Close-Up Culture’s Senior Writer Genevieve Dammery sat down with Chiara King to discuss her film The Influencer Project, her experience of stalking, and what it means to play a version of herself on screen.
Genevieve: Chiara, welcome to Close-Up Culture. We’re delighted to be talking to you about your latest film, The Influencer Project. You’ve just attended the Danish premiere. How did it feel to be back in Copenhagen, and what was the night like?
Chiara: It honestly felt like a dream come true. I wasn’t expecting the premiere to be so busy and completely sold out. There were around 550 people, and it was everything I could have dreamed of. I got to see the cast again, whom I hadn’t seen in a year, as well as Mike, the director, and his family, whom I became close to while filming in Copenhagen. I also saw the brands I worked with on the project. It was a really nice closing to that to that experience. I really loved it.
Genevieve: The film is terrifying, but it also has frightening parallels with your own life. You’ve spoken about your experience of being stalked. What was it like to work on a story about stalking while you were going through something similar yourself?
Chiara: It was challenging, to say the least. We shot the pilot, and a few months later the incident with the stalker happened. Two months after that, Atlas, the American company that collaborated on the film, contacted us about reshooting scenes. They wanted to make it more horror-driven, more gory, and more scary. At first, I thought, “No, I can’t.” It was so soon after what had happened.
I spoke to my therapist, who said I didn’t have to do it if I didn’t want to, but that it might be therapeutic. She explained that trauma can follow you in daily life until you find a way to deal with it. She encouraged me to confront what had happened and work through it, and told me, “This is a gift. It may be a badly wrapped gift, but in time you’ll understand it.” She encouraged me to treat the situation as something I could turn from pain into power.
I was working with her while shooting the second half of the film. It was difficult because everything was still raw, and I think you can see that in the film: the feelings are real. She taught me how to step in and out of the experience. When you’re on set and in a scene, you step in; when the scene ends, you step out. That helped me separate the feelings instead of becoming consumed by them.
But I guess it was very therapeutic, as messed up as that sounds. You grow through what you go through, and I grew a lot. I’m much stronger now than I was then. Working through those scenes helped me feel that, if something similar happened again, I would know how to handle it better.
Genevieve: Your therapist sounds great!
Chiara: She told me that the only person who can take you out of that fear is yourself; you are the only person who can save yourself. Making the film gave me the feeling that I was the only person who could confront the demons and get past the fear. So I faced it, even though it was uncomfortable and really challenging.
I came out of it feeling much stronger, and I now feel I have a lot to share with girls and guys about stalking and online harassment. I went through it myself, and there are things I wish I had done differently that I hope other people might learn from.
Genevieve: Talking a little bit more about kind of the way you’ve played this fictionalised version of yourself, was it strange to see that on screen and did feel that you had to create some distance to your character?
Chiara: At first, I didn’t, because the stalking incident hadn’t happened when we shot the pilot. At that stage, I was playing more of myself. After it happened, though, it became important to treat Chiara King, the character, as a role. It was easier to play her once I could separate myself from the version of Chiara in the film, although it was still strange because I’m playing Chiara King, and I am Chiara King.
There are many differences between me and the character. There are things she does that I would never do in real life, like walking into the fire or confronting the stalker. I would run in the opposite direction. But I learnt a lot about my own strength by playing her. The filmmakers wanted her to face the monster, post about what happened and share her experience. That isn’t necessarily something I would have done, but it was powerful to learn from the character about taking control back into your own hands.
In a way, that is what I’m doing now. For a long time, I didn’t speak about what happened because I was afraid the person would see it and try to hurt me again. Now I feel I can’t be silenced. There are so many women out there that have been abused, sexual assault and stalked and harassed. And 95% of cases go un unspoken of. It is scary coming here right now and speaking about it because I hope this person doesn’t hurt me again, but there’s no guarantee that that won’t happen, and I don’t want to poke the bear, but also, I have to stand up for myself.
Genevieve: If the Chiara we see on Instagram and TikTok could meet the Chiara from the film, what do you think they would say to each other?
Chiara on TikTok would probably make a joke out of it all, turning pain into humour. The Chiara in the film would probably say, “It’s not funny. We need to confront this and do something about it.” She is more serious and wants to take action.
I think both Chiaras handle trauma differently. Some of the biggest comedians in the world are actually the most traumatised, and humour can be a coping mechanism for painful experiences. The character would confront the situation, while the version of me on social media might make a joke because I’m traumatised and don’t know how to process it. I try to make it light-hearted.
Genevieve: The film explores how an influencer’s relationship with their audience can shift from connection to entitlement. Where should the line be drawn between sharing your life and giving people too much access to it?
Chiara: I learnt a lot while making this film, and one thing fundamentally changed how I use social media: I think privacy will be our biggest asset in the future. Our data is taken from us every day, and it reflects our inner thoughts—what we like, what we don’t like and what interests us. The algorithm knows so much about us, and I think privacy will become even more important as it increasingly knows us better than we know ourselves.
