In IFC’s Ghostlight, a blue-collar worker who is trying to manage his home life while dealing with personal tragedy discovers the theater. That’s it. That’s the whole conceit of the film.
But it’s the people and performances at the heart of Alex Thompson and Kelly O’Sullivan’s cinematic ode to the theater community that grabs you. Long-time theater and character Keith Kurferer plays Dan, said emotionally repressed man. He stars in the film with his real wife, Tara Mallen, and daughter, Katherine Mallen Kupferer, as his film family.
Dolly de Leon plays the siren pulling Dan into the depths of Chicago’s community theater scene. American audiences may know her from her dynamic turn in 2022’s Triangle of Sadness. Here she plays the touch exterior Rita, whose own dream of acting professionally full-time can only manifest itself in a small production of Romeo and Juliet.
I sat down with Kurfererm, Mallen, and Mallen Kupferer to talk about how their real dynamic comes out on the big screen and with de Leon on her connection to her character and what its was like jumping into the Chicago theater community.
Ghostlight is open in theaters now.
