On March 13, 1997, several mysterious lights appeared over Phoenix. Three teens went into the desert shortly after the incident, hoping to document the strange events occurring in their town. They disappeared that night and were never seen again. Now, on the 20th anniversary of their disappearance, unseen footage has finally been discovered, chronicling the final hours of their fateful expedition.
We had an opportunity to chat with Florence about the film. Check out the interview below.
Hi, Florence! We are excited to discuss “Phoenix Forgotten”. The film is directed by Ridley Scott and is based on true events. Tell us more.
Hi there! Ridley Scott was one of our producers, along with Mark Canton (of The Martian) and Wes Ball, who directed “The Maze Runner” trilogy – so we had a producing team of heavy hitters! It’s always so great to have that kind of support making a film like this which is made for a smaller budget – you know you have expert eyes helping you make the most of every dollar. Our director was a first-time feature director named Justin Barber – so keep looking out for that name, he’s going places! Justin also co-wrote the script with T.S. Nowlin (who wrote The Maze Runner movies too). The film is based on a real event – the largest-recorded UFO sighting in history, The Phoenix Lights. In 1997, hundreds of people witnessed mysterious lights floating in the sky over Phoenix. And that’s the starting point for our story.
What can you tell us about your character and role?
In the film, I play Sophie Bishop, a documentary filmmaker whose brother, Josh, went missing in 1997 (20 years before our film begins). Josh was looking for answers about the Phoenix Lights, and now Sophie is trying to unravel the mystery of his disappearance. It was a nice challenge to play such a tenacious person, whose focus is trained on unearthing a tragedy in her own life. That meant there was a lot of emotional depth to play with – and those are the kinds of roles I find really juicy.
What should the audience expect?
I think the audience should expect there to be a sci-fi/horror element to this film, but should also expect it to feel like a real documentary. The premise of the movie is that you’re wacthing the film my character has made about her missing brother – so it’s structured like a classic documentary, and there is this really interesting true-crime mystery feeling to it. I am really into that stuff – like Serial and S-Town and Making a Murderer so I think if you’re a fan of that kind of thing there’s something for you here too. We approached the shoot very much like a documentary – there was a great script, but we also did a lot of improv in pretty much every scene, so that element is always present. There are also a number of people in the film who aren’t actors, and we weave our narrative around osme of their real stories, which is an aspect of the film I think works well and is a bit different to other films I’ve seen.
What are your expectations for the film?
I try not to have expectations for the projects I do – I just hope people enjoy watching this little film we’ve made!
Have you ever had a UFO encounter?
I’ve never had an ET encounter and before I started working on this project. I had never even heard of the Phoenix Lights – I grew up in New Zealand, and I don’t think it made it to the news over there! I did watch the X-Files as a kid though – I think us 90s/2000s kids had a lot of aliens in our pop culture, so the UFO world was familiar to me!
Thank you for chatting with us about the film. Is there anything else you would like to add that we didn’t cover?
I have another sci-fi/horror project coming out soon – “Malevolent” which stars Morena Baccarin from “Deadpool”, William Shatner from “Star Trek” and Ray Wise from “Twin Peaks”. It’s kind of like “Groundhog Day” meets “Saw”, and it’s animated, so creating a character, especially one that ends up in perilous situations as my character Kelsey does, with only my voice was a fun challenge.
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Connect with Florence:
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0366746/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FloHasThoughts
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fl0bie
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/florencehartigan/
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