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Full Production Notes: Preparing Obsessed
 Knowles acknowledges how Elba’s Derek could have gotten into the situation in the first place. “Derek likes the attention that he gets, like any man would, and it gets misread by Lisa,” Knowles says. “In the beginning he’s just doing friendly flirting, and she takes it the wrong way. She becomes really infatuated and in her mind, she thinks that Derek really is her man, that the house really is her house, and the family really is her family.
“For me, Obsessed is about a woman’s fight for her family,” she continues. “A woman who’s willing to sacrifice and take care of her son while her husband gets his promotion, but who is also very strong and wise and street smart and knows when something is not right – a woman strong enough to take control.
“There’s a moment where Sharon and Derek come home and find that Lisa has been inside their house,” says Knowles. At that point in the film, Sharon has “depended on Derek and the detective to take care of this crazy woman and she thinks that Lisa is out of her life. But when she finds out that Lisa has not just been inside her house, but had contact with her child, she’s like, ‘Enough is enough.’” Another new challenge for the actress was the film’s strenuous fight scenes. Knowles had to get physically pumped for her character’s climactic, crowd-rousing showdown with Lisa, which Knowles performed herself. “I did a lot of stunt work,” she says. “I was covered in bruises.”
“It’s similar to choreography,” she continues, “but it was very difficult keeping it up for hours and hours. On top of doing the stunt choreography, you still have to be in the scene and have your performance as an actor.”
Knowles had great respect for co-star Ali Larter, especially in those fight scenes. “Ali was incredible,” she says. “Such a smart woman, very articulate – a great actress. And during the fight scenes she gave me so much to work with. We just had fun. It’s great when you’re on a film and you can just really go for it. I trusted her and she trusted me, and I think that’s why the fight scene is so great.”
To add to the challenge, Knowles had to perform the fights in high heels. But, she says, “I’m pretty used to the heels. Actually, out of everything, the heels were the last thing I was thinking about.” Knowles enjoyed working with director Shill. “He’s very intelligent,” she says. “Working with him I could tell he used to be an actor. He knows how to communicate, and I felt very comfortable.” Overall, Knowles felt she learned something important about the nature of intimate relationships. “In the end,” she says, “you just have to be completely honest, even if you think you’re protecting someone by withholding information. Trust and honesty in a relationship are very key.”
As mentioned, Sharon’s villainous counterpart in Obsessed is Lisa, the sexy temp who falls head over heels for Derek. Lisa makes it her mission to have Derek…. at any cost. In the film, the seductress appears at Derek’s office carrying few clues about her past; Loughery says he purposefully left a little mystery to the character. “I didn’t really delve into her past or try to explain why Lisa is the way she is,” he says. “It’s scarier if we never really know how she’s developed this personality that can go from very loving to ultimately deadly.”
Heroes star Ali Larter plays Lisa, and the actress was attracted to the film because she saw it as a modern take on a classic story. “It’s definitely a thriller – a throwback to some of the great thrillers of the past, which we haven’t seen in awhile,” says Larter. “There’s something great about just being able to go escape to the movies for a couple hours – sheer entertainment. When I first read this, I thought it would be an amazing ride.”
At first Larter was intimidated by playing a person so unhinged. But as she studied Lisa she began to see the character from a different perspective. “Lisa has many facets to her personality,” she says. “It was a chance for me to take something that could have been interpreted one way in a really different way, to try to see outside the box and find creative solutions and ways to illuminate her.”
Though her character is undoubtedly the film’s villain, Larter argues that Lisa is really just a lonely young woman who wants to be loved. “She’s filled with love,” Larter says. “But she has a lot of insecurities in her life, and she overcompensates for them in certain ways. Overall, I think she’s someone who’s had a large amount of sadness in her life and is just looking for someone to love and share her life with. From my character’s point of view, Obsessed is about a woman who falls in love and will do anything she can to keep her man. She’s fallen in love on the deepest levels, and there is no rationalizing why they shouldn’t be together. For her, there are only reasons why they should.”
In preparing for the role, director Shill and Larter had lengthy discussions about why Lisa does what she does, and how to approach it. “Ultimately, we decided it’s not so much that she’s playing crazy. She’s playing the love,” agrees Shill. “Lisa loves Derek so much she falls into a bottomless well of love and just can’t stop. That’s what becomes so frightening to Derek, because it’s irrational. “The greatest coup is for you to have the audience walking away saying, ‘Oh, that poor woman,’” adds Shill, “to sympathize with her because her feelings are all coming from a real and authentic place.”
Lisa was a challenge for Larter, but she loved every minute of it. “It’s pushed me out of my comfort zone,” she says. “I’m drawn to these emotionally demanding roles and women that are broken in different ways, so I feel lucky I get a chance to play this great character.”
Larter also relished her scenes with Knowles and enjoyed working with the superstar. “She just gets it – she’s such a professional,” says Larter. “She was kind and really open and candid. You never know what you’re walking into with someone that has that kind of schedule and that many things going on in her life, but I’ve really enjoyed working with her – she’s incredibly dedicated to her work, and you can see it in this movie. She gives it everything she’s got.”
In summing up Larter’s performance, producer Packer says, “Ali plays a character who’s difficult to like and a little difficult to understand, but she really fleshes it out.”
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