Congratulations on such an incredible movie.
I watched it last night and I cannot not stop thinking about it.
And what it did was so very, very much well done.
I just wanted to start with both of you.
What drew you to the project story?
The first thing that comes to mind, and it's been a commonality
between the both of us, I've noticed,
is it's a it's a question that people are always you know, they
always want to know what draws an actor to like why
why this movie do you choose?
You take what comes down the pipe.
I think if you want a career, longevity and integrity, I don't know.
Here's the expert if you want to know.
But it has something to do with curation of a career.
It has something to do with incalculably.
And both Alice and I on common ground
really love stories especially.
And I was really impressed with being on set and seeing that I was having a binder
and you had a binder where she would the arc of the story,
she would have it broken down and she would be able to
you know, we're going into a scene and, you know how movies are shot.
Sometimes we shoot the beginnings as we're shooting the ending first
in the middle of the thumbnails, but she goes and she has that place
and she can go right into that emotion because she knows where we are.
On the elements of story when you break them down
and take away all of the frills and glitter.
It's it's like chess.
It's not like Batman. You're you really have
core values of something magical near that,
that can metaphysical, that can alter the course of another person's life.
And with that comes deep responsibility.
And it is deeply attractive.
I've noticed both of us in our answers that we really love the essence
of the most ancient practice known to man
storytelling. Wow.
I don't know if Twisted of it was
multiple things to me.
The project, the script, which is remarkably
effortlessly layered
and gradually reveals itself,
which is very interesting and
to who
wonderfully didn't require
either of us to audition, just
had to face that
because she felt it that we would be able to
to come to the role
and the the the
the arc of discovery that Veronica goes on and also
the fact
that there is hope at the end of the movie
that life has become possible again.
And I differ from you.
I've been doing this for a very, very long time
before both of you will be
and I take the work that I'm off.
I the only scripts that I say no to are extreme.
Other ones that are very violent.
And sadly, in the course of 40 years of working,
there are more and more and more
and more of those.
I worked on a film called Silent Hill, and to my
actual enormous distress, the deeper we got into it,
the more violent it became.
And the way the imagery was realized
and I realized doing
the press interview for it, that I
when I had started violence generally happened off screen.
And now it was so in-your-face that
it doesn't surprise me that
there is so much gun violence in America where guns are accessible.
It's the daily consumption.
But I, I
have never had the luxury of curating my career that I also
I suppose that was a choice I made.
But I,
I know that whatever the piece of work
I, I am given and do I learn from
I've never walked away from a piece of work
in which I haven't understood something about myself,
about being alive, about other people,
about the process.
And sometimes it is I've I walked
on to sets where sorry, I've sort of gone off the subject.
It was just in response to what you said.
And just sometimes it's enormously difficult.
You go in and you do one scene that's infinitely moronic, but your task
is to find the truth of that moment
and the challenge of doing it is
I have learned
from those terrifying one rule scenes
as much as I've learned from the big ones.
So I'm immensely grateful to work
and for the exchange that happens
between the actors.
That's amazing.
I mean, like you talk about like the whole day
and I wish I didn't have just 10 minutes because you're basically eloquent
in your rose I this film for me
I kind of left it and there's so many different things
going on with women and male violence and the MeToo
era being cast as witch trials and the original witch trials.
And then there's Mother Nature and Earth and how women bodies interact
with Mother Nature.
And I just wanted to if you could touch upon building
that aspect of the film, because obviously both characters
deal with violence and the earth in the sense that Veronica accepts, whereas
Desi kind of is a bit more scared of it when it comes into that lodge.
And I just wanted to talk about your experiences with those themes
and also sexuality as well.
I don't know if you mentioned that one, but that's it's funny that that is never
it's left to the imagination, which I love
for the viewer, from the spectator to find
a way to find, you know, a solidarity or a peace with God,
which just the inquisitive
nature of filmmaking, you know, that there's this attraction
that Desi has to the woman who is on the grounds and it's mutual.
