Kid Cudi's Horror Film 'Wrong Number' in Production With Barbie Ferreira

Multi-hyphenate recording artist Scott "Kid Cudi" Mescudi made his acting debut 16 years ago with the HBO dramedy series How to Make It in America, but he has his eyes set on much more. While he's built a solid resume of roles in everything from Ti West's acclaimed horror X to Adam McKay's satirical Don't Look Up, he's never stopped branching out as a creative. Most notably, he penned and starred in the ambitious adult-animated musical rom-com series Entergalactic, which won an Emmy for character design, and executive-produced the rest of West's X trilogy. It's only natural, then, that he'd want to try his hand at directing.

Mescudi isn't going small with his directorial ambition either. Not only does he have his directorial debut, Doe, which he'll also star in, set for next year, but he's also working on a horror film titled Wrong Number, pairing him with Euphoria alum Barbie Ferreira. Production is currently underway, and he's bringing some real experience to the table there, having seen behind the scenes of West's hits and previously directing his own music videos. However, jumping behind the camera of a feature with a script he wrote himself is an entirely different challenge that he's never faced.

With the premiere of his new film Pathetic Fallacy at Fantastic Fest, Collider's Perri Nemiroff got the chance to ask about his films and the overall experience of helming a project on a much bigger scale than he's used to. Rather than being intimidated by it, actually doing it was a confidence builder that showed him he can make anything he writes into reality. "I've directed music videos before, right? And I've written treatments," he said. "But the fact that this is the first script that I wrote, that I actually made. So for me, it was like, 'Holy shit, I can do this. I can conceive something in my mind, and I can make it so.'" Getting Doe out of the way has him wanting to do so much more after he's done filming Wrong Number, including another idea that he's planning to get rolling on very soon.

"I'm literally in production on my second film right now, Wrong Number, and I saw that I could do it, so now I'm like, 'Oh, I'm going to do more of it,' and I'm just writing scripts all the time. Like, I already have two other scripts. One of them I'm going to shoot next year in March. I want to be as prolific with directing and writing as I am with movies or with music, you know?"

Kid Cudi Has the Acting Bug and His Friends Are Helping Him Embrace It

+2

Mescudi didn't exactly hide that he's been bitten by the directing bug, but his Pathetic Fallacy co-star, Jessica Rothe, only drove home how passionate he is about it. "This man puts the reps in. That's all I can say. He really puts the reps in." It's not often that a newcomer director, even one who's been in the industry as long as Mescudi, immediately wants to launch into another film the second the first is finished. Yet, he credited Mark Webber, his friend, Goodbye World co-star, and The Ever After director, for helping him realize those filmmaking ambitions to their fullest extent with Doe and Wrong Number and encouraging him.

"He helped me put it together, and he was the first one that was like, 'Dude, these are really good scripts. We can make these for a price. We can find people.' And for me, like for Doe, me and my manager paid for that movie. We financed it ourselves. It only cost me $300,000, and we shot for nine days in L.A., guerrilla-style, and that was cool, man."

Another reassurance along Mescudi's creative journey was "knowing that I got Karina Manashil, who's the president of Mad Solar. She's reading my scripts. I give her everything I write, and she's coming back like, 'Yo, this is f---ing good.'" Manashil has been a frequent partner of the Grammy winner, producing the aforementioned X films, as well as Entergalactic and, most recently, Pathetic Fallacy. As a former agent at William Morris Endeavor (WME), she's also pored over "tens of thousands of scripts" over the years, making any compliment from her hit all the harder for Mescudi. "And for her to tell me, 'No, there's something here. You have to make this,' it just gives me something and lets me know that I have something here, you know? I just need to keep focus."

Lest anyone believe Mescudi is leaving his music career behind for directing, he assures that isn't about to happen. However, the "Pursuit of Happiness" artist acknowledges that exploring other fields is important to him as he grows older and seeks other ways to tap into his creativity. "Also, too, with music, I'm not saying I'm going to retire because I've already been in this spot like two or three times in my career, and people are like, 'Didn't you say you were going to quit music?' I've always had these moments, and whatever, but I do know that I've been really active with music throughout the years, and I do want to start shifting as I'm getting older now to doing other things, and I really want writing and directing to be that thing," he concluded. Acting is also a field where he still has a few itches to scratch and, for now, he's happy to use his films as opportunities to play in the roles he wants to experiment with, especially when fans who followed his music career have continued to support his other endeavors.

"Right now, I'm starring in all the stuff I'm doing because I have things I want to do as an actor, but it's going to get to a point where I'm not going to want to star in my shit. I'm just going to want to direct and write and produce. So, it's just nice seeing the excitement, people seeing the Deadline articles, and seeing the fans rave about it and say, 'I can't wait to see this!' That's dope, man. I think people are expecting dope shit because I produce dope shit. So, it's good."

What Is 'Pathetic Fallacy' About?

Before his first film, Mescudi is crossing off another first with his first-ever lead role in Pathetic Fallacy. The cosmic horror thriller casts him as Asher, a widower crushed by his beloved wife's death from cancer until he learns of a portal to another universe in a small mountain town. This discovery gives him the chance to reconnect with her against all odds, but there's also a murderer on the loose, talking forest creatures, and one very sick dive bar to navigate en route to doing what he thought impossible. However, cheating death to bring the one he loves back may have a terrible cost. Daniel Isn't Real's Adam Egypt Mortimer directs the film from a script by Ant-Man & the Wasp and Transformers One duo Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari, with Travis Fimmel, Jess Brown, and Natasha Lyonne also starring.

There is no release date for Pathetic Fallacy beyond its Fantastic Fest premiere. Stay tuned here at Collider for more coverage of the genre event throughout the week and more on Mescuide's directorial efforts.