As a creator, I used to share everything: my love life, what I was doing and eating, where I was going and where I was staying. I shared a lot about who I was dating and the dates I went on. and then this whole situation with the stalker bit me in the ass and I realised I might have been oversharing. Because I was burned by someone that was watching me, I began asking whether my audience needed to see so much of my life or have an opinion on such vulnerable things as my romantic relationships.
It isn’t normal to have hundreds of thousands of people telling you whom you should or shouldn’t date. We evolved in small hunter-gatherer communities of 50 or 60 people. Our brains haven’t changed at the same pace as society, and receiving hundreds of thousands of opinions can be overwhelming. It affected my mental health to the point of deep depression. I went to a wellness facility in Mexico to get myself back.
I think people may have noticed that I share much less about my love life and personal life now. I don’t think sharing that much is healthy for me, although that is just my experience. I have friends who share everything and are fine. I may simply be more sensitive.
I now share content about languages, which creates a kind of barrier: it is almost like playing a character or a role. It is a form of acting, rather than sharing the most personal parts of myself as I used to. I’m 27 and want to have a family, and I don’t think sharing my deepest thoughts and the details of my love life is necessarily compatible with maintaining a healthy relationship and family. Again, that is just my experience.
Genevieve: I think that is understandable. When your life is online and you have seen the potential repercussions so clearly, you need to be able to decide what you want to share and what you want to keep private.
Chiara: I didn’t announce to my audience that I was no longer sharing my personal life because of what had happened. I didn’t even talk about the incident, because I was too scared. I simply decided privately that I couldn’t keep sharing so much. Some of the best things in life, in my opinion, they don’t need to be shared. That is just my opinion; I have friends who share their personal and love lives online and seem very happy, but it wasn’t the road that worked out for me.
Genevieve: Your performance is remarkable in the film’s most vulnerable scenes. How did you approach those moments as an actress?
Chiara: I actually just envisioned that this person that I had that experience with just wanted to kill me, and I truly got myself into that headspace. If you call that method acting, then that is what it was. Alexander, who played the Kingslayer, was also very frightening in those scenes. He screamed at me and genuinely made me cry, and it was all filmed. I think I saw the face of the person who had stalked me in Alexander’s, and it petrified the living daylight out of me. And you can literally see it in the film. The experience was visceral and felt very real.
I tried to imagine myself as the character while also experiencing the emotions myself. I know many actors avoid working that way because it can be unhealthy to get into that headspace. But it was one of the best days of filming. I felt as though I had left my body; I was completely present, and I enjoyed the experience. I love being tortured.
Fear is a strange feeling: like love, it can make you intensely present. Time slows down, and you feel everything in the moment. As messed up as it sounds, I can understand how you might enjoy being so present with that fear and emotion.
It was crazy, but amazing. Perhaps it was the controlled nature of it: you lean into the fear, but deep down you know you’re safe. After the scene, I felt as though a lot had come out of me. That is also why I love acting. For me, it is almost like therapy. When you take on a role, you have to connect with an emotion deep inside yourself to reach the place the scene requires.
A lot of feelings came out of me, and that’s also why I love acting. It’s like therapy. All the feelings that you’re avoiding when you do acting roles and you’re told you need to go there. And for me, I have to connect with an emotion very deep inside to get to a place.
Genevieve: Have you thought about what you would like to do next? Is there another role you would really like to sink your teeth into?
Chiara: I’m a very emotional person and incredibly sensitive; almost anything can make me cry. Yesterday, I spent the whole day crying while watching The Love of Your Life on Amazon Prime. I would love to play a romance, a really deep love story in which you love and lose. Love and loss are among the deepest, most intense feelings I’ve experienced, and I would love to channel them into a role.
Genevieve: I’m manifesting that for you. Before we finish, what conversations would you like The Influencer Project to open up about women’s safety and people building careers online?
Chiara: I think there needs to be advancements on the legal side. I involved lawyers and the police, but the police are underfunded. The law also needs to be more affordable. Not everyone can spend thousands on lawyers’ fees and sending letters to protect themselves. Perhaps there could be a foundation or another way for women to access legal help at much lower rates, so they can feel protected without having to spend £20,000 or £30,000.
We also need new laws. I don’t think the law has kept up with the speed at which the internet is growing. Many dangers today are not purely physical: online harassment can escalate into real-world harm. We sometimes dismiss the online world as unreal, but the person watching you is a real human being who can hurt you offline. We need laws that address online harassment, including across jurisdictions. If someone is in another country, navigating different legal systems and getting them to work together can be extremely difficult.
There are also simple steps people can take to protect themselves, such as not posting their live location while at a restaurant or sharing the hotel where they are staying. People can be naive about the possibility that someone is watching or following them. I have friends who post the restaurant they are at, and then someone turns up and stands outside. It is frightening, and it can be such a small thing to avoid. I was tracked down because I was posting where I was. Sharing locations has become normalised, including on Snap Maps. Everyone’s so used to just sharing their location and saying where they are. But no, I mean, and on Snap Maps as well. Like, what the hell? What are we doing? Why are we putting our locations on Snapchat?
Genevieve: Truly! It’s crazy. Thank you so much for chatting to us, everyone should check out The Influencer Project now.
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