Yeah, for sure. So tell me about Rebecca and Tim because they are so excellent in this film; what was it like working with them?
Working with Rebecca was just an absolute dream. She was so great, she was so committed, and she just knew precisely what to do all the time. I often just felt extraneous because sometimes I felt like anytime I would say anything, it would really just get in her way. And the best thing to do would be to let her go because she knew the character, she knew the script, and of course, she’s such a tremendously prepared actor that it just made things so easy for me as a director. She could embody this character so perfectly, so readily, without any help. She’s also just so great. I mean, you just talked to her, you could probably attest, she’s just a lovely person and very funny.
For sure.
And even though she was doing this very dark material, when she wasn’t acting, she was delightful. So that was great. And then, of course, working with Tim was also great. He had a much different approach. He came on the project much later than Rebecca, she was attached for a while. Tim came on and was much more improvisational. More like, “let’s find it in the moment. Let’s try a lot of different things out.” That was also very exciting to watch because he never really knew what he was going to do. But working with both of them was just, frankly, very intimidating, because I had one tiny movie to my credit ten years ago, and here come these actors that I’ve admired for so long with such impressive careers and just such formidable charisma; I was just trying not to really embarrass myself by getting in their way.
Well, don’t sell yourself short because this movie matches them. Cinematically, it’s just as fierce. Another thing that kind of shocked me: during Sundance, I saw this clip where you said Rebecca Hall didn’t really ask any questions and just understood it all. And given the enigmatic nature of the movie and ending, I was astonished. Tell me how that works.
It was very funny, when I first started talking to her about it, she said, “I have a, a strong emotional response to this material, a visceral response to this,” I’m paraphrasing, of course, something to that effect. And she said, “We don’t really need to dig into this. I don’t need to psychoanalyze this character. We don’t need to have long talks about the themes. I can do it. Trust me.” And I was nervous about that even though she is one of my favorite actors of all time. I had expected a long process of discussion and excavation and maybe rewriting. And she indulged me. We did have a few conversations that I wanted to have, but I feel like she just did it out of the goodness of her heart.
She didn’t need to have these conversations. And after a certain point, it just became clear that they were superfluous. She knew the script, knew the character, and we didn’t need to talk about it. And then she showed up on the first day, there was no rehearsal. She showed up on the first day, and after the first take, I was just like, “Oh yeah, she totally knows what to do” [laughs]. I became totally confident in her, and then she just proved that, reiterated that over and over again.
What a blessing for a filmmaker, right? One less thing to worry about, the actor is nailing everything, I can worry about everything else. A dream.
It was! It was a great blessing to me and to the film. It was also a great blessing to the production because we had such little time to shoot the movie. The fact that she could come in know precisely what to do and nail it on the first take. Everyone felt like “we’re good.” All we have to do is just nail all our setups and we’re good.
She’s the kind of actor where you’re like, “Can you do an eight-minute single-take monologue,” and she just shows up and does it brilliantly. We’ll do one or two takes and move on. It’s really remarkable, she’s so impressive.
When I first saw the movie, Tim Roth, I thought, “God, he’s so malevolent, he’s so just fucking brutal.” And then I’m watching it a second time, and I’m realizing, yes, but also, he’s playing it so casually, in the pocket, he’s really relaxed, and chill, which sort of brings just an extra insidiousness to his performance.
Yeah, well, that was something that Tim really wanted to do, and I really liked that idea too. He was like, “Evil people, sociopaths don’t perceive themselves as evil people, right? They think of themselves as the hero of their own journey, the protagonist.” And he would often talk about how David, his character, he’s the romantic lead in his own movie, doing the right thing by himself and by Margaret, and also that these kinds of malignant narcissists, toxic personality sociopaths very often, seem like very normal people or very charming, charismatic people. Oftentimes, it takes a long time to discover that these people are capable of horrible things, and he thought, “Well, I’m going to play him as a normal guy.”
