
Amanda Kramer’s surreal and audacious By Design explores envy through the aesthetics of an immaculately designed chair. Juliette Lewis stars as Camille, a woman whose envy of a beautifully crafted chair propels her into an unexpected body-swap journey with the object itself.
Through evocative lighting, expressive choreography, and George Gershwin’s timeless melodies, Kramer crafts a visually arresting dramedy that interrogates themes of self-worth, societal expectations, and the tension between beauty and utility.
“As I grow and get older, I want to continue to evolve and do things that are out of my comfort zone,” Lewis says. “I know we hear actors say that a lot, but the point is, I hope this is the first of many Amanda Kramer projects.”
By Design, which premiered Thursday on the first day of Sundance, has more screenings through February 1. MovieMaker spoke with Kramer and Lewis about George Michael, Béla Tarr, and their differing influences on By Design.
Kramer rhapsodizes about Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct—comparing it to the Sistine Chapel, while Lewis explains how the character she plays in her other Sundance movie, Opus, is a reversal from her performance in By Design.
Joshua Encinias: As a viewer, I recognize that Amanda loves actors. Will you talk about how actors help create your style of moviemaking?
Amanda Kramer: I come from a theater background, so I know how much you owe to an actor. It’s such a sight to behold when they become the character you created. To me, that’s the magic of movies, f— everything else. There’s nothing like the immediate sensation of watching an actor open their mouth and transform into a different person.
Also Read: Please Baby Please Director Amanda Kramer on Exploring Gender in an Icy Stronghold of Manliness
In order to impress actors, I want to write for them, write to them, and create lines that excite and allure them to perform. When we get to set, I want all my teams to work like a fastidious machine so the actors can fall apart, lose, win, and learn without distractions.
Joshua Encinias: Juliette, how did you meet Amanda?
Juliette Lewis: I was a fan of hers and her wild sensibility as a filmmaker. We had a general meeting and then she said I might have something for you. Because Amanda, from what I gather, is always writing five different things at once. Her mind is just magical. And so she had something for me and it just so happened that it moved me so much. On the page, By Design is so strange and wonderful, but actually super poignant. It pierced me right in the heart.
Joshua Encinias: Would you say you’re giving a silent performance in the movie? Did you look to any silent performers, mimes, etc for inspiration?
Juliette Lewis: Well, you’re right. That’s totally it, because early on it reminded me of silent performance. But I looked no further than myself in that a lot of the performances that people know me from don’t always have a lot of dialogue. It makes me a very physical performer and I’m used to using the space around me in a performance, but this was extreme.
Joshua Encinias: Amanda likes to work with actors who want to take risks. Have you ever worked with someone who you thought was game but wouldn’t go to the places you wanted?
Amanda Kramer: It’s rare, but it’s happened. I don’t do traditional auditions. I don’t like them and I hate self-tapes. I hide behind my fingers when I watch one because I feel their vulnerability too much and it overwhelms me. I prefer meeting actors in person and have a drink or coffee. I know this is a goofy thing to say, but I always know when I see them if they’re going to “get” it. If they get my humor, if we have a good banter, or if we’re simpatico and there’s synergy, I know everything will be okay on set.
Joshua Encinias: Juliette, what was it like giving a silent performance while your co-stars spoke Amanda’s dialogue?
Juliette Lewis: Oh, my God, I’m in love with all my co-stars. One of the hardest jobs in this movie was not to react and do nothing with all these gifted performers around me. Robin Tunney and Samantha Mathis’s performances were so fun and funny to watch as her concerned friends. I had to not do anything.
But even in not doing things, some scenes are incredibly moving and I still wanted to emanate how alive Camille’s feeling, or how in love, or how lost. I wanted to somehow showcase that. But at the same time, do less was my note to myself. We wanted Amanda’s eyes to be open because otherwise, she’d look like she was asleep all the time.
It was a big challenge for me to, ultimately, do nothing and let the world around me do the talking. For Amanda and me, it was our subversive pleasure to have me do nothing. I loved it. I came up in dance and performance art as a kid, and I felt like this movie allowed me to use my modern jazz and ballet training that lives in my DNA somewhere. I have no idea what it looks like because I haven’t seen the movie.
