Inside the Frenetic Mind of a Born Hustler

Born to Hustle, directed by Grace Anna Cardona, plunges into the chaotic, creative world of Emma Addams, the Melbourne-based jeweller, artist, and entrepreneur behind Heart of Bone. Known for macabre pieces that have attracted a cult following and been worn by the likes of Billie Eilish, Billy Idol, and Jean Paul Gaultier, Addams has built a distinctive brand by operating almost entirely on her own terms—and seemingly at full speed.

Rather than observing that energy from a comfortable distance, Cardona constructs the documentary to move with it. Across 26 minutes, an explosive mix of rapid-fire editing, typography, motion graphics, and an unusually dense soundtrack pulls us inside the rhythm of Addams’ creative mind, while quieter moments reveal the relentless drive underneath it all. The result is both a celebration of creative independence and a candid portrait of the ambition, obsession, and occasional exhaustion required to turn an uncompromising personality into a life and a brand.

Below, we speak with director Grace Anna Cardona about spending three years documenting Emma Addams, designing a film around a neurodivergent creative mind, and why sometimes the best approach is to set the box on fire entirely.

Born to Hustle is as much an experience as it is a portrait of Emma Addams. What first drew you to tell her story?

I came across Heart of Bone in a rock and roll wedding magazine for alternative couples (of all the bloody places) and couldn’t find much video of the creator. For someone with that much of a cult following, Emma was basically a ghost on camera. I wanted to know what kind of person makes jewellery that macabre. So in 2020 I sent her a cold, pretty unfiltered email, told her I thought her brand was sick and asked if we could shoot something that wasn’t boring AF. It sat unread for months, but when she finally found it and called me in, we met at the Heart of Bone atelier in Collingwood and just talked for hours. I walked in thinking five-minute brand film, walked out knowing that wasn’t going to cut it—she had way too much character to compress into that timeframe.

The real test run was the AC/DC piece we shot in March 2021—she’d carved the opening riff of Back in Black into a ring using an electron microscope at Melbourne Uni, the only lab in the Southern Hemisphere that could scan the original vinyl pressing. Once that shoot came together, I knew this needed to be a proper documentary, not a brand reel.

The film moves at an exhilarating pace, mirroring Emma’s energy and mindset. How did you approach building that rhythm in the edit?

Honestly if I had it my way the entire edit would just be a non-stop EDM cut-fest, but I think people’s eyes would explode in a not-so-fun way, so I had to force myself to rein some sections in. I wanted the viewer to actually live inside Emma’s mind for twenty-six minutes—not watch her from a comfortable distance, but feel a bit overwhelmed by the frenetic nature of her lifestyle and the constant creativity pouring out of her. She’s a self-proclaimed “born hustler,” so the rhythm and pacing is very much how it feels to actually be around her—the edit isn’t imitating her personality from the outside, it’s trying to be it.

That approach was fully intentional, and it’s the same instinct I bring to every project: if a subject’s personality had a colour, a beat, a visual texture, I want the editing itself to reflect it rather than just illustrate it. I let the music guide me on where to cut, so a lot of high BPM tracks are responsible for finding that rhythm.

I was also careful not to let that flatten her into one note of “fast and frantic” the whole way through. Carving is slow, careful, tactile work, and I wanted that patience sitting in there too—so I went back in after the main pass and built specific moments to slow right down and actually watch her hands: a carving sequence around the five-and-a-half-minute mark, a softer beat with her kids later on. Those breathers matter as much as the fast cuts (or so I’m told).

Typography, motion graphics, and music all become part of the storytelling. How did you develop a visual language that could keep up with Emma’s personality?

Funnily enough, I actually loathe doing motion graphics and typography—I had to learn most of it from scratch for this film. At one point I asked my colourist if he had any mad graphic design skillz and could beef it all up a bit, and he just said it already looked on point, so I went “fuck it, that’ll do.” Looking at it now, I think it all works—I was just burnt out from learning a new skill at the time.

But the actual approach was the same idea as the edit rhythm: treating the graphics and music as the personality rather than a container for it. It’s the thing people have flagged most at festivals—that the visuals aren’t just fast for the sake of energy, they’re built in the actual shape of the person on screen. Every design choice had to pass the same test as the music: does this genuinely sound and look like Emma, or am I just making noise?

With 21 songs in just 26 minutes, music is almost another character in the film. How did you curate the soundtrack, and what role did it play in shaping the emotional journey?

Yesss, I’m that insufferable person who makes music their entire personality, I live for a phat beat. Music comes first, always—I lock the whole skeleton of a film to the songs before I even touch most of the footage. Some tracks earned their spot purely because they’re incredible on their own; others got picked because something Emma said reminded me of a specific lyric. The section with her son Ajax and the eggs led me straight to a Musicbed track called Brunchfaced by Floyd Wonder. She can’t stand being bored, so Bored by Ocean Grove x Dune Rats got tapped in. She’s a triple Scorpio, and MUNNYCAT’s Follow The Leader has the line “into the age of the Scorpio”—I couldn’t not use it.

