that movie.
In a lot of ways, it shares DNA with Refn’s previous films like “The Neon Demon,” “Only God Forgives,” and “Drive” – Refn has never been one for traditional structures of storytelling.
But in “Her Private Hell,” he takes that as far as he can, endeavoring to create a swirling kaleidoscope of genre and form – combining melodrama with horror, opera with film, and classic with modern sensibilities.
The film is a triangle of sorts, with three different corners coming together to form the thrust of the story.
We have Elle (Sophie Thatcher), an actress navigating a set of bizarre relationships with a new costar (Kristine Froseth) and her former lover (Havana Rose Liu) – who has since married her filmmaker father (Dougray Scott).
On what appears to be a separate plane of existence we have Private K (Charles Melton), a GI looking for his missing daughter.
Connecting these two worlds is the Leather Man – a glamorously-clad serial killer who likes to smash women’s heads to bits.
Ahead of the film’s release on July 24, I spoke with Refn about the making of the film.
Topics of discussion include his experience watching “Riverdale” and the importance of music to his process.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I’ve heard you discuss “Her Private Hell” as these three separate ideas that started to connect together, and it got me thinking, your films are always a little less traditionally structured than others.
I was curious about your approach to screenwriting.
Where do these ideas usually come from, and what is your approach to putting them all together?
Nicolas Winding Refn: Well, I don’t really have any skills.
But I learned quite early that if I could transform myself into the object, meaning that if I could create narrative based on what I feel and then turn myself into the canvas, that would become my skill.
So everything I do is based on what I want to feel, and then I’ll create a story around that, and then build some form of narrative to kind of create an infrastructure on how to tell the story.
But then I shoot in chronological order, so everything is always able to change, depending on how I feel.
What were you looking to feel when you started work on “Her Private Hell?”
NWR: It’s not so much what I’m looking [to feel].
It’s just when I wake up each morning.
It changes based on the day.
NWR: Yeah, pretty much.
Which is why, in “Her Private Hell,” I wanted everything – all kinds of genres in one.
It’s funny you bring up the genre thing, because one of the things that struck me in particular was the score.
And then I saw who the composer was, and I was like – oh, well, that’s why.
But I liked it quite a bit, and it really brought up this feeling of melodrama, and it’s very swoony in some parts.
I was curious if you could talk about your inspirations with that and your collaboration with Pino Donaggio.
NWR: Well, it was the first movie I made where I didn’t have the sound in my mind, I didn’t know what the music would be like.
Prior, I’d always worked with people from pop music or commercial music.
So this was kind of a new arena for me.
But because of the theme of the film, and what was going on visually as well and what the film was about, I came to realize it’s very operatic, because I built everything on stages from the very beginning.
Because the three ideas were Private K, and a young girl coming to a city that doesn’t exist – both artificial, artificial surroundings – and the Leather Man being a glam monster.
All that was very operatic.
I was like, I think I’ve come to realize I am going to make an opera.
And to do that, I needed to find a composer that understood film music and opera.
So you go to Italy.
All the Italians of film music that we would talk about, they’re all dead.
Except Pino Donaggio.
I obviously admired his work and used his work as inspirational music over the last 30 years, and obviously loved the collaboration he had done with previous directors.
I asked if he was interested in writing an opera, and he said he always wanted to write an opera.
He was in retirement, in a certain way.
He was like, mid-80s.
So he came out and I said, “You know, you’re gonna die soon.
So it’s time to write your requiem.”
Yeah, it’s magnum opus time.
NWR: And he found that kind of funny [laughs].
He said his first director to work with ever was Nicholas Roeg on “Don’t Look Now.”
So I guess he’s gonna die by Nicolas Refn.
I found that funny.
So then we became friends.
And I said to him, “Listen.
I’m betting everything on you.”
When you make an opera, you make the music first.
But here, reverse engineer it.
I did everything but the music.
I said to him, “I’m basically going into a casino and betting everything on black on one chip.”
Because this music is what’s going to tie this entire film together.
Music is going to be the bloodline that’s going to turn through the veins of the body of this film, and tie it in with a neat bow and a lot of glitter.
You say you can usually hear the music in your head, so it’s interesting this time having to go to him without having that.
Was that a weird experience for you?
Is music usually something that you can take as inspiration when you’re writing or starting to direct?
NWR: Yeah, everything is music.
I don’t know how to play music.
I don’t know how to sing, so I have no musical talent.
But I very much use music as access to higher emotions, or to find everything.
But I knew I wanted to make it into an opera, and obviously I knew Pino’s work, so it became very clear.
This is just what I was thinking about when I was watching the film – and I don’t have kids, but I believe you do.
This movie felt a lot about the terror of having a child.
You’ve got Charles Melton’s character and he’s searching for his child.
The whole construct of the Leather Man in general is very tied to children.
And Sophie Thatcher’s relationship with Havana Rose Liu is very tenuous, to say the least.
So, I’m curious, what was on your mind when you were writing this?
NWR: Well, the father/daughter is a complex.
A great many books have been written about it, like a great many books have been written about boys and their mothers.
In a grounded way, you can say that Sophie Thatcher’s character has a father who is always leaving her.
