From T Magazine/ The New York Times Blog:
Agyness Deyn is the latest model trying to make the transition to acting, but she’s doing it via the art gallery rather than Hollywood. In “Mean to Me,” a visually sumptuous 12-minute film noir written and directed by David McDermott and Peter McGough, Deyn trades her gamine look for raven-hued finger waves and crimson lips — all the better to deliver a blow to the head of her lover (the “Law & Order” star Linus Roache), wrestle him into the bathtub, tie him up and extort a sizable check. Set in the Great Depression and named for a popular song of the era, the artist duo’s first scripted film chronicles the disastrous end of an affair. McDermott and McGough began collaborating 30 years ago, and capturing the essence of a time past has always been part of their work, so recreating the 1930s proved no challenge. Period-perfect down to its wallpaper, telephone and radio, McGough’s Art Deco Manhattan apartment provided the set. Deyn’s costumes, by Zac Posen, might as well be of that vintage. The Shalimar perfume and pearls, around which crucial plot points turn, were courtesy of Guerlain and Mikimoto, which underwrote the project. Deyn got the gig at the suggestion of McGough’s pal Louie Chaban, director of Women Management. “Peter asked for a girl who wanted to act,” Chaban says. And can she? McGough proclaims: “A star is born.”
