The story of Lola James, a 19-year-old girl struggling to make enough money to move her gender-nonconforming sibling out of their abusive mother’s home, started as a writing exercise in Nicola Peltz Beckham’s journal over half a decade ago.
The actor has long made a habit out of penning character studies in the privacy of her own journal, showing these entries only to Nancy Banks, her acting coach since age 15. “When I am the actress, that’s how I prepare for the character,” Peltz Beckham explains to Harper’s Bazaar. “I make an entire backstory of that person’s life.”
Eventually, this ritual became a launching pad for her own larger creative ambitions. Real-life inspiration struck, with Banks’s son (who is Peltz Beckham’s godson) serving as the inspiration for an original character called Arlo. “I just sat down. I was like, ‘I’m just going to try this. I’m not going to tell anyone. Just gonna do it for myself,’” Peltz Beckham says. “Then, the story just kind of came.”
The fruits of her labor ultimately became Lola, an indie drama that fully showcases her triple-threat status as the film’s titular star, screenwriter, and director. Dropping February 9, the film also marks Peltz Beckham’s directorial debut.
“I never planned on directing it,” she says. “I always wanted to direct—I think it’s such an incredible craft and so fascinating—I just never thought Lola would be my first job directing.” She credits the movie’s producer, Will McCance, for encouraging her to take the leap. “I always was like, ‘I want a female director. I want to find a woman to direct this.’ I really think it has to have that feminine eye and just a specific outlook on the film.”
Lola is an early-’00s tale playing out in the sprawl of Los Angeles suburbia. The film is sure to leave a strong aesthetic impression, particularly for fans of Sofia Coppola’s filmography, with seedy urban vignettes transformed into saccharine eye candy under Peltz Beckham’s direction.
“I really wanted light colors, pastels. My producer, Will, was like, ‘I am going to get some red in this movie,’” she laughingly recalls, before pointing to the “unbelievable” work of the movie’s set decorators, Brittany Porter and Megan Genova. “They’re so, so, so talented. They transformed these little areas of L.A. to feel like early-2000s pastel corners of the world. And I was just like, ‘Oh my God, you’re giving me heaven right now.’”
But don’t let the pastels fool you. Peltz Beckham’s delicate visual style serves as a kind of sugarcoated Trojan horse—appealing imagery that allows her to surreptitiously usher heavy topics into the story, from child abuse and grief to sexual assault and sex work.
“I know the context is more intense and the story is more intense, so I wanted what you were watching to be the complete opposite,” she explains. “I wanted it to feel feminine and light and [like] how Arlo looks at the world—just soft. So if it’s on in the background and it’s muted, it’s almost calming.”
Tenderly played by Luke David Blumm—whose acting credits include 2022’s Where the Crawdads Sing and 2020’s The King of Staten Island—Arlo is the beating heart of the movie. Peltz Beckham stars opposite the 14-year-old as older sister Lola, who works at both a drugstore and a strip club, attempting to save enough money to send Arlo to an art camp—far away from their zealously religious mom, Mona (Virginia Madsen).
“I really didn’t want [Luke] to ever feel like he was in a scene with his director or anything like that. I always wanted him to feel like I was his big sister,” Peltz Beckham says. “We spent a lot of time before filming creating that relationship. We painted our toes together; we made bracelets. We got to spend good bonding time together. And I’m so grateful for that time, because I feel like it really gave us that connection that we needed to film this movie.”
Fostering a secure environment for her lead child star was of the utmost importance to Peltz Beckham, who herself has been a working actor since she was 12. “I just wanted to create a really safe space for him,” she says. “I think it is so important for actors to feel comfortable on set, and especially kids. I mean, just so there’s no pressure for them to feel like they need to hit a certain note or cry in the scene. I think if you pressure someone, then it’s forced and it won’t get there naturally.”
Despite spending years working on Lola’s script, Peltz Beckham is no text purist; she knows making a good movie goes beyond what is delineated on the pages. It’s an attitude that instructed her direction of the other cast members, too, including Richie Merritt, Trevor Long, and Raven Goodwin (who plays Lola’s best friend, Babina, a character based on Peltz Beckham’s own real-life best friend, Angela).
“I definitely told everyone on set, I was like, ‘Listen, if there is ever a line that [feels] unnatural, or you feel you don’t want to say this, or you want to word it differently, do not stick to my words. Just come tell me what feels better for you,’” Peltz Beckham says. “I honestly think that they knew the characters so well, and they’re all so talented that I wanted to let them do their thing.”
Leaving the door open for improv ultimately made each role feel more authentically lived-in. In one example, Mona ends an encounter with a passive-aggressive churchgoer at Bible study by irritably ripping a bite off of her God-themed doughnut—an off-the-cuff choice made by Madsen.
“I wanted all my actors to follow their instinct on something,” Peltz Beckham says. “A lot of the scenes, a lot of the takes—those are the ones I picked. There’s just teeny little moments that happened [where] I was just so grateful that they did that.”
This idea of “putting the film first” guided Peltz Beckham’s entire experience on set. “Something can be beautifully written, but sometimes on the set or on the day, it may not be the way that you thought [it would be], and you can make that decision to make the film better and just always put the film first,” she says. “When you’re the director, writer, and the actor, you can’t be making decisions that are [just] better for the script or better for Lola, you know what I mean? The most important thing is to put the film first, and then everything else will follow.”
Lola comes out February 9 through Vertical Entertainment.