He’s almost like a Greek god to her, and now he married her lover, who’s becoming her stepmom.
So I think she has a lot of emotions.
A lot of feelings about that, understandably.
NWR: And so she creates, in a way, a surrogate father in her imagination, which is Private K, who is the father we all aspire to be.
All men aspire to be that father that we fantasize about, but the reality is will never be.
Yeah, Charles Melton – Private K – he has a very 50s, matinee idol kind of style.
It’s obviously very classic Hollywood, and I wanted to talk a little bit with you about your connection with movies like that.
Obviously, this is a little bit of a different era, but the movie that Sophie Thatcher and Havana Rose Liu are making feels very “Barbarella”-esque.
What is your relationship with old Hollywood movies, and how were you thinking about incorporating that in?
NWR: I love old Hollywood.
I love the melodramas.
I love the horrors and the sci-fi’s and the actions.
I wanted all those genres in “Her Private Hell.”
I also wanted the camp, the kitsch, and sex and violence, because that’s obviously the ground zero for all creativity – desires.
But I love old Hollywood, and I especially love the melodramatic components.
I love the fantasy world.
I love the unreality, more and more.
When I was younger, I was attracted to a certain authentic aggression that comes with everything being real.
But I learned that it’s just an illusion, and unreality is far more interesting because it has no boundaries.
What do you think that switch was for you?
How did that evolve?
NWR: I just realized I could never fully make it real.
It would always just be a movie.
I love so many of the actors in this movie, and it’s interesting, but I’ve seen so many movies like this recently, where I’m like – these are all people who are now serious actors who have come from my childhood.
Charles Melton is a great example – he was entertaining on “Riverdale,” but I could have never foreseen this type of trajectory for him.
I’m curious if you could talk a little bit about the casting.
Was anyone harder to pin down than anyone else, were any characters difficult to find the right actor for?
How was that process?
NWR: Well, we casted for a year, so it was a very long process.
I think Bright/Daniels [Casting] saw around 10,000 submissions.
There were some wonderful people in that group, but there was never the one.
It’s a feeling – you’ve gotta feel like, “You’re the one.”
We were getting closer to the production date, and then Sophie Thatcher came out of the blue.
First for a meeting – I wanted to meet her, and then she would audition.
But the minute I met her, I was like, “It’s you.”
In a similar way I had with Carey Mulligan on “Drive.”
Someone just asked me about that – it was kind of the same situation.
The minute she walked through the door, I just knew, it’s her.
And then I could combine Havana and Kristine [Froseth], who I had previously met and had auditioned, who I really liked – but I couldn’t really connect them yet until I knew what the top of the triangle would look like.
She was very essential.
So once Sophie was in play, it was like that part of the film was now kind of locked.
And I could cast the father and Diego [Calva] afterwards.
But with Charles, it was a different situation.
As we were casting for all the girls, we were also casting for Private K.
And even though I met some great actors, there was no one that ever clicked, where you were like – again – you’re the one.
But one day, I was watching “Riverdale.”
My youngest daughter, who was a little late to the “Riverdale” fan club, but was obsessed with it.
Still is, and has seen multiple seasons – like, almost has become friends with the characters.
She was [telling me], I had to watch some of this, this was the greatest show.
I was like, okay, okay.
We have a deal where I show her something, she shows me something, so we can educate each other.
The season that we watched was – “Riverdale” takes place in the 50s?
I can’t remember.
It jumps around.
There are some supernatural elements.
NWR: This one was really groovy.
Charles comes on the screen, and he has all this slicked back hair.
He looked like a matinee idol.
He looked like something out of a movie from the early 50s, and I was like – that’s him.
There he is.
Now it was about, how do I get him out of the television and into the movie?
I reached out and had no idea if he wanted to make something like this.
But he happily agreed, and then everything fell into place.
Because casting is half the work.
Can you elaborate a little bit on that?
NWR: When you have the right cast, you have the people that will relay the emotions that will be compelling for the audience to look at.
Because you have to look, and sometimes for a very long time.
[Laughs] So you would want something that is intriguing to you that can project emotions and story.
You have to be very careful, because wrong casting can destroy a movie completely.
The right casting can save a mediocre movie.
I feel like when I think about your films, and “Her Private Hell” is included in this, I just think of really great faces.
You brought up Carey Mulligan earlier, and I remember watching “Drive” – and I’d seen her before, I’d seen “An Education” and movies like that – but I remember the first time she smiled and how her face lit up, and that is my enduring memory from your films – just great faces.
I think you have a real eye for that.
NWR: It’s finding that moment between people and looking at what’s behind the eyes.
What’s the spark?
But I’ve been very fortunate to work with some great actors in very specific moments.
And Sophie Thatcher, she has another one of those faces where it’s hard to look away.
NWR: Oh well, she is like an old-fashioned movie star.
She’s something out of a movie from the 40s.
She has this ability to transport your voyeuristic senses into somewhere else, and you just want to follow her.
You just want to look at her.
Elle Fanning is a similar way.
NWR: Elle Fanning.
They’re very unique gifts.
You can’t teach them.
It’s unfair – some people get it, and some people don’t.
But that’s just the inequality of life.
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