Bryan Fuller, creator of the indelible Hannibal TV series, as well as Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls (co-created with Todd Holland), Pushing Daisies and more, has just directed his first feature film.
Dust Bunny, which Fuller also wrote, stars Hannibal’s Mads Mikkelsen as a hitman hired by his 10-year-old neighbor Aurora (Sophie Sloan) to slay the monster she believes ate her family. The hitman thinks Aurora’s kin were actually killed by assassins. Aurora thinks the hitman is blind to the supernatural truth.
Over a phone call, Fuller explains that Dust Bunny was developed as an idea for an episode of Apple TV’s Amazing Stories reboot. During this period, Fuller had conversations with Amazing Stories executive producer Steven Spielberg about “Who is this little girl, and why is this such an impactful point in her life, and how is she set up to learn new things about herself in the process of battling this monster?”
Then it occurred to Fuller that Dust Bunny might be better as a movie. “I loved the relative simplicity of the narrative that would allow for a greater, more in-depth exploration of some character nuance and dynamics. It was a perfect opportunity to tell an Amblin-style movie that is reflective of the movies that I loved to go to in the summers in the mid-’80s.”
Also, “It’s hard to create a monster that I don’t like, and this had a pretty big monster at its core, as well as a variety of ways to interpret that.”
As to how he decided to direct it, Fuller relates, “When it got to the point where it wasn’t moving along in the Amazing Stories process, it was kind of simultaneous that I was like, ‘I want to write this as a movie, and it feels like the right vehicle for a first-time director to be able to wrap my arms around it, and also tell a story with a certain amount of style.’”
It took five years to get Dust Bunny from conception to completion, with locations in Budapest, Hungary standing in for the story’s environment of Brooklyn, New York. Fuller says his lack of movie directing experience wasn’t a major factor. “It didn’t feel like it was a hard sell, given my work as a showrunner, who’s essentially the director of directors.”
Born in Lewiston, Idaho, and raised in Clarkston, Washington State, Fuller attributes his lifelong love of horror to always finding fictional murders entertaining, and, in real life, “also having an assistant Scoutmaster when I was a kid who was a serial killer.”
Come again? Since an arrest hasn’t been made, Fuller does not give the suspect’s name but reveals that there are documentaries about the case in the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley. The killing spree began in the 1970s. “Our paths crossed in the ’80s.” Insufficient forensics and non-cooperation between various police departments led to major delays in tracking the perpetrator. “I should say ‘allegedly,’ even though he’s currently under FBI investigation.”
The victims were mostly young women between the ages of 12 and 20. Has learning he was in proximity to a multiple murderer informed Fuller’s work?
“Not literally – I don’t want to be exploitative of people who lost their lives or their family members – but it’s definitely been an influence on my worldview, and probably, to a lesser extent, my love of horror.”
That love clearly informed Hannibal, where Fuller worked for all three seasons with Mikkelsen, who played the title role. Fuller is excited that Dust Bunny lets the actor show off new sides to the audience. “Hannibal is a very specific, controlled character, and the crazy neighbor of Dust Bunny is a little more modeled after Mads himself. He really is very boyish and charming, but at the same time, incredibly professional.”
Mikkelsen also proved an asset when it came to the stunt sequences. “Mads has had basically more stunt experience than anybody on the film, including the stunt team. There was a lot of collaboration with him, since he was doing a lot of his stunts himself. He became a translator of sorts for what needed to happen with stunt coordination. We could spend a Sunday afternoon plotting out stunt sequences with Bruce Lee action figures and miniature models of the set, filming those things, and showing them to the stunt team.”
Sigourney Weaver is another Dust Bunny lead. Fuller wanted her less because of Weaver’s genre icon status than because of his awareness of her comedy performances in plays by Christopher Durang.
“I’d been a fan of Christopher Durang’s cadence and wit in his playwriting,” Fuller says, “and because of this, I knew that Sigourney would have the comedy chops to not necessarily play the joke but play the character who wasn’t in on the joke. [She is] also the voice of the movie, in a way.”
As for Sophie Sloan as young protagonist Aurora, Fuller credits casting director Margery Simkin from winnowing thousands of auditions down to three finalists. “Sophie was wonderful from the get-go, but had a very thick Scottish brogue. She went off for two weeks, studied TikTok videos and came back with a perfect American accent.”
Fuller was happy to have the opportunity to direct Sloan in her first movie role. “What was wonderful about directing Sophie is that we both had about the same amount of experience of making a movie, which was none. And so, we got to play in a way that you’re just not at liberty to do with actors of experience, like Mads and Sigourney and David Dastmalchian and Sheila Atim and Rebecca Henderson, who’ve been doing this for a moment and are much more aware of how they are best able to do their job.”
For monster design, Fuller began by sitting down with comic book artist Jon Wayshak. “I said, ‘Are you interested in designing a monster that is part Highland cow, part hippopotamus, part piranha and all bunny?’
Once the design was finalized, “We gave them to the puppet makers at Legacy, who built the head, shoulders and arms of the bunny, who is very, very big.” The end result is a “combination of puppetry and CGI.”
There are other menaces as well, “everyday objects that take on a life of their own.”
Fuller believes Dust Bunny shares themes with his other work. “It is questioning your own reality and having people question your reality, what you perceive to be true to your heart and to your mind, as it does not necessarily reflect what is true in a shared reality with the rest of the people on the planet.”
What does Fuller most want people to know about Dust Bunny? “We set out to make a movie for kids and adults who still remember the kid in themselves. Even though we are an R-rated film, I believe that this movie should be seen by parents who can then determine if it’s appropriate for their children. I would love to see young people seeing this movie and hopefully being inspired by the hero that our 10-year-old protagonist becomes. There’s very little blood, [but] there is a lot of what I would describe as cartoon violence. If you like seeing monsters do their thing, you will see plenty of that.”
Dust Bunny is in theaters now; read Michael Gingold's review here. For even more on the film, check out our cover story available this winter.
