The austerity of celebrity ‘stan’ culture has become more stringent and divisive than ever before. If you dare wade into the choppy waters of the Rihanna-aligned “Navy,” the swarm of the “Bey-hive,” or the boutique of “Barbz,” with anything besides glowing praise, you’re liable to find yourself the target of online harassment.
This form of tribalism has become commonplace in society, making it the perfect subject matter for former GQ editor Mark Anthony Green to undertake.
Green’s tension-driven directorial debut, OPUS, stars Emmy-winner Ayo Edebiri as a bright-eyed and overlooked journalist presented with a dream opportunity: join a gaggle of press on the compound of mysterious pop icon Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich) for an exclusive listening party. But something isn’t quite right, and as oddities mount and disappearances grow, a once in a lifetime experience becomes a mystery to uncover Moretti’s vaguely nefarious cult.
OPUS prods at the absurd nature of celebrity, evoking the likes of Madonna and Kanye West in it’s mythos building of Moretti. Yet, it leaves some meat on the bone in exploring this theme, and doesn’t derive a definitive conclusion. This positions OPUS as a genuine driver of conversation, but can leave general audiences lost on where to go with it. It’s a fascinating and, at times, head-scratching A24 film. That may have been intentional, with Edebiri’s brilliantly acted character of Ariel Ecton serving as a proxy for the audience, with her facial expressions often mirroring the viewer’s while the rest of the cast acts as everything is normal. Through every jaw-dropping moment, Ecton also reflects the plight of the black professional, often unheard and disregarded – until it’s too late.
Green sat down with me to discuss the themes of OPUS, and the origin’s of his first feature. The full conversation has been edited down for clarity.
Brandon Pope: First of all, I know you’ve got tons of ideas in that head of yours. Why was this the first to take from thought to theater?
Mark Anthony Green: I just think that tribalism, it’s made life so divisive. It’s made culture so splintered. And when I started writing this six years ago, I didn’t know that it would be more relevant today. And it’s much bigger than just entertainment. So I really wanted to, I don’t know, it just seemed like there was a fun way to interrogate this. Sometimes there’s not a fun way to interrogate it. And that’s not really my strength, because I’m a smart ass and I like to have fun. I think that there should be a lot of honey with the medicine. And for this one, we found a very fun approach to have hopefully a pretty serious conversation.
Pope: It brought the laughs, and you got the perfect actress for that with Ayo Edebri. How important was getting her to commit to this?
Green: It was very important. I mean, for every actor, it’s important for them to commit. But I think that there’s kind of a misconception about actors that they are so focused on their careers or so focused on a public perception and that they’re not artists. They read a script and if they believe in it, they want to do it, they can see themselves doing it. That’s how 99% of actors make their choices. And the great ones, that’s how they always make their choices. And Ayo is, for sure, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the greats. She read it and she was committed to what the film says and that character separate from any opinion or thought that I have. And then you get the fun part of working together and figuring out, okay, how do we get the most out of this? How do we push this forward and direction and all that. But yeah, the greats, the easiest thing in the world is them being committed. They’re dedicated to the craft and to whatever story they’re on to tell.
Pope: I’ve seen this movie described as a horror. I’ve seen it described as a thriller. I’ve heard you say you do not want it to be called an elevated horror.
Green: I hate that. Absolutely. What is elevated?
Pope: I see it as more of a P.O.V style of film. It’s not filmed traditionally in that style from the central character’s vision, but the character does serve as sort of a proxy for the audience in her relatability in contrast to the rest of the ensemble.
Green: The pacing of the film is one of the things I’m the most proud of, and it’s a challenge to the audience, right? And part of the reason I chose to pace this film that to not murder somebody in the first five minutes is to put you in Ariel’s world. I wanted you to see her at work, and I wanted you to see her at home. I wanted you to go on that date with her. I wanted her problem to be something that you feel, but I also wanted you to stop and to walk with her through the office so you see how she carries herself. And that was severely important to me. It was important to me that this be an intelligent Black woman whose shoulders we put this entire film on, and her P.O.V., even down to some of the trickier camera stuff where we’re constantly looking around a corner, it’s like a very savvy, intuitive human being’s approach to a spooky situation. And so I love when I hear somebody like yourself say that, because my goal is for you to experience this film through her eyes, with the Prada dress on, the pubes clean. You know what I’m saying? I want you to go through this thing with her, and let her take you all the way through this journey.
Pope: I think about how Ariel, she’s the only Black woman character, really the only Black character central to the narrative, and she’s the only one that seems to be yelling out, hey, something is messed up here, listen to me. And people were dismissing her, limiting her, felt kind of triggering and kind of relevant to today, to be honest.
