video via Fox Searchlight
"Q: What was your favorite part of working on the film?"
"Quvenzané: Whenever the seafood came."
In the Bathtub, as with the rest of the South, food is a big deal! Cooking and eating are as much about about community, love and celebration as sustenance. From the crawfish boils to Hushpuppy's name to Dwight's being discovered as a result of running the Buttermilk Drop Bakery right across from the Court 13 production offices, food is at the core of Beasts.
image via the Amateur Gourmet
Beasts writer Lucy Alibar spoke to the Amateur Gourmet about the role that food played in both her upbringing and the film.
So you named the main character Hushpuppy. Is there anything about an actual hush puppy that speaks to her character or was it just a fun name?
“Beasts of the Southern Wild” is based on a play I wrote called “Juicy and Delicious,” following these two characters as they face the end of the known world. Hushpuppy’s dad talks about how after Hushpuppy was born, he and Hushpuppy’s mom couldn’t think of a name, so they called their baby “Big Fat Baby”. And then Hushpuppy’s mamma suggests the name “Hushpuppy”, because “a hushpuppy is a small, warm, stupid, good little thing.”
Read the whole thing here.