The test for every track is the same: does this song sound like the person I’m editing? Because the music was locked before the narrative, I could time the emotional beats perfectly—a line lands right as a chorus drops, a crescendo hits exactly when a piece of story needs the lift.

Emma has built a fiercely loyal following while remaining unapologetically herself. What do you think makes her story resonate beyond the worlds of art and fashion?

Because underneath the jewellery and the aesthetic, it’s actually a permission story. Watching Emma take up exactly the space she wants, without asking first, is the part that travels well outside the art and fashion world—you don’t need to be interested in silverwork to feel something watching a woman commit fully to being herself. A lot of people, especially women, are taught to shrink to be liked. The film doesn’t try to explain why Emma didn’t get that memo, it just shows what it looks like when someone is unapologetically themselves.

The film captures the tension between relentless ambition and personal well-being. Was it important to show both the brilliance and the cost of that lifestyle?

It does come at a cost, but honestly that’s kind of half the fun and certainly important to show. I think a lot of creatives and neurodivergent viewers will relate hard to this—constant ideas, constant ambition, a never-ending list of things to conquer and output, all while burning the candle at both ends. It’s just another day. Brilliance and cost aren’t opposites here, they’re the same person—I didn’t want to make the audience choose between admiring her drive and seeing what it actually takes to sustain it.

I wanted the film to speak to that tension for creative people generally—what it actually takes to make something from nothing, and the kind of person you have to become to withstand that, including the possibility that it might never fully feel satisfying. Less a destination, more a way of moving through it. This is why I chose to close the film on Emma’s line: “maybe artists are destined to be completely unsatisfied all the time… that could be my fucking blessing or my curse, but I don’t know, is that a bad thing? It is what it is.” I related to that so hard when she said it—a genuine aha moment for me, and I’d bet for a lot of other artists too.

Alongside intimate moments, the documentary features appearances from well-known artists and public figures. How did you balance those larger cultural touchpoints with keeping Emma at the center of the story?

Her work has ended up on some genuinely huge names—Billie Eilish, Billy Idol, Jean Paul Gaultier—plus the AC/DC collaboration. Honestly, I didn’t overthink the balance. I wanted to give some real gravity to Emma’s work, and it felt worth pushing through a few of those names—partly for the film, and partly for Emma herself, so it can double as a bit of a time capsule she gets to watch back later in life. Every time a bigger cultural moment shows up on screen, it’s there to reflect something back onto Emma—how far her work reaches, how much people trust her instinct and admire her creativity—rather than to borrow their shine for the film. And honestly, Emma fills a room in about three seconds flat—it never once crossed my mind that a famous name could take the shine off her. Not possible.

You’ve said the film was designed to engage viewers with ADHD. Did that challenge change the way you think about pacing and storytelling as a filmmaker?

Completely, and it started before this film even existed. I’d made fast-paced branding work and educational videos before and had a couple of people with ADHD message me out of nowhere to say they’d watched the whole thing without zoning out for once—that really stuck with me. So I took that into Born to Hustle: roughly fifty cuts across seven locations in the first minute alone. I didn’t want to explain the neurodivergent lens or dramatise it—it’s just one facet of who Emma is, and I think most creatives and neurodivergent brains will recognise it without me pointing at it. It’s changed how I think about attention generally as a filmmaker, and the role music in particular can play in holding it.

Beyond documenting Emma’s journey, the film feels like a celebration of creative independence. What do you hope aspiring artists and entrepreneurs take away from Born to Hustle?

Permission to be as off the chain as you like. I made this for every girl who was ever taught to people-please—myself very much included. Being around someone who doesn’t take no for an answer, who speaks up and is truly, authentically herself, was pretty empowering to be around for three years straight. It made me check my own people-pleasing habits. If aspiring artists and entrepreneurs take one thing from Emma, I hope it’s that you don’t have to make yourself smaller or more palatable to be taken seriously. You don’t have to swear less, act girlier, fit into a box—the box is lame and you should set it on fire. Chase exactly what you want, stay unapologetically yourself, and let the work do the talking. And if you want to edit really fast shit like a maniac, you should do that too.

What are the books, podcasts, or even YouTube channels that you recommend young filmmakers get their hands on?

I’m a book girl through and througggh. The ones that have left the biggest impression on me are:

Women Don’t Owe You Pretty by Florence Given (if you want to rage-bait yourself and become even more aware of the patriarchy)

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, the creator of Nike (this book made me realise you can absolutely fake it till you make it, and your work lives and dies on your own confidence)

Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara (had this gifted to me, and it resonated hard with how I approach filmmaking—go the extra 10%, it will inevitably set you apart)

Can you share with us some of your favorite short films you’ve seen lately?

I’m an absolute music video binge-watcher, which I’d argue counts as short films anyway. Recent ones I’ve been frothing over the editing on are FKA twigs’ Eusexua and Mette’s Mama’s Eyes—and if you just want to trip balls, check out Ninajirachi’s Infohazard.