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Q&A with Jesse Short Bull and Laura Tomaselli

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The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of Lakota Nation vs. United States

How did the two of you first connect, and when did you know that you were going to make this film together?
Jesse Short Bull: Laura and I first met in the parking lot of a hotel in Rapid City, South Dakota… and we met nervously, over a cigarette or two or three. That was our first meeting and, yeah, it only took maybe a nanosecond or two for me to realize that Laura was an amazing person and just somebody that was willing to go all the way and just… work, so hard, for this story. And I knew that then, from the very beginning.

Laura Tomaselli: I hate going after Jesse because I like listening to him talk so much! But, I think when we… it was like a funny blind date where we were both sort of like, “well, are we gonna do this terrifying thing, to make this movie, or are we going to try and make it, anyway?” And I think what really unified us is that we were both so scared about doing justice to this story. And I don’t know if we’re the people that can say that we did do it justice, but… I think that conversation was our first step.

was it an obstacle, or was it an omen?

I read that one of the ideas in the movie was to shoot nature like a church. Can you explain that idea?
JSB: Yeah, that came from our initial conversation. Obviously the land is… we wanted to try and go a little bit beyond just seeing it as a setting, a little bit beyond a simple shot of a rock or a tree. And since we couldn’t schedule an interview with the Black Hills — they were pretty busy! — we wanted to try to let the Black Hills speak to us somehow. And the way we did that is really due to our amazing cinematographer Kevin Phillips. It really clicked with him, with his eye, and his technical ability, to try and let the Black Hills and surrounding areas say something for us that Laura and I didn’t want to try and control or edit. We just wanted that, the beauty of the land, to say something to the audience.

You use many clips of Hollywood movies and other pieces of media in order to contextualize the story and then you also add your own content. How did you approach incorporating those elements into the film?
LT: What Jesse and I had to do, what we set out to do in the beginning (after our nervous parking lot cigarette session), was try to convince people that things like treaties, that all these things that happened a hundred years ago, 200 years ago, more than that… were still important today. I think that there could be a full film just explaining that aspect. And there are full films about stereotypes of Native Americans in Hollywood movies. For me, I felt like it was effective to combine personal testimony with new context, to help people to hopefully get them to get around the walls of their preconceived ideas of this part of the world. One of the things Jessie and I talked about was how to get around people’s walls that they have up, thinking that this doesn’t matter to them, that it’s not pertinent to them. They don’t live in South Dakota, and so we hope that the combination of new material with footage they’re more familiar with will work in tandem to tell the story.

Nielsen released a study saying that Native representation had doubled between the years of 2021 and 2022. South by Southwest also highlighted the increased representation of Native peoples at their film festival, where there were five projects with Indigenous voices. Do you feel like Native voices are having a moment in media, or is it a largely a PR thing?
JSB: I do think that’s a correct assessment, because back in 2005, 2006, 2007, I really remember a lot of investment in Indigenous storytellers across the United States. And I do know that this was a dream for a lot of people, to see what we’re seeing now. There just seem to be a lot of things budding right now, and yeah, that was part of a people’s dream and I hope that only continues to get stronger.

What were the conversations like with your producing partners and your distributors, as far as bringing them along in your story? Because this film has a clear point of view and tells some uncomfortable facts, which perhaps gave folks pause?
LT: We heard that the movie was too political a couple of times, from people that potentially wanted to acquire it. But in general, I don’t know what Jesse would say, but to me, making this film was a funny road. There were a lot of obstacles. We had a joke that was it an obstacle, or was it an omen? There’s a lot of… I think sometimes the documentary about making the documentary can be just as interesting. But our producers, by and large, were wonderful. Our Executive Producers were wonderful and everyone gave us, I think, a lot of room and a lot of feedback, a lot of constructive feedback.

JSB: Yeah. And just to add onto that, as we started to build out the team of people, it can be tricky at times. And the thing is, at the end of the day, I think all of us knew that the heart of it was the Black Hills issue, which is very delicate, and sensitive, and requires a lot of great care, and we’ve seen things like this alienate and topple other projects in the past. So having that goal of keeping the Black Hills front and center for everybody, in spite of some of our cultural differences, in spite of professional differences… as long as everybody was okay with where we wanted to try and go with the Black Hills, that always was the main through line. And like Laura said, even when challenges would arise, at the end of the day, we would still go in the same direction.

Q&A with Savanah Leaf, Tia Nomore, and Erika Alexander

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The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of Earth Mama.

