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Google PlayA new teaser trailer for Sally Potter’s Look at Me, starring Chris Rock and Javier Bardem, has been released.
Deadline first reported on the teaser, noting that the film’s upcoming out-of-competition premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival next month arrives just as Potter’s Orlando marks the 30th anniversary of its own Venice debut. Joining Rock and Bardem in the 16-minute film’s main cast is dancer/actor Savion Glover.
In a statement shared as part of festival promo material, Potter—whose other credits include The Tango Lesson and The Man Who Cried—explained that Look at Me was initially intended to be housed within a feature. That feature, Potter said, would go on to become the 2020 Javier Bardem drama The Roads Not Taken.
“Whilst shooting the scenes between Javier and Chris, it immediately became clear that this material was destined to be a standalone story: a film in its own right,” Potter said. “When I got into the cutting room, I saw how dynamic these titans of the entertainment world are together, their volatile, fiery on-screen relationship offset by the rhythms of the brilliant tap-dancer Savion Glover. The destiny of the story was clear: it had nothing to do with the other project. It had to become a short film, a fast moving portrait of conflict and love.”
The story centers on fundraising gala rehearsals as two men—a gala director and a rock drummer—engage in an escalating showdown of sorts. Rock’s performance, Potter later said in an Instagram post, “moved me to tears.”
Later this year, Rock will be seen as part of an ensemble cast that also includes Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington in director David O. Russell’s Joy follow-up Amsterdam. Revisit the film’s trailer here. The Look at Me teaser unveiling, meanwhile, arrives fresh off a report from the Arizona Republic alleging that Rock revealed during a recent Phoenix show that he had turned down an Oscars-hosting invitation amid continued slap talk.
