Gregg Araki On Michelle Trachtenberg’s ‘Mysterious Skin’ Performance

Marking the 20th anniversary of Mysterious Skin‘s theatrical release, writer and director Gregg Araki is revisiting one of his most emotionally raw films, which is now more timely than ever.

Ahead of Friday’s remastered 4K screening at the Academy Museum, Deadline caught up with ‘New Queer Cinema’ alum about presenting his 2004 sci-fi drama “exactly the way it is supposed to be” and knowing Michelle Trachtenberg‘s performance will “live on forever” after her death at age 39 in February.

“When I found out that she passed, I was so shocked because she was such a ray of light, and so, watching the movie is gonna be really amazing and beautiful when we do the screening,” said Araki.

“But there’ll be a lot of tears, because one of the things for me about the movie is, it’s kind of a lot about loss, loss of innocence and lost childhood. There’s hope, but there’s also a lot of loss,” he continued. “And the fact that Michelle’s not here anymore—I would love for to have seen this version of the movie and to experience the Academy Museum screening cause she was so excited about the movie, and her work in it is incredible. But her death really just adds this whole other layer to her performance, and it’s kind of hard to watch.”

Detailing what went into the remaster, Araki noted that there “will never be another Mysterious Skin screening like this one,” as it reunites him with the film’s star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as well as the author of its 1995 literary basis, Scott Heim. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the trio, moderated by Sean Baker.

In Mysterious Skin, 1980s Kansas teenager Neil (Gordon-Levitt) becomes a hustler, and Brian (Brady Corbet) becomes obsessed with UFOs, years after playing on the same little league team and experiencing a mutual childhood trauma, during which Brian is convinced they were abducted by aliens.

Araki recalled, “I was sent the book when it was still in galley form and I remember loving it and being so blown away by it, but I just said, this book is kind of unadaptable. The parts involving kids are so powerful and so intense, and in the book, it’s even more intense, and I said, ‘There’s kind of no way to film this without kind of traumatizing the kids who are in the movie.’”

‘Mysterious Skin’s writer and director Gregg Araki spoke with Deadline ahead of Friday’s remastered 4K screening at the Academy Museum.

Below, Araki discusses how the late Michelle Trachtenberg’s performance will “live on forever” pic.twitter.com/UNjBfL778S

— Deadline (@DEADLINE) September 18, 2025

Read on about how Gregg Araki adapted Scott Heim’s Mysterious Skin for the screen and its 4K restoration, screening Friday at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

DEADLINE: Tell me about presenting Mysterious Skin at the Oscars Museum and being recognized there once again.

GREGG ARAKI: It’s amazing. We did the screening literally almost exactly a year ago of the whole ‘Teen Apocalypse Trilogy’ at the Academy Museum. We did the Doom [Generation] remaster, the Nowhere remaster, and Totally Fucked Up, as well. So, that was incredible. That theater is probably one of the top three theaters in the world. It’s such a gorgeous theater. The screen is huge, and it just is such an experience to watch one of my little movies in this giant place. And for Mysterious Skin, I’m really thrilled about it because we’ve done this new remaster of it, or restoration, and it’s from the original camera negative. We recolored the whole movie, actually, kind of shot-by-shot. The movie is the same, it’s not different, for people who are huge fans of it, and I know there are many very devoted fans of that movie out there. The movie is the same, but it’s so much better than it was. We didn’t have the tools back in the early 2000s when we made the movie, the digital postproduction tools that you have now. So, the changes are subtle, but you can basically remake the shots and re-light them and do so much stuff to the shots to make them exactly like—I’m very particular and very controlling about the frame, and what’s in it, and the compositions and all that stuff. And just to be able to make it exactly the way it is supposed to be, it was really cool and exciting. And this movie, even more than the newer [Doom] Generation and the Nowhere restorations, because I just recently finished another new movie that is coming out next year, and we actually edited that movie in the [same] color finishing software. So, I know that software now, and we were actually able to go into this movie and, as I said, I went into it shot-by-shot, as opposed to normally in a color session, just kind of watch the whole movie and like I’ll make it a little more blue or something. … And there’s things about the original movie that have always kind of bugged me a little bit, like technical things, and so we’re able to go in and just really fine-tune that, and the coloring is so amazing. It’s gonna be incredible to watch it on that screen, so I’m really excited about it. And also, we did some sound remixing and made it bigger. I mean, I can’t wait for Friday. 