Congratulations and thank you for this beautiful and very moving film. I must ask about your background as both an athlete and a photographer. Can you talk about making the transition from athletics to a visual and creative artist?
Savanah Leaf: I feel like it sounds a lot crazier than it is because when I look back at the transition, I went to college and I studied psychology and I played sports and I was the team captain. In a way, I think a film is this combination of working in a team environment. I really dove into psychology and then also artistic expression. Then when I got injured playing sports in Puerto Rico, I had to figure out what was going to happen next. I had only envisioned myself as being this athlete because that’s where the opportunities laid for me. And when I got injured, I just started exploring and I found this job opportunity where I could watch directors specifically in a commercial music video space. It enabled me to see how they write and it made it all feel a lot more achievable to me. I had always wanted to express myself with more than how my body moved. I wanted to express what was going on in my mind, and it felt like a lot of people weren’t paying attention to that while I was an athlete. That transition really felt like it was very enabling for me as a thinker, as a creator.

it became more about the present decisions than previous decisions

I felt very much like I could see the teamwork in this film. How did you work with the members of your team, specifically your DP? The look of the film is so appropriate for the story you’re telling.
SL : Our cinematographer was actually one of the people I had worked with the most before we made this film. I had worked on two projects with him before. The cinematographer is Jody Lee Lipes, who I had admired for years. I had recently seen I Know This Much is True, a TV show that I thought sensitively captured really difficult subject matter. And the way in which they shot was so wild to me because [director] Derek Cianfrance is shooting oftentimes without any blocking. So he’s very much reacting to the people in the scene. We’re collaborating and thinking about most of the shots ahead of time, where we basically blocked out most of the scenes and tried to figure out a way in which we would shoot it so that a lot of our new actors could just live and breathe in the space from the start to finish of every scene and it would not feel like they had to repeat themselves just to get a different camera angle. Jody does this so well. We created this language in that way. And then on the day, sometimes he would do something as simple as a subtle pan in the camera or move a little bit further on the dolly track just to get a different angle. Those things are very much in response to what’s happening in the moment. It’s so subtle and oftentimes you might need to watch it again just to feel some of them. But I think those responses were very much due to what was happening in front of the camera and his sensibilities. With the dolly track we were constantly thinking about how do we use just one shot and go. It almost feels like she’s trying to escape.

You mentioned new actors and you have a lot of new actors but also seasoned actors. How did you all balance working with one another?
Tia Nomore: That was a very unique process, I think, and a very balanced one at that. It felt like there were a lot of safety nets for free falling. That was a huge situation for all of us involved. It’s very unique and very much giving safe space—you can learn here, you can fail here, you can excel here, you can exceed here. That was probably the most ideal situation to be in for the first time. It’s Savanah’s first feature as well. All of us were kind of in that world, in that zone together.

Erika Alexander: Many of the them may have been less experienced at acting, but they were mature in life lessons and that’s what they brought to the film. If you create a dynamic where people who have the courage to agree to use their life experience in a fictional space, then you can get real connections. Savanah was really using a lot of intuition when she chose people. I think in a way they’d already chosen her and she’d already chosen us and we agreed to meet, to do it and do our best. And it didn’t matter if we didn’t know exactly what the result would be, but that we were going to give it our best effort and throw caution to the wind. Tia was already a very accomplished musician. She’s a mother, and also a boss. She’s her own boss, and yet she’s giving up control to Savanah. I’m used to being in those spaces where I’m a tool and she’s the toolmaker. As a veteran, I am around people who are less experienced and may not know their way around a set. But I’m looking forward to that. You can forget yourself and do what you would naturally do if you were a child playing with each other. You just play for a while. Everybody’s agreeing to play house for a little while, but in a very dangerous space because it deals with real emotions. And I think the result is beautiful and powerful and I’m really happy to have been a part of it.

Can you talk about the kinds of emotional support you found yourselves needing during the different stages of this film?
TN: I think support is a huge deal in general. During pre-production I definitely needed just a space to be vulnerable. I had had my daughter the year before starting this and it was quite literally my first time outside as a pandemic parent and being around more than five people at a time. I had a lot of social anxiety especially taking on a role that was very different from my life. I needed a lot of space to be vulnerable and aware of the things that came up in my body in real life and how to place those things. When it came to being on set, there was a lot of silence and a lot of space. I could literally just sit there and cry and I could be okay. Or I could walk off. I didn’t do that often. Often when I felt like walking off, I would just sit there and let things feel or feel me and maybe pour out a little bit. And everybody was just holding space for me. Whether they were in the room or just right outside, I could feel it and I felt like everybody was willing and able to be there to support me. And then by the time that I got to meet Ms. Alexander, it was like SOS, okay? We didn’t have a lot of time together in pre-production to learn one another, but when we did, it was very natural. And we call this like, hauntingly familiar, so it was nothing for me to fall into her arms. And she’s like, yeah, just play. I remember you saying that too. I’m like, how do we play right now? Even right now, she’s holding space for me in a way that I don’t even think she knows. She’s a meditator. Savanah as well. They’re much stiller than I am and it’s still going on. You’re seeing it right now.

