"The Bearded Girl" - Interview with Jody Wilson and Anwen O’Driscoll (2025 Fantasia International Film Festival)

Written by Andie Kaiser

The Bearded Girl is one of the most fun films I’ve seen at this year’s Fantasia Film Festival. Written and directed by Jody Wilson (and her first feature), it’s a charming coming-of-age fantasy. It’s full of circuses, cowboys, and complex female characters. The bearded girl herself is Cleo (Anwen O’Driscoll), who’s lived in the circus all her life and has been prepared by her mother to become the next bearded woman and act as matriarch of the community. But as Cleo gets older, she starts to wonder who she really is outside of this role, and she makes the decision to shave her beard and venture outside. What follows is a wonderfully quirky tale of self-discovery. It’s a film that’s sure of its own unique voice and style, with a sense of humour that never tries to obscure the real beating heart at its center. If you’re into magical realism, gorgeous shots of Canadian countryside, or glasses of milk (you’ll understand once you’ve seen it), The Bearded Girl will be right up your alley.

Following the film’s premiere at Fantasia, I caught up with writer/director Jody Wilson and lead Anwen O’Driscoll for a chat about the project.

Quotes have been shortened and lightly edited for clarity.

W SPOTLIGHT: Jody, what drew you to developing this project, and what has it been like so far?

WILSON: My two friends, Thiago [Gadelha] and Blake [Barrie], wrote an original story, and I used it almost like a reimagining of a fairytale, how I rewrote it and made it my own. The world was so enticin,g and I knew that I could use this palette for all the little nuances of character and life things that I wanted to talk about. What I set out to do for my first feature was tell a simple story well, instead of trying to tell a complex story badly, because that’s what happens a lot. I wasn’t setting out to make Tenet, you know, I wanted to have a more visceral subconscious reaction when people watch it, to feel like it’s an escape. 

W SPOTLIGHT: Absolutely. Anwen, what drew you to this character, and what were some of your favourite parts about being in the project?

O’DRISCOLL: I mean, I loved the project right off the bat. Even just seeing the name for the first time, I felt that I was already obsessed, even though I hadn’t read the script yet. And once I read it, I just really enjoyed how Jody brought colour and magic through such a beautiful, simple story and a simple message that’s so important for us to all hear and be reminded of.

I feel like I could relate to [Cleo] right away, with just finding problems within yourself and not necessarily feeling so safe and grounded when things are set up around you. You know, your family might have a plan for you or want you to take a career path, and you shut down in those moments… what do you do except run away and seek that outside validation?

W SPOTLIGHT: Complex female relationships were really at the centre [of the film], and I thought it was so great that these three family members were at the core, navigating their relationships. Jody, I’m wondering how centering those female characters played into the development of the story?

WILSON: Yeah, I think it was everything, really. I grew up in a family with sisters and just in a really girl environment all the time, and I think I wanted to show some dynamics that are kind of rarely shown. Because yeah, we’ve all seen the story of the overbearing mom who wants her daughter to follow the family, like I didn’t reinvent the wheel with that storyline. But the complexity is, if I was really honest about the [mom] character, to me she’s bipolar, she’s very insecure, she didn’t have any love from her own mother. 

There’s also a lot of underlying sexual stuff of how these men see the bearded women, like fetishize [them]. And I didn’t want to go too deep into that, but little lines like “ready perverts, come on” [are] little things that convey [it].

W SPOTLIGHT: I love that you mentioned these little moments where you get insights, I mean there’s the dialogue, but then there’s the physical stuff. So Anwen, I’m wondering if that was something you talked about at all, how the beard (or lack thereof) would inform how Cleo is moving through the world?

O’DRISCOLL: You know how people use the term “a beard” as in a mask? I feel like when she was coming to her late teenagehood— Jody and I have talked about her being twentyish— around that point, it starts to feel like that kind of beard-metaphor to her. Because this kind of life is set up for her, and this is a showpiece, and it’s for people to come see to gawk at. It’s not about her talents and her ideas, it’s this mantle thing that she’s carrying, and it has nothing to do with her, so it just feels like she has no freedom.

When she shaves it off, there are so many different feelings; it’s very layered. Of course, there’s a little bit of fear, but I also think she feels like she has a newfound freedom. When she’s going out into the world, I wanted to make her— not, like, calculated— but kind of looking how to act like a human. Because this is an entirely different universe to her, she’s not been out here, and she’s only ever heard bad things from the community, so [she’s] just kind of going around feeling a little bit like an alien learning how to be a “normal human” and copying certain things people do.

W SPOTLIGHT: Because even when she doesn’t have the beard, it impacts so much how she’s moving through those social relationships.

O’DRISCOLL: It’s all very new and exciting [with Blaze], and then obviously there’s the fallouts in the end. And Josephine comes and is trying to bring her back, and it’s her way of saying I love you. And that’s where Cleo really realised that she needs to come home to herself and this space is not safe for her because she’s doing the exact same thing that she was doing in the community when she had the beard. It’s the same situation exactly. 

WILSON: [Blaze] didn’t know anything about her. We intentionally made it so he never asked her a question about herself. They didn’t really have this deep connection, you know, she felt she just got chosen for once in her life. So it’s always something outside of who she is, that people were interacting with. And that never really solved itself until she, like [Anwen] says, came back to herself. 

And it’s nice for people to know that at any age, you know? Sometimes people expect these stories to only be like “oh, she’s eighteen.” I’ve been figuring stuff out my whole life, it’s not something that ends when you become an adult, you’re always figuring out about yourself and what you’re comfortable with yourself about until you die, hopefully, right?

W SPOTLIGHT: As more audiences see it, what are you hoping people take away from the film?

WILSON: I would love for it to be something that is a nice experience for them. I hope that it has enough space in it where you can feel deep feelings with it, or you can just veg out and watch the beauty of it and feel nice from the visuals and the aesthetic of it. It’s like a little cell, really, I just want people to watch it and feel good when they watch it.

O’DRISCOLL: I hope people are inspired to create their own art after watching it because the entire project and filming felt like Jody just made a really fun playground and we all got to go a little bit wild and weird and quirky with everything. I go through gaps where I don’t draw or do any sort of art but after this I was very inspired, and could see colour and I feel like Jody’s very inspiring that way. I hope it sparks joy for people’s artistic sides.