Katseye's New Film Catches a Group Holding Together While Two Members Step Away
The documentary 'Wild Hearts' tracks a pop group navigating early fame, harsh reviews, and a health crisis just before releasing its most personal EP yet.
Image: harpersbazaar.com
The Unfinished Debut
Katseye's rise on the world stage is a story of unorthodox timing. The group's six original members—Daniela Avanzini, Lara Raj, Meret Manon Bannerman, Megan Skiendiel, Sophia Laforteza, and Yoonchae Jeung—were picked in the 2023 reality competition *The Debut: Dream Academy*. Their ascent since has been unusually fast. The group has collected two Grammy nominations and three American Music Awards, and they have headlined sets at Coachella and Lollapalooza, all before the release of a single full-length studio album. Their entire back catalog consists of two EPs, with a third, *Wild*, scheduled for release this Friday. Laforteza explains that the upcoming EP closes the "Pinky Up" era and opens the "Animal" concept. The documentary *Katseye: Wild Hearts*, now in theaters globally, attempts to capture this period where the commercial expectations of a major label act collide with the band's own ticking clock.
Rehearsal Space Discipline
The documentary's most direct look at the group's work involves their preparation, led by choreographer Grant Gilmore, who also serves as their performance director. Gilmore argues that an artist's primary job is to govern atmosphere, a task Katseye handles naturally, but he maintains that presence is nothing without the technique to support it. "I'm not worried about stage presence, because I know when they hit that stage they're gonna command," Gilmore says. The film shows the six working through routines with a specific focus on how movement can reinterpret a track for an audience; Laforteza notes that seeing a dance can alter how an artist hears the music itself. The work pace is unrelenting, with Skiendiel telling the camera that the goal is constant improvement, rejecting any idea of being "good" enough as a stopping point. Laforteza frames the ambition in terms of audience perception: she wants to be seen as someone who clearly loves the job.
The 'Gnarly' Reversal
The film singles out the song "Gnarly" as the moment the group learned to weather public rejection. When it was released in April 2025 as the lead single for the second EP *Beautiful Chaos*, critics responded harshly to its specific lyric choices, which opened with references to boba tea, Tesla, and fried chicken. Raj recalls visiting Bannerman's room, both fearing the negative reception marked the end of the group. The crisis point came with the decision to perform it live for the first time in South Korea; Jeung says the group treated the criticism as a directive to prove itself. The performance changed the song's trajectory: it became the group's first track to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. Avanzini frames the episode as a lesson in trusting their own taste rather than the immediate reaction, while Skiendiel describes the experience as a lesson in developing a thick skin, an attribute she acknowledges is easier to discuss than maintain.
Draws on source material published at harpersbazaar.com.
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