EA: I’m a free-range actor, whatever that means. I’m largely left alone most of the time. Savanah allows me to mind myself, and in that way, I can be supportive and be supported. If people don’t get scared that I’m not talking about a scene or not looking like I’m thinking about a scene, I’m probably not. Because I don’t believe that inside those spaces I should be burdened with that, and at that time it’ll be enough to walk in to that room and trust that we can all come in and reconvene and go on. Through my life I have learned that having to carry heavy roles was something that was almost excruciating. You go home with it, you wake up it, you’re thinking about the scene, you’re thinking about whether you can do that in the scene. Let me just let go. It is what it is. They can’t eat me. Now, let me see what I can do. If I was to show it by doing it, then they’d see that they could also trust their own instincts, that they could walk in and still be able to act. And you can also laugh in between takes. That it’s appropriate to let somebody go and sit in the sun and relax and talk to people, and then walk straight in there and be that mother who’s in that pain. But you yourself could give yourself a break and your body would know what to do when it was time. It would understand what the assignment was. Savanah allowed for everybody to just be themselves and then round themselves up and it was a really wonderful experience in that way.

I’m curious to know for the actors how much research you felt, if any, you needed to do to give such dynamic performances.
EA: Well, both my parents are orphans and my mother’s a social worker. My father was a preacher. Both were public servants in a way that comforts people in difficult situations. My sister is a social worker who worked in adoptions for years in Philadelphia. My brother worked here in Brooklyn in social work. I’m bleeding off their experience; there’s no doubt about it. I spent my life in churches. I spent my life after church. I spent my life in people’s homes. I spent my life waiting for my mother outside, doing things, keeping notes, all the things she had to do, going over and over, making sure that she didn’t miss anything, didn’t miss an appointment because the child’s life could be at stake with one mistake. I had that, but I didn’t really think about so much research. Maybe that sounds a little bit high-handed. It just seemed to me, again, more direct to get out of my own way, and stay out of their way. They were young, but they were experienced and they knew what they were doing, so they didn’t need me to be telling them what to do. Just being there and being confident in myself was something useful, but so was not knowing. I had no idea what would happen. And sometimes the only thing you can do is say, I have no idea how this will feel once we get in the space, because this space hasn’t been invented yet. It’s in Savanah’s mind and it’s on the page and we’ve all decided to do something with it. But once you’re there, then something happens and that is magic and you just leave it alone.

TN: In the beginning before filming, Sav shared a lot of literature with me. And, I did my Google search of her cause she was like, not on Instagram and it was weird! I’m like, who is this? All I had was Sav’s previous work. I don’t even think I had a picture of you yet. I saw your work, but I think just being from Oakland, you see moms like this all the time. These are the moms that I help off the bus. Like, let me get your stroller for you, or they might be a couple of dollars short in the line before you so you give them five dollars. They’re the moms that are in our communities very much still. I think on top of that research, there was quite a lot of literature. We were constantly exchanging. Here’s a link to this video—this is really tough. Did you watch it? Did you read these? There would be short, not stories, but voices. We were constantly at exchange about different voices and hearing them out. When I did meet the moms—I don’t know if they were particularly from Chasing Crisis—that Savanah has been previously working with, I was like, damn okay we’re all in one room now and it’s vibrating with this energy. So just being present and looking around and realizing that these things are not too far off was a lot of the emotional research for sure.

SL: Those testimonies where the moms are almost speaking to the camera, but not quite to the camera happened within the first two or three days of shooting. Both Erika and Tia were there with some people. That also kind of set the tone of the whole film experience for all of us.  

One of the things that I appreciated about this film is that we don’t really see the exposition or the background of the character of Gia. How did that come about?
SL: That was in the writing. There were different versions of the script where there were more moments where more backstory was revealed. And I felt like I was trying to justify in a way why she makes this big decision in the end, this relapse moment. Then that didn’t feel genuine, and I realized that it didn’t make the audience feel with her anymore, so I tried to pull that out and that’s what the script was left with. You can just be present with her through those emotions. You don’t need to know who the father was or why she’s in this situation right now. Because it’s really about, what am I doing with this baby and I’m very heavily pregnant. That’s