I liked when we got to go to the mud bath.
I thought you hated the mud bath, to be honest.
I know, but it was like fun because that was the same day we got to jump in the...
In the lake.
...in the river, or lake, whatever it was.
Oh and we did the cold springs, that isn’t in the film now.
Cold spring’s not in the film anymore,
but we got to go in the river, in a mud bath, in the cold spring...
Was that all in one day?
A lot of like water-based activities.
The start point for this project came from
a couple of different places, I think.
For all of my other films there is a really concrete
point at which I remember being aware
of knowing this was the project I was going to do.
And it doesn’t quite exist for this film because I think in many ways it was a continuation
of a short film that I made, my first short film.
It explored similar themes that ultimately built to a feeling
of grief, which I think this film is an expression of too.
It was a script that I read that I was immensely
moved by, straight off the bat.
I think Calum is the kind of man
that I am interested in playing.
There’s a lot of what he does on the surface that kind of
acts in opposition to how he is in private
and I think that’s just a fun exercise to be involved with as an actor.
I was flipping through old holiday albums
and was struck by how young my dad looked
and the fact that I was approaching the age that he was in those photos.
These things kind of all coalesced to
create, in that first instance,
this story about a young father and his daughter on holiday
at a resort in the late 1990s.
Yeah I feel like this is a personal story
to Charlotte and it is something that she was incredibly generous with
in terms of how she gave us a responsibility to create
and play these characters. From an actor’s perspective,
you know, that is wasn’t. It is obviousuly precious
to her but it was kind of treated with a
degree of play and it gave us a lot of freedom, I think.
Yeah. Exactly what he’s said.
In prepping Frankie for the role,
we did two readthroughs of the script,
during the two week rehearsal period that we had.
Just the three of us: Paul, Frankie and myself.
And we had a redacted version of the script,
so it included only the scenes that Frankie was in
and nothing of Calum’s individual scenes.
So Frankie never really had a sense of the struggle
that Calum was having with his own mental health
beyond her eye.
I mean, I knew a bit what was happening, but...
Paul and Charlie - director - kind of hid it from me, I guess
to keep my nice, naive little girl that I’m playing.
I think that was kind of important from myself and Charlie’s perspective
because I think it was just true.
I think that’s how, if people are battling something
they don’t want to necessarily show it
so it’s kind of like a fun game that represents
also something that happens in real life, yeah.
And I think it was important for Frankie
especially as a first-time performer, but even if she hadn’t been,
to not have the burden of that knowledge.
To be able to just be very present in the moment,
not be thinking about the context of it
and to ultimately be shielded from that until she finally saw the film.
In preparation we got to spend a lot of time,
kind of two weeks before we started filming,
where we got to essentially hang out.
We swam in the pool, swam in the sea.
Frankie’s parents were very generous in letting me
kind of assume a certain degree of responsibility
during the days with Frankie.
And we just hung out.
I asked for two weeks when we got to set
before we started shooting
for us to be able to rehearse and for them to spend time together.
And so I was able to spend only really like an hour or two
with them every morning, because I was engaged in the other technical aspect of prep,
and the rest of the time was just theirs,
to get to know each other and to build a bond
and fortunately they really enjoyed each other’s company
and they enjoyed spending time together
far above and beyond what was required of them within that time.
And it was really lovely to watch
them build that relationship and to capture some of it on screen
because many of the moments on screen really are
the two of them enjoying each other’s company.
What were your favourite moments?
My favourite moments?
Yeah.
Out of the whole filming?
Yeah.
Right, I’m going to rephrase this, ready?
Yeah, do it.
My favourite moments
out of the whole filming were... You see that?
Yeah, that was good.
I liked when we got to go to the mud bath.
I thought you hated the mud bath, to be honest.
I know, but it was like fun because that was the same day we got to jump in the...
In the lake.
...in the river, or lake, whatever it was.
Oh and we did the cold springs, that isn’t in the film now.
Cold spring’s not in the film anymore,
but we got to go in the river, in a mud bath, in the cold spring...
Was that all in one day?
A lot of water-based activities.
I derived a couple of playlists from the playlists that I had been building over the many years of writing this film,
one for Calum’s character and one for Sophie’s
and I shared, I shared them with each of the actors.
Frankie revealed last night, on stage, that she never listened to that playlist
and she despises all of the music that I sent her from the nineties,
so she must have heard it at least once.
Yeah. She’s more Olivia Rodrigo, less Blur.
I liked-- I like all my new music.
I didn’t really listen to any of the old music.
Apart from a lot of REM. A lot of Losing My Religion.
Paul used to listen to it, and I think
is in the habit of building playlist for his characters
so that was a nice point of connection.
Part of the audition process was dancing to Blur in the kitchen.
And it’s also a period of music that I’m not particularly familiar with.
So it was fun to kind of jump into that
genre of like, late eighties, early nineties,
nineties Brit-Pop and yeah, it was fun.
Music is infused throughout this film,
it was a big part of
the period and the storytelling
and it was fun to share with the actors, whether they liked it or not.
Yeah it’s been a second since the film premiered at Cannes
so since then it’s played in Telluride, Toronto, New York, London.
It’s starting to, it’s really satisfying starting to see the
film taking its baby steps out in front of the
in front of the public. And
I think what’s so satisfying on top of that is
that the response, regardless of where it’s played,
it’s been consistently positive, but also
eliciting familiar responses in each place, like,
lots of people calling their dads after the film,
lots of people discussing how we don’t really know our parents
until we gain a little perspective
and I think, if nothing else, that’s a massive success for the film in my opinion.