How ‘The Novice’ Director Lauren Hadaway Turned Her College Rowing Obsession Into a ‘Black Swan’-Style Thriller

When Lauren Hadaway was working on “Justice League” in the sound department, she had time to kill between arduous reshoots on the gritty superhero adventure.With years of experience finessing sound and dialogue on a range of blockbusters and indies, including the jukebox musical “Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again,” Damien Chazelle’s “Whiplash,” Quentin Tarantino’s Western thriller “The Hateful Eight” and “Transformers: Age of Extinction,” she’d put out enough fires for top-shelf auteurs to have the confidence to spearhead her own feature.So she spent her downtime during production by putting pen to paper, heeding the age-old aphorism to write what you know. It became a cathartic experience that helped her work through the trauma and moments of triumph that came with her background as a college athlete.The result is “The Novice,” a gritty, twisted coming-of-age story that draws inspiration from cerebral thrillers like “Black Swan” and “Whiplash. ...