The Body Netflix Kristina Bogic and Sara Boustany interview, Digi Mart USA News: Spoilers ahead for Netflix’s The Body. Few relationships are as formative, or as fraught, as the homoerotic, codependent bond between two high-school best friends.
In The Body, Quinn Shephard’s coming-of-age thriller, a high-school dance team’s antics set off mass hysteria in their town in 2004.
For all its exorcisms and near-deaths, the show’s most intimate drama plays out between co-captains Anya Butler (Kristina Bogic) and Elise Zakaria (Sara Boustany). They are a sapphic Serena and Blair: Catholic-school queen bees who are dying to kiss.
To cast the pair, Shephard and co-showrunner Gina Gammell scoured dance schools and TikTok, and met with established actors. Gammell found one of The Body’s best-known cast members, Sofia Wiley, who plays new recruit Grace, in a TikTok dance video.
Bogic and Boustany, though, were undeniable from their first Zoom read. “You’d be shocked at how much chemistry you can pick up,” Shephard says.
“Something comes through in their eyes. You just feel it in your gut.” For many in the cast, The Body is their first major role.
“It’s a lot of pressure, obviously,” Boustany tells Teen Vogue. Shephard and Gammell relished working with so many newcomers.
“There’s nothing I like more than seeing someone come into themselves as a performer,” Gammell says, “and being part of discovering that together.”
Teen Vogue spoke with Bogic and Boustany about finding their characters, choreographing their intimacy scenes, and enjoying spirited debates with each other on set. “Being on this scale with Netflix is an adjustment,” Bogic says from Los Angeles, where she and Boustany joined their castmates for the premiere.
“But we’re all really proud, and we’re here for the ride.”
Boustany says she initially auditioned for Anya but was called back for Elise. “I weirdly didn’t get why,” she says.
“Elise is so quippy, and her defense mechanism is to be bitchy, which isn’t really me.” At the callback, she read the same kiss scene but as Elise. “It just felt so much better.
I remember thinking, I’m not Anya. I’m Elise, definitely.”
Bogic said she wanted to soften Anya, whom the producers had initially seen as cold and precise. “She’s not your stereotypical b*tchy popular girl,” Bogic says.
“She has an attitude, she’s a leader, but she leads with kindness.” Boustany recalled reading with more than twenty actors for Anya while sick. “Kristina was one of the first people I read with, and I remember it feeling electric,” she says.
The actors said the creative team encouraged them to contribute ideas, including music. Bogic and Boustany pitched songs, and one of their suggestions, a two-minute version of “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” used in Elise and Anya’s regionals duet, was adopted.
Ryan Heffington choreographed the dance. Bogic said the set, which had a largely female creative team, made the intimacy scenes feel protected.
Intimacy coordinator Chala Hunter checked in throughout, the actors said, and both stressed they set boundaries around what they were comfortable showing.
Asked why Elise appears more willing to pursue the relationship, Boustany said Elise has a stronger sense of self, while Bogic said Anya is caught up in denial and fears punishment for her feelings. Both actors said they had argued over Anya’s failure to confide in Elise about what happened with Grace.
“I honestly feel like Lisbeth and Elise could’ve been friends if Anya had let her in,” Boustany said. Bogic said the pair never judged their characters and worked through each scene in detailed discussions with the directors.
