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There’s something fitting about Steve Zahn making a movie about family alongside his daughter Audrey Zahn, especially when the result pulls so directly from their own lives. The two spoke with Kyle Meredith about She Dances, an indie drama rooted in the competitive dance world Audrey grew up in and shot in the small Kentucky town where the Zahns live in. What started as years spent in studios and parking lots eventually became a story about grief, connection, and the strange, specific culture of dance competitions, all filtered through a father-daughter relationship that already had decades of history baked in. Listen above or wherever you get your podcasts.
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For Steve, the spark was less about chasing a plot and more about recognizing the cinematic potential of real life. “We were well entrenched in this subculture of competitive dance… It was really beautiful and it was horrible and it was funny and it was dumb and it was all the things,” he says, describing the years of firsthand experience that shaped the film. That authenticity became the backbone, but it was the addition of grief that gave the story its weight. “We all shared [that], and we thought, wow, that’s it… that’s the hurdle that these guys are going to have to deal with,” he explains, adding that the film doesn’t hammer the emotion home but lets it “whisper” until it lands with impact.
Audrey, stepping into her first feature film, found herself navigating something even trickier than choreography: translating a life she’d already lived into a performance. “I remember reading it and crying and going for a really long walk because it’s very close to my childhood,” she says. That lived-in familiarity extends to the film’s details, from the chaos of competitions to the relationships between dancers. “There’s going to be kids in the hallway with sparkly costumes with their legs behind their head… there’s prop dads, dance moms… and you’re stuck in a theater for like three days,” she laughs. Still, beneath the madness, she points to the bond that forms in those spaces, which ultimately gives the film its heart.
Listen to Steve Zahn and Audrey Zahn talk about She Dances and more in the new episode above or by watching the video below. Keep up on all the latest episodes by following Kyle Meredith With… on your favorite podcast platform; plus, check out all the series on the Consequence Podcast Network.