Joshua Encinias: It’s like a David Lynch movie in that you have to give yourself to its aesthetic and vision. If you don’t, you might want to want to turn it off.
Juliette Lewis: [Laughs.] That’s great! That’s how Amanda’s universe is. You’re stepping inside a world that she’s painting. Once I just let go and entered her aesthetic, it was quite dreamy and unusual for me, too.
Joshua Encinias: Amanda, what’s your philosophy about art and entertainment?
Amanda Kramer: Part of my philosophy is it’s vital that cinema doesn’t lose its artistic language, but equally important that fine art isn’t anti-entertainment. The best art takes care of the audience, offering inspiration and philosophical depth while still engaging them. I aim to create work that asks more questions than it answers but still allows viewers to enjoy the journey.
I’ve learned to embrace the “show business” aspect of filmmaking. I was once very punk and resistant to commercial pressures. Even though though for artists there’s a stink on the phrase “entertaining people,” doing it is beautiful. The best art gives you something to like and helps you see life. How many people can tell you they’re pulling something entertaining out of Sátántangó?
I don’t think they’re lying. [Laughs.] But there’s a disconnect there. There’s a want and the want is more extraordinary than the actual reception. We respect Béla Tarr and these big dynamos as they bore us to tears. But why do we think the rest of the world would want to invoke that kind of boredom? That’s an elite thought. I would never want to bore someone, ever, but I don’t want to coddle them.
Joshua Encinias: And why is George Michael’s Father Figure one of the movie’s inspirations?
Amanda Kramer: When the video came out on VH1, they played it all the time. This was like a nighttime video, let’s be honest. It should be played after 11 p.m. but it would come on in the afternoon and I would watch it after school. I thought it was the most eloquent, sexiest thing to see models in New York. This was when we all thought George Michael was straight and having sex with the model in the video.
I loved that video and always wanted movies to look like that. I think video art from that era is better than the movies everyone worships, and Father Figure is the best one I’ve seen. It’s Basic Instinct-level gorgeous to me, and I think Basic Instinct is the Sistine Chapel, it’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen!
Juliette Lewis and Amanda Kramer on Wanting to Be a Chair in By Design
Joshua Encinias: Why does Camille want to be a chair?
Amanda Kramer: I find Camille’s experience is about all people because we all experience envy and desire. She embodies the universal human tendency to want what we cannot be—whether that’s another person’s body or career. But we don’t ever think about wanting to be a painting or a gorgeous chair, but we should. We project such love and desire onto things we behold because the relationship is about your eye on them.
I think sometimes what we want as humans is to have someone look at us with such love and not expect so much from us. Sometimes I go to museums and look at paintings and think, “I want to be a f—ing Piccaso. I don’t want my regular-ass face and body.” The film is an ode to that.
Joshua Encinias: Camille is coveted as the chair but ignored as a person. What’s it like to be praised or rejected as an actress?
Juliette Lewis: Well, to be blissfully unaware is great. [Laughs.] But even as a young female, you don’t know sometimes that you’re in a den of wolves. Although intuitively, I could always tell. I feel for Camille to be coveted was such a contradiction because her ultimate freedom was to be null and void. Where she felt most alive was to be and do nothing and to just be wanted, to be sat upon.
Some of those soliloquies or words that Amanda wrote are so poignant and profound to me. I related having been in a few relationships where it was like heavenly to disappear. But of course, it’s not. It’s detrimental. And Camille learns, as she becomes the eye of a dramatic storm, all by just being this inanimate object.
Joshua Encinias: I haven’t seen your other Sundance movie Opus, but I saw your character in the trailer. She seems like the opposite of Camille.
Juliette Lewis: I’m playing a sassy, tabloidy journalist. So, I might as well be playing an actor. My dream of dreams is to be a character actress so you couldn’t get more opposite. Camille is next to nothing, and even her own best friends think she’s null and void. And then my character in Opus is always full of herself and talking. She wears these nails and wigs and she’s just very assertive. So totally different.
By Design is now screening at Sundance.