Green: It’s part of the original intention in creating the story. Black women are often not listened to. Black women always vote in a way that I’m proud of. But then are kind of the least considered when the promises are coming out, right? There’s like an invisibility that must be very frustrating to Black women, and there’s invisibility that can be relatable to all of us. You could be a young person, a queer person, a woman, you know, any person that doesn’t have the kind of ear and power in a situation where you’re speaking up and people won’t listen to you. But I think that that feeling, unfortunately, is something that Black women feel criminally too often. I hope Black women watch OPUS and they kind of see that that’s not only being acknowledged, but it’s part of it without being some kind of heavy-handed film about race. It’s not a film about racism, though, you know, it’s written and directed by a Black man, stars a Black woman, produced by Black people, Black people made the songs (Niles Rogers and The Dream contributed three original songs). That, to me, I think is one thing, one that I’m extremely proud of because of how rare that is in Hollywood, but also I think that is why it feels original and fresh, you know?
Pope: You mentioned the Black artists for the music. Right away when the film started, I heard Maggot Brain, which is one of my all-time favorite songs!
Green: You know ball, Brandon! I like that song, and the through line is something I think you’ll appreciate, some nerdy shit. I wanted to experiment with Black, alt-cool kid music. So it starts with Maggot Brain, which, to me, George Clinton is like the godfather of this thing. Then you have a Lenny Kravitz cameo, you have Nile Rodgers and Dream doing the songs, and then it ends with “TV on the Radio,” right? And that just felt like, I don’t think anyone cares about that but me. Why were those songs chosen, in addition to emotionally them fitting where we are in the story? I just felt like, making a film is so deeply personal, it’s why it feels so good when people react to it. And it hurts when they don’t, because it is such a personal art form. That song means so much to me.That’s one of my favorite songs ever, I begged and pleaded for them to let us clear the song for the little bit of money that we had, begged, pleaded, and I’m so honored that the movie starts that way. So yeah, shout out to George Clinton, man, shout out to Parliament.
Pope: Moretti, what a character he ended up being. Look, you kind of talked about tribalism a little bit, but with the Moretti angle, what does all this say about celebrity “stan” culture? I’m a survivor of the “Barbz” and other passionate fandoms. It’s not unfamiliar to what we see today.
Green: I just found that conversation very interesting to dive into, especially when you compare that, and parallel that to tribalism. We get tribal about a lot of things, but usually it’s pop culture, and our artists especially. I chose pop music because, again, I knew that my brand of creativity and art is fun, and I wanted the medicine to have this enjoyable ride factor to it. That’s why I chose music and pop music in particular. The “stan” culture, I’m glad that you survived the “Barbz”, that is such a lower stakes, but borderline violent, visceral phenomenon that we are just accepting, that you can dislike a song, dislike an album, and now there are strangers that are operating in a way as if there are no consequences, and they will really try to harm you. That just is new. I’m 36. My parents never had to deal with something like that. My dad could say, “I don’t like Al Green,” and the Al Green hive didn’t try to ruin, or get him fired from his job. I don’t believe in that, and I don’t believe in it in entertainment, and I don’t believe in it above that. I don’t think that my guy is bigger than your guy, and therefore better than your guy, and you are always wrong, or my guy is always right. I don’t believe in any of that, and I think that it is taking nuance away from cultural discussions like this one, and you don’t get to have conversations that are honest and real, because that shit is scary, and I wouldn’t publicly say something bad about Nicki Minaj. I’m not saying that I have something bad to say, but I wouldn’t. You feel me? I just am like, cool. I think it’s making culture worse, and it is making us more divided and more splintered, and I don’t know what we’re getting. I don’t know what the trade-off is. I don’t think that there’s a positive, and I’m hoping that in OPUS, people have a ton of fun watching it, but these are the type of questions that I hope we ask after the film.
Pope: How did your time as a journalist inform your perspective with OPUS?
Green: I think that it’s less about my perspective and more about the type of skills you get as a journalist, as you know, right? The curiosity, the thorough researching. There’s like an approach. I think journalists are superheroes, and there’s a way. There are, you know, critics and people that have, they read and take OPUS as a criticism on critics and a criticism on journalists, and it’s not my job to tell them how to receive this movie, nor is it my wish to tell them how to receive this movie. OPUS is your OPUS. However you take it, you take it, right? And I believe in everything this film says, but I also want to make it clear that Marc Anthony doesn’t believe, nor do I receive this film as a criticism on critics or a indictment of journalism or media, because I don’t, I just don’t feel that way. Like I did that job proudly for 13 years. If there’s blood on your hands, there’s definitely blood on mine. You know, I did that for more than a third of my life, so I don’t, I, to me it feels very obvious that I am a past an advocate. I am in the family, and that’s important to me, and you know, I don’t think that I have some like special P.O.V because I profiled famous people in this thing that we all are experiencing and feeling. I’m sure that a lot of the dynamics and the specifics of the actual journalism in the film are accurate because I did the job. But again, like I said the other night in Chicago, like you know, Spike Lee knows basketball, so he got game, has accurate basketball, but the movie’s not about basketball. And you know, that’s how I feel. And I’m grateful every time and proud every time somebody says that I worked at GQ for 13 years.
Opus premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 27, 2025. Opus was theatrically released by A24 on March 14, 2025.
Brandon Pope is an Emmy-winning Anchor/Reporter at WCIU-TV and contributor to Creative Cypher News. @bpopetv
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