And we see that this kind of like hinted at.
So all of this kind of hinting at the wild,
the essence of the wild woman and out in the wild in the sense of,
you know, feral but wild in the sense of free
the free woman and all of these scenes really created a beautiful concoction
that to us to grow as individuals and on set and our characters,
all of these things from pervasive misogyny to,
you know, nature to everything that you mentioned.
It was like this.
It was like this is the cauldron and the witches and who was there
and, you know, and in so doing that,
and I say it with a lightness, but there's a deep responsibility
that comes with that as well, with so many themes that are going around.
There's also the theme of,
you know, obviously I come from Desi is an inner city nurse.
Desi has never had a silver China.
You know what I mean?
She's she's she doesn't she doesn't come to the silver spoon, so to speak.
And you want to come to a completely different part of town,
different side of life, something that Desi would never know.
Sometimes we even have to, you know, hold space for characters,
aspects of characters that we're not comfortable with or that we
maybe cannot identify with whatsoever.
I mean, Alice has played a villain.
I've played a villain.
We villainous, but our villains are just one dimensional.
You know what I mean?
Have you ever been this have you ever listened to go in speech?
And it starts to make sense.
It's like, yeah, you know, like
we have
as an actor, we are job
our targets are many but hold space for the community is that at times
even difficult to find ourselves and find ourselves in these communities.
So there's there's also the element and to hold space for storytelling,
the element of black and white
and the socioeconomic disparity
dichotomy that exists between us.
We have some parts that are coming onto the screen, but
it's there.
There are so many interesting themes to wrap one's
head around and heart around
for you to say that you feel you can't stop thinking about the film
because we're like, I honestly, I could die now like that.
That's the highest compliment to receive.
It means that we did our job.
It means that we have space
for something that is so incredibly sacred,
you know?
Yeah, I'm so happy.
So glad you resonated with that
exploration of of of the cosmos and nature.
I mean, I have never seen a film
that spent so much time looking at trees.
And I have to say,
I would love trees,
which I think is a genius.
The way she drew down the cosmos
and made it so clear
that we are part of something
vast, that we have these tiny things
in in dimensions that we are
that most of us blinked all the time because they are two stories.
There are two unknown.
There are two unsettling.
Most people who live in cities don't even see the stars at night
and I live in a dark
sky village.
And I am I am bereft.
When I can't see them.
But even if I can't see them, I can feel them.
And it's just wonderful
to have that opened up in the film.
And I'm so grateful that you resonated with it
because if you did, then other people may as well.
Absolutely.
And it's funny you mention the starlight, because even the this
the mud looks like it's glowing with stardust
when she interacts with it and it remains on her fingers.
And there's that kind of interesting point that we're made from Stardust.
But also you've got the charcoal that's
rumored to be the burnt, which is from years ago.
And it's just that kind of that that kind of rural.
And like, I know I keep telling you all about women,
but that rural nature of women like Veronica has changed body and the mud
and how it kind of awakens her own power
to, like, confront her, like, trauma.
And then she passes on that that power on to Daisy,
who who's frightened at first, but then, like, drives away
in this emotional, kind of like acceptance of the environment.
We have different responses to stress and trauma.
We can play victim or we can play victorious.
You know, I do believe that it's a choice and once fire catch him, catches him
to one dress, it's by far stronger chances that it's going to catch fire.
And so the other dress that's next to, you know,
some of the more it's infection's kind of contagious.
The thing
you know, you're absolutely you're on to it.
You're right.
So yeah as I said, I could talk to you guys all day and I've just got chills.
That was a really amazing conversation.
Just like,
oh, god, I wish I could sit here all day, but unfortunately, that's my time.
Wonderful.
You are so lovely.
Thank you. It's you.
You really did
get it. Yes.
Thank you for.
Oh, oh, I love you guys, too.
Thank you so much. And good luck.
I really can't wait for everyone to see this film.
I really hope it connects with people as much that connected with me.
And yeah, take care.