Rising star Lily Brooks O’Briant takes on a compelling function in Lifetime’s new psychological thriller, Killing the Competitors, premiering Saturday, March 1, 2025. This gripping movie, impressed by true occasions, explores the darkish facet of ambition and the devastating affect of parental obsession.
O’Briant portrays Grace Fenwick, a devoted dancer whose rejection from her mom’s alma mater’s elite dance staff units off a tragic chain of occasions. Her mom, Elizabeth (performed by Melissa Joan Hart), spirals right into a harmful fixation, concentrating on the staff’s star dancer, Hannah (Valerie Bathroom), and her mom, Nicole (Anzu Lawson). As Elizabeth’s actions intensify, the scenario escalates to an unexpected climax.
“Grace is passionate and hardworking, however she struggles underneath the immense strain of her mom’s expectations,” says O’Briant. “I drew inspiration from actual tales of teenagers coping with excessive parental strain. I needed to painting Grace’s emotional journey authentically, particularly as she involves phrases together with her mom’s disturbing obsession.”
Produced by Hartbreak Movies and Allegheny Picture Manufacturing unit, Killing the Competitors incorporates a screenplay by Jane Espenson and Christina Welsh. The movie was shot in West Virginia, capturing the uncooked depth of the story. O’Briant remembers the filming course of as “fast-paced and collaborative,” highlighting a very intense scene filmed at an actual highschool soccer sport, which added a component of authenticity to the story.
One of many distinctive challenges O’Briant confronted whereas getting ready for the function was studying to twirl two batons in only a week—a talent she hadn’t practiced since childhood. “It was an intense however enjoyable expertise,” she shares.
“The most effective half about taking part in Grace was exploring the complicated mother-daughter dynamic,” O’Briant displays. “It’s each loving and unsettling. I beloved portraying Grace’s vulnerability and energy as she confronts the reality. Working with Melissa Joan Hart once more was an unimaginable expertise.”
The movie additionally stars Eddie Mills as Steve Fenwick. “This film is a wild experience with surprising twists,” O’Briant teases. “It dives deep into obsession, and I feel audiences can be hooked.”
Killing the Competitors will premiere on Lifetime and be out there for streaming on Lifetime’s web site and app.
Upcoming Tasks
O’Briant is ready to launch her extremely anticipated EP, Catch Me If You Can, on March 28, 2025. The album options tracks like Repair Me and Searching for a Man. Followers can catch her performing an unique acoustic showcase at The Dime in Los Angeles on March 13, 2025.
Moreover, O’Briant can be a featured speaker on the Endometriosis Basis of America’s annual medical and affected person convention on March 2, 2025. Her documentary, Silent Struggling: How Endometriosis Impacts Teenagers, co-created together with her sister Hannah, will display screen on the occasion. The documentary can even be out there on YouTube beginning March 1st along with Endometriosis Consciousness Month.
About Lily Brooks O’Briant
Lily Brooks O’Briant is an 18-year-old actress, singer, and songwriter, at present fascinating audiences as Lucy Romalotti on CBS’s iconic daytime drama The Younger and the Stressed. She gained recognition for her starring function as Ella McCaffrey in Apple TV+’s inspiring sequence Life by Ella.
Past appearing, O’Briant has made waves within the music trade, releasing an EP and 12 authentic songs in 2024, together with Hopeless Romantic, What You Wished, and Thank You, incomes popularity of her heartfelt lyrics and highly effective melodies.
As a passionate advocate, O’Briant serves as an envoy for the Endometriosis Basis of America, Teen Most cancers America, and St. Jude Youngsters’s Analysis Hospital. In 2020, she based Workforce Younger Hollywood, which has since raised over $50,000 to help St. Jude’s.
Rising star in focus
In 2023, O’Briant joined the solid of the long-running cleaning soap opera The Younger and the Stressed as Lucy Romalotti, additional solidifying her place in tv. Along with her appearing profession, she has pursued music, releasing her debut single Gradual in 2022, adopted by an EP titled Hopeless Romantic in 2023.
Past leisure, O’Briant is an advocate for youth well being points, serving as an envoy for Teen Most cancers America and actively elevating consciousness for St. Jude Youngsters’s Analysis Hospital. She has additionally opened up about her private battle with endometriosis, utilizing her platform to unfold consciousness concerning the situation.
Together with her plain expertise and dedication to each her craft and essential causes, Lily Brooks O’Briant is a rising star to look at within the years to come back.
We spoke to her about her new challenge and life as an artist.
Lily, how did you strategy Grace’s rising consciousness of her mom’s unraveling fixation?
I needed to point out Grace’s journey from eager to please her mother to virtually being afraid of her in a approach that felt actual—taking away layers of belief till she realizes simply how far her mom is keen to go. It was about capturing that dread of watching somebody you like cross a line you by no means noticed coming.
The movie exposes the brutal actuality of younger performers in high-stakes environments. Did you personally relate to Grace’s struggles, and what did this function train you concerning the darkish facet of ambition?
I do know what it’s prefer to be in a aggressive trade, however I’ve been fortunate to have an unimaginable help system from my mother. Taking part in Grace actually confirmed me how ambition can flip poisonous when being the perfect turns into extra essential than something—it’s a high-quality line between pushing to be the perfect model of your self and pushing too far.
With Grace being a dancer and the story revolving round a cutthroat competitors, how did you prep for the dance sequences? Did they assist form her emotional arc?
I needed to be taught baton twirling in only a week, which was each difficult and thrilling—I might completely relate to Grace’s strain to carry out underneath excessive stakes. The dance sequences turned extra than simply routines; they mirrored her emotional state, with each transfer carrying the load of her wrestle to maintain up with inconceivable expectations.
The script, crafted by Jane Espenson and Christina Welsh, goes to some fairly darkish locations. What sort of conversations did you’ve with the writers or director concerning the psychological depth of Grace’s journey?
We talked lots about how Grace internalizes strain—how she goes from eager to make her mother proud to realizing that love and management aren’t the identical factor. It was essential to point out her unraveling not simply via phrases, however via physique language, small moments of doubt, and people delicate shifts the place she begins to see the reality.
At its core, this movie is a cautionary story about ambition with out limits. What do you hope audiences take away—particularly in relation to wholesome relationships and setting boundaries?
I hope folks stroll away realizing that success ought to by no means come at the price of your happiness or id. Grace’s story is a reminder that actual love helps, not suffocates, and that typically, the toughest factor to do is to face up for your self—even to the folks closest to you.
The movie’s visuals—cinematography, set design—ooze rigidity and unease. How did these artistic decisions improve the psychological weight of the story?
All the pieces from the lighting to the digital camera angles makes you’re feeling the strain Grace is underneath—tight frames, dimly lit areas, and sudden shifts in focus put the viewers proper in her head. It’s just like the world round her is closing in, visually echoing the suffocating management she’s trapped in. Costume was additionally crucial as a result of Grace is simply a youngster who’s fascinated with doing one thing she loves however her mother may be very centered on outward appearances so you will notice every character’s character within the clothes.
A few of Grace’s emotional moments are intense. What had been the hardest scenes to shoot, and the way did you get into the precise headspace to make them really feel uncooked and actual?
The hardest scenes had been those the place Grace realizes that one thing she as soon as did for enjoyable has became a instrument for her mom’s obsession & Grace turns into actually afraid of her mother. My mother has all the time been extremely supportive however to get into that headspace, I centered on the thought of what if my very own mother had been utterly obsessed and pushed me the way in which Grace’s mother tried to push & management her.
