Jillian Shea Spaeder at opening night of the 24th annual Beverly Hills Film Festival at TCL Chinese … [+] Theatre in Hollywood, California (Photo by Michael Tullberg)
Getty Images
In a new short film titled The Noise, Disney’s Godmothered actress Jillian Shea Spaeder shares her story of struggling with an eating disorder. The Noise was screened at the Beverly Hills Film Festival on Wednesday, where Spaeder introduced the film alongside A Dog’s Purpose actor Bryce Gheisar, who directed the short. “Our film is about a personal story of mine of struggling with anorexia,” said Spaeder. “The goal was to make audiences more aware of what it feels like on the inside for people struggling with mental health, rather than what it looks like on the outside,” said Spaeder. Gheisar and Spaeder met while working together on the Disney show Walk the Prank (2016-2018). Spaeder wrote and starred in the film, playing a character based on herself named Elle.
The Noise screened at the Beverly Hills Film Festival this week
Jillian Shea Spaeder
The film’s namesake “noise” is the punishing voice in Elle’s mind as she attempts to go about her life — celebrating a birthday with her family, going for a run, looking at herself in the mirror, making plans with friends and navigating meals. The noise is personified by actor Shane Brady of Doctor Sleep. Donning a hoodie and shot in shadow, Brady’s blurry and depersonalized character is the specter of anorexia. He looms larger and more brutal as the film goes on. “You are nothing but a constant disappointment,” he repeats in the final scene as Elle pleads, “I promise I’m going to be better.”
Actor Shane Brady (Doctor Sleep) plays the personification of “the noise”
Jillian Shea Spaeder
“Closer to the beginning of the short film you don’t really see the face of the noise,” said Gheisar in an in-person interview alongside Spaeder after the screening. “We wanted to show that there’s a variety of sources of where this self-talk comes from. It’s an amalgamation of people around you. It’s the press, the industry, the media overall, and some personal experiences.”
Bryce Gheisar, director of The Noise, at the 2022 Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards
FilmMagic
“I wrote The Noise when I was in therapy for an eating disorder,” said Spaeder. “I felt a lot of pressure around me because I grew up in the industry and I felt like all these eyes were on me all the time. I wrote it to explain it to the people all around me. I kind of felt like everyone saw the physical issues going on with me, like I had heart problems and headaches and dizziness. People could see all of those issues really easily, but no one could see the mental toll it was taking on me or the isolation that it caused me to feel. It put me alone in a room all the time, where I felt like I couldn’t go out and have fun, no parties, no doing anything. So I was not physically capable but also not mentally. I wanted to show that mental aspect and explain that busyness inside your mind when you can’t get out of it.”
Spaeder (far right) during her Walk the Prank days
Disney Channel via Getty Images
Spaeder wrote the first draft of the film in 2022 when was 20 years old and in day treatment for anorexia. She edited the script after she completed treatment, and said she wanted to wait until she was mentally recovered to shoot the story. “I wanted it to be universally acceptable and not triggering for people,” said Spaeder. “So I took my original raw and emotional script and edited from there.”
A scene from The Noise
Jillian Shea Spaeder
When it came to casting for the role of Elle, Spaeder says she was her own last choice. “I was very reluctant to have myself as the lead. I really wanted it to be someone else because I wanted more diversity. The most common thing when talking about eating disorders is to focus on a young female in a smaller body.”
Spaeder is referencing the longstanding and pervasive myth of who is affected by anorexia. Nearly every media portrayal of anorexia nervosa focuses on young white women who are underweight. The true population of those with eating disorders is, as Spaeder points out, much more diverse.
In fact, Dr. Andrea Garber, the lead researcher for a 2019 study done by the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) reported that one-third of the patients she admitted to UCSF’s Benioff Children’s Hospitals for anorexia had “atypical anorexia nervosa.” This is the classification for patients with anorexia who are at weights considered “normal” and above. The study also found that patients with atypical anorexia nervosa are just as likely as underweight patients to experience bradycardia, or slow heart rate. The study points out that patients with atypical anorexia “may carry a heavier psychological burden than those who are underweight, due to heightened preoccupations with food avoidance and more negative feelings about body shape and weight.”
The Noise joins a short list of films that provide a humane and deeply personal glimpse into the reality of life with anorexia nervosa. Eating disorders have the second highest mortality rate of any psychiatric illness, and weight stigma is considered a risk factor for the development of anorexia.
