Regina Hall is reflecting on her “wild” transformation in O’Dessa.

At the movie’s premiere during the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival in Austin, Texas, on Saturday, March 8, the actress told PEOPLE her experience on the set of the film was unique, especially in terms of her look.

“Once I got in hair and makeup and wardrobe, it lent itself to not feeling like myself, which I actually loved,” says Hall, 54, adding with a laugh, “I was like, ‘This is the first time I go to hair-and-makeup and I look worse!’ ”

“But in the best way,” she adds. “It was great. It was a great time, to play Neon Dion.”

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Starring Sadie Sink (Stranger Things) as the title character, O’Dessa is a rock opera set in a post-apocalyptic future, about a “farm girl on an epic quest to recover a cherished family heirloom,” according to a synopsis.

“Her journey leads her to a strange and dangerous city where she meets her one true love — but in order to save his soul, she must put the power of destiny and song to the ultimate test,” the synopsis adds.

Aside from Hall and Sink, 22, the movie also stars Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Murray Bartlett. It’s directed by Geremy Jasper, who also wrote the script.

At the SXSW premiere, Jasper, 49, told PEOPLE he is “a huge Regina fan,” adding that he could tell Hall “really [understood] the film” when first meeting about it and that it “would be something that she would be into.”

“She can kinda do anything,” he says. “And she brought it.”

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Harrison, 30, also told PEOPLE at SXSW about which musicians he looked to for inspiration for his role in the film as O’Dessa’s love interest, Euri Dervish.

“I was looking at Tina Turner a little bit. I was looking at Lenny Kravitz. Prince, obviously,” he says. “Iggy Pop was a huge inspiration for me. … Sara Green was my movement coach and choreographer on it, and we would start with Lenny Kravitz and we just kind of walk like him and go through the live performances, move our hips, get in our body. That was the foundation of Euri.”

While he admits that Sink kept information about the upcoming fifth and final season of Stranger Things “on lock,” Harrison says he appreciates her secrecy “because I wanna watch the show for the first time too.”

“It was so fun working with her,” he adds of the “talented” and “sweet” Sink. “That’s my bestie forever, and I’m just grateful that I got to be a part of a movie with friends. You don’t get to do that all the time — it’s coworkers — but that’s my friend.”

O’Dessa is now on Hulu.