DEADLINE: I am very excited for that as well.

ARAKI: And also on top of that, Sean’s doing the Q&A and then Joe’s gonna be there and Scott Heim, the author of the book, and we have other cast members that are making surprise appearances. So, there will never be another Mysterious Skin screening like this one. This is the end-all and the be-all, so if you’re a fan of that movie, you gotta go see it. I know it’s sold out so fast because of Sean, I think it’s sold out in like a day, but they always sell standby tickets and they’re always there.

DEADLINE: I think the true fans can still get in, they’ll find a way. One thing that I have always been curious about is the aliens in your movies, but specifically in this one, how the alien abduction is kind of a metaphor for trauma.

ARAKI: That’s very much just pure Scott. I mean, it’s really interesting. Scott’s a bit younger than me, but we’re very much aligned, we love the same kind of music, we’re both queer, we’re both of a certain generation, we both lived through AIDS epidemic, and we both just have a lot in common. He grew up in Kansas, I grew up in California, but we have a lot of Overlap, which is why Mysterious Skin resonated so much with me. But the alien part of it, that is strictly out of the book. I mean the adaptation of Mysterious Skin was very faithful to the book, whole huge passages are lifted from the book. So, anything in Mysterious Skin that overlaps with my other movies is just an example of how much Scott and I are aligned. But for me, the alien thing is in a lot of my movies, but it’s just this idea of the unknown and the unknowable and the unexpected. My movies aren’t super interested in reality. I mean, it’s more this level of surreal and the fantastic and something larger than life happening, and that’s very much a part of Mysterious Skin, I think. 

DEADLINE: On that note, as far as adapting the book, did you get any kind of pushback for the more risqué and taboo elements, cause obviously it deals with some heavy subjects?

ARAKI: There was no push back. The thing about that movie was, my story of that movie is I passed on this movie so many times cause I was this known like queer filmmaker or whatever. I was sent the book when it was still in galley form and I remember loving it and being so blown away by it, but I just said, this book is kind of unadaptable. The parts involving kids are so powerful and so intense, and in the book, it’s even more intense, and I said, “There’s kind of no way to film this without kind of traumatizing the kids who are in the movie.” And I don’t want to make a movie about trauma and traumatize children in the process. So, it kept coming back to me, and then I remember Scott had [written] an adaptation of it, and it was submitted to the Sundance Lab, and I was one of the advisors that year, and they sent it to me, and so I recommended it. It just kept coming back, and I said, “I love this book so much, but I just don’t think it’s filmable.” And it just kept coming back and coming back and coming back, and it was not till about 2000, I had just done this MTV pilot that I was playing a lot with POV and subjective camera and eyelines and stuff. And it was after doing that, I was thinking like, “Oh wait, there’s a way to shoot it.”

