'Sweetness' Director Emma Higgins and Star Kate Hallett Discuss Shaping Their Wild New Thriller
the duo talk developing the new, nuanced entry in the obsessed fan sub-genre
Sweetness feels like a small, perfect storm of rising Canadian talents. Director Emma Higgins has cut her teeth working as a music video director for prominent Canadian artists like Tegan & Sara, Jessie Reyez, and Marianas Trench, to name a few, and brings her background in the music world to her debut feature, Sweetness, a fun, nuanced riff on the likes of Misery, that follows a whirlwind series of events in which Peyton Adler, (Herman Tømmeraas) a heartthrob pop star struggling with addiction, finds himself in the care (and captivity) of his teen superfan Rylee, played by up-and-comer Kate Hallett (Women Talking) in a truly memorable first lead role. The film arrives with refreshing new, more modern nuances on familiar ideas of fandom, obsession and the chamber-piece thriller, a credit to Higgins’ screenplay and her ability to build tangible stakes through performance. The film premiered at the SXSW Festival in 2025 to acclaim, and is now headed for release in its country of production, Canada. Director Emma Higgins and lead Kate Hallett spoke with FilmSpeak about the process of creating the nuances of their new thriller film.
FilmSpeak: One key thing that I really love about this film is that it never feels engineered to have us feel one certain way. I think in a lesser film we would have seen Rylee try to scheme to get into this situation, being alone with her idol, but I think that the film is so strong because it builds character and tension through these incidental moments, and in a way that doesn’t outright judge Rylee in particular for acting the way she does with the whole Payton situation. I’m wondering how both of you worked to create and portray the dimensions of Rylee and how they grew into the version we see in the film?
Emma Higgins: I would say the contrast comes from what she’s doing versus her intention there too, so there’s this opposition. She’s got these sweet, beautiful intentions, this purity and this love behind it, but then, there’s this sort of sick, twisted [nature] of what her actions actually are, and they’re oil and water, they don’t mix, but they somehow both exist within this character, and it creates this really unique blend where people hopefully toggle back and forth between liking her and hating her.
Kate Hallett: For me, it was about making sure that I was pushing the fact that she felt justified in what she was doing, and that she just really had this true belief in everything, even if it didn’t exactly turn out the way she wanted it to. But yeah, just her conviction, I think, was really important.
FS: I feel like a film such as Sweetness, with all of its drastic turns, must have been really tough to map out in the way that you did, Emma, with these very neat subversion of subgenre cliches, and finding new niches to play with, such as the addiction subplot, or the idea of blended family and what that represents to the film’s emotional depth, so many elements like at play here. I’m wondering, if any, what were the biggest changes from the conception of Sweetness to the final film?
EH: The tone evolved in a lot of ways to just be a little more tongue-in-cheek and playful. I would say that the other thing that really evolved was how much of the story really becomes Rylee’s story. We had intended for it to be more of an ensemble in a lot of ways, and we kind of focused more and more on being this character study, and it was less about these auxiliary relationships with her dad, or her step-mom, or these other things going on, and really just about her, and her psychology. It just focused more.
FS: Kate, you do such a great job of playing the many sides of Rylee, including her fandom and devotion, which is grounded in what Floorplan’s music means to her. Where there any passions you drew upon from your life to inform Rylee’s genuine love for Floorplan’s music and messaging?
KH: Music is a huge passion for me, like I grew up kind of being obsessed with it, and it’s kind of been something that I felt is a way for me to really express my emotions truthfully, and it was kind of always representative of how I feel, that was kind of just the main thing.