He’s not going to project male toxicity and sinisterness and do all the mustache-twirling villain thing the whole time. He thought that would be more truthful and scarier, and I’m glad we went that route. It just feels more truthful that way. Also, when Tim wants to be scary, it’s so easy for him; he can just drop it any second [laughs]. He can just plug in a kind of menacing look or a smile or something. Yeah, he was locked and loaded the whole time.
You talked about it a little bit, projecting yourself into a parent’s fear, which you uncannily tap into, but I’m wondering about any other impetus for making this film, like emotional violence. Because that, to me, is scarier than most horror movies, and you also nail it.
Yeah, I mean, the film culminates in violence, and there’s a little bit of violence throughout the movie, but yeah, the idea was we would be focusing on, as you said, the emotional and psychological violence perpetrated against this woman and her efforts to survive and overcome this. And we could not focus on the physical violence waged against her. Now, again, that does shift a bit in the third act, but for the most part, it’s a movie about manipulation, coercion, gas, lighting, trauma, bonding, and these forms of emotional and psychological abuse.
One thing I love about the movie is how sadistic it is cinematically, which subconsciously matches Tim’s character. You’re not brutal to the audience or manipulative in any way, but there’s this cool brutalist architecture throughout, and there’s a sparseness and the austerity to it, the menacing sound design, the withholding of some information, there’s almost his sadism implied in a sinister, unconscious way.
Well, I certainly wasn’t trying to be sadistic. I hope not. But, yeah, the idea was to make it a slow burn, play it close to the chest, and slowly build a sense of tension, paranoia, and fear that pays off later in the movie. So, the pressure is built to the point where it has to explode. I just love the build. I love to feel that gradually ratcheting up of tension and pressure, and we wanted to do that and end with a bang definitely. It’s just kind of a relentless and incrementally increase of pressure for the first two acts of the movie and building that was exciting to me.
For real, it’s so artfully done. I meant sadism as a compliment to your cinematic craft [laughs]. I have to ask quickly, because, let’s face it, it’s the elephant in the room for a lot of viewers. Your ambiguous ending. Can you speak to it at all? Your interpretation, etc.?
I can’t offer my thoughts because I really encourage any viewer to interpret it in whatever way they find most stimulating and satisfying. It is an ambiguous ending, and it is purposefully so. I don’t want to erase that. I happen to find the ambiguity stimulating, and I hope audiences do as well. My hope is that it’s not emotionally ambiguous. Even though the ending of the film is not precisely logical in the world of the movie, I hope it takes on an emotional logic that we feel a sense of catharsis. We feel the sense of redemption and satisfaction that this character was searching for and relentlessly pursuing throughout the entire movie. And that feels earned and satisfying even if the facts of the case are ambiguous.
What happens at the end? Is it real, is it not real? Is the movie a happy ending? Is it a tragedy? I have my preferences, but I think the fun of an ending like this is to dig into it yourself and come up with your own conclusions. If you feel it’s worthwhile if you feel it’s earned your attention and thought, that’s great. If not, well, you probably didn’t like the movie in the first place [laughs].
Yeah, I agree, and you articulated it well. I still can’t really explain what happens logically at the end of the film, and I don’t need to. But I do feel emotional catharsis, even when there are clues planted to something more sinister.
I will say this: the ending of the movie is Margaret’s perfect ending. When I was writing it, I had to depict what her ideal ending was because I felt like anything other than that would be a betrayal of her character and would just be so bleak and grim. After suffering this whole movie, I wanted to give her the happy ending now, because that happy ending is impossible. It may suggest that the truth of the matter is far more tragic than what we’re seeing on screen. But again, that’s up to the audience.
Well, I hope we get to see another movie from you and not have to wait as many years; I hope this kickstarts more people knocking on your own cause this movie has all the goods.
From your lips to God’s ears. I hope so [laughs].
Cheers, congrats again on the baby. Mazel tov! Take care.
You too!
“Resurrection” is playing in limited release now and is available on VOD as of today, Friday, August 5.