So, it’s almost like two separate movies. For people who are filmmakers or are editors and really understand the way that movies are put together, you can watch Mysterious Skin and figure out how I did it. In a lot of the movie, because the kids, we actually had to write a special script that took all the scary parts out of it, and of course, the parents of the kids had signed off, they knew exactly what we’re doing and they were there every day. And so, I really wanted to shield the kids from what the movie was about, so there was a whole other script for them, a whole other story. And if you look at the movie very carefully, the scenes involving the kids are almost always the kid looking at something or reacting to something, and then things are happening. Particularly, Bill [Sage], Coach, he literally had to make two separate movies, like he literally had to make the movie where he was working with the kids, and then we would shoot his stuff separately, with just him and the camera. So, the way that things are edited together is kind of crucial, but that was the thing about the movie for me, is that I didn’t want to do it unless those scenes could be included. There was just no point in it for me. I didn’t want to make a typical movie about childhood trauma that was just like, the door closes and the violin music starts, or where everything was just sort of elliptical, because for me, those are the most powerful things about the book, is that you’re in those moments. You’re really experiencing what those kids are experiencing firsthand, and that’s one of the reasons I think why the movie has had such a dedicated following for all these years. It’s a very intense experience, because for people who haven’t been through that, it kind of shoots through that experience, and for people who have been through it—we’re talking at the Academy today about the trigger warning. It’s very traumatizing to experience that trauma, and that’s, to me, the power of the movie. For me, there was no reason to do a TV movie version of it, which is why we had to do it very low budget. We didn’t really have all the bells and whistles and the resources of a big studio movie, but it allowed us to be really raw and really authentic. 

DEADLINE: What was it like working with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbet at the beginning of their careers?

ARAKI: I mean, that was one of the things when we were doing this remaster, everybody in that cast is so amazing, and the performances are incredible. I just remember the way we shot it, and it was shot in like 22 days or something, and it was a very tight kind of indie shoot, but they really brought their A-game, all of them, because nobody got paid, so it was very much a passion project for everybody. I mean, they were there because they loved it and they believed in it, and they really wanted to give it their all, so everybody was so invested that, their performances are so incredible, I mean they’re real. I had forgotten all the nuances and all the stuff going on. I mean, Brady and Joe are incredible, but everybody, Elizabeth [Shue], Mary Lynn Rajskub, Jeff Licon, so good. Even the Johns that Joe runs into in New York, every performance and every character is so riveting, that I feel so blessed and so lucky to have just got the amazing ensemble, and they really delivered. 

DEADLINE: Another thing I have to ask, just because I grew up watching her and in Harriet the Spy and all these other movies, what was it like working with Michelle? I feel like this was maybe her first really adult role after being a child star for all those years. 

ARAKI: Yeah, this was on the tails of Buffy, I think. She was kind of known for that and she was so excited, she just really got the script, really. I remember the night I met her was at one of my Starbucks in Hollywood, and she was just super charming. I mean, when I found out that she passed, I was so shocked because she was such a ray of light, and so, watching the movie is gonna be really amazing and beautiful when we do the screening. But there’ll be a lot of tears, because one of the things for me about the movie is, it’s kind of a lot about loss, loss of innocence and lost childhood. There’s hope, but there’s also a lot of loss, and the fact that Michelle’s not here anymore—I would love for to have seen this version of the movie and to experience the Academy Museum screening cause she was so excited about the movie, and her work in it is incredible. But her death really just adds this whole other layer to her performance, and it’s kind of hard to watch. Cause the scenes are very emotional.

DEADLINE: And I remember, after she died, a lot of people were sharing one quote of hers from that movie about wishing there was “a film about our lives, everything that’s happened so far, and the last scene would just be us standing right here.” It was very poignant. 

ARAKI: But all of her scenes are very poignant, that’s what I noticed. It’s not just that scene, but almost every scene she has is just really delicate, and her chemistry with Joe is really incredible. So, I’m happy that this performance will just live on forever. She’ll always be remembered for this movie. It’s funny because she did this movie—she did Harriet the Spy all that stuff, and Buffy and all that, and then she did our movie. and I remember going to the premiere of Ice Princess, six months after we finished drafting or whatever. I remember going to her birthday party in a bowling alley or something when she turned 20 or 21, and then she did Ice Princess. I remember going to that premiere. She was amazing, and I’m so sad that she’s gone so soon. But I guess this is the cool thing about being an actor or filmmaker is that your work lives on. Especially for her, cause she had that face and skin, and you just capture that life in her so vivid and so of that moment, and I think that’s so beautiful.