Lauren Budd is Using Her Platform to Advocate for Women’s Safety

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You may already know Lauren Budd from her work on screen, her tenure as a professional model, or her growing influence behind the scenes, where she helps coordinate the acquisition of some of the most exciting new horror films on the horizon. But Budd’s passion for storytelling doesn’t stop at fiction or photoshoots. She’s also the force behind the Call It Out Campaign, a real-world initiative aimed at empowering women and confronting public harassment.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with the multi-hyphenate at the 2025 Cannes Film Market to talk about what’s next for her. In doing so, I learned that, like so many of us, Budd didn’t intentionally dive into horror at a young age so much as stumble into it by accident.

“I was just flipping channels late one night,” she remembers. “I must have been a kid—sitting cross-legged in front of this big, chunky TV in our living room. And suddenly, Scream came on. That face, the mask. It was just there. It felt like it was coming inside the house.”

That accidental viewing planted a seed. Years later, Budd would find herself bloodied and screaming in Cinderella’s Curse, a gritty horror reimagining of the classic tale that premiered at FrightFest, the UK’s most prestigious genre festival. It was a big step forward, and her introduction to the scrappy, ambitious world of indie horror filmmaking.

“I had this amazing death scene,” she laughs. “There’s this whole cat-and-mouse sequence, and then Cinderella—played by Kelly Rian Sanson—rips half my face off with a heel. It was ridiculous. And I loved it.”

But it wasn’t just Lauren Budd’s work in front of the camera that drew me to her. These days, she splits her time between acting, developing projects, and working behind the scenes at Firebook Entertainment—a boutique production and distribution company with a sharp focus on socially driven genre storytelling. Her growing role in acquisitions and packaging has completely reshaped her perspective on horror, not just as entertainment, but as a tool for change.

“Years ago, I wouldn’t have considered myself a horror fan,” she admits. “But since working in genre, researching references and inspirations, I found there was so much more to the community than I first thought.”

For Budd, horror has become more than just a professional space. It’s become a political one. “I’ve always been driven by work with social impact,” she explains. “And by using the vessel of genre, you can explore, push, and question everything around you. It gives space to discuss otherwise tricky conversations—abuse, social systems, problematic stereotypes.”

She points to The Ghost—a politically subversive Firebook pickup from last year—as a perfect example. “The underlying message is extremely political, if you want to see it. But you might not even realize that until you’ve watched and reflected on how it made you feel.”

Budd also cites Barbarian, Pearl, Ex Machina, Blink Twice, Companion, and Grafted as recent films that inspire her. “They all have something to say about the female experience,” she says. “And they’re unapologetic about it. I think the audience for this kind of storytelling is growing—and that’s exactly where I want to be.”

She’s quick to credit conversations with industry leaders like Paulina Song (producer of The Bone Woman and Mogul) and Monica Garcia (of Sitges’ Women of Fantastic initiative) for helping her expand her sense of what’s possible in genre.

(L) John Moss (Firebook Co-Founder) (R) Lauren Budd

Budd’s reflections on horror are grounded not just in theory, but in lived experience. Before stepping into acting and film development, she spent years working as a professional model—a career she describes as intense, physically demanding, and at times, dehumanizing. It’s a world she found herself slowly drifting away from as her creative focus shifted.

“When you hit your mid-twenties in that world, you’re basically a grandma,” she tells me. “The industry changed, too—online shopping took over, catalog shoots disappeared. One day you’re flying for jobs, and the next… it’s just gone.”

That sudden loss of structure was disorienting, but ultimately, it cleared the path toward something more creatively fulfilling.

“Now, when I’m on set—even for a commercial—I just feel lucky,” she says of her pivot from modeling to acting. “I’m working. I’m earning. And I’m doing what I love.”

Still, that background continues to shape how she engages with horror, particularly body horror and narratives about control, surveillance, and the relentless demands placed on women’s appearances. Her affinity for splatterfests like The Substance and Grafted seems, at least in part, rooted in those early career experiences.

“I hadn’t really connected the dots before,” she says, “but yeah, the pressure to look and be a certain way—it’s very real. Horror lets us express that rage, that anxiety, in a way that’s honest. Even fun.”

Budd is now leading the Call It Out Campaign, an initiative designed to empower women in public spaces to document and report street harassment. It’s an issue she feels a personal connection to.

“I love that our work can be a tool for awareness and change,” she says. “And Call It Out is an extension of that. We’re encouraging women to observe and record details about harassment incidents—to empower them and give them the choice to report or offer information if they wish.”

The goal is to push back against the cultural conditioning that tells women to stay quiet.

“We aim to dismantle the ‘just ignore it, don’t make a fuss’ mentality,” Budd explains. “Our research shows that even planning a response can restore a sense of control.”

The campaign’s first video is currently in post-production and expected to launch later this year. From her work with social movement campaigns to performing and especially her work in acquisitions, Budd is clearly passionate about amplifying underrepresented voices.

“It’s about moving forward,” she says. “About having tools. About reclaiming space … I really hope to be part of building that space—for women, for queer people, for anyone who’s been left out of the conversation,” Budd says. “We’ve always been in the horror. It’s time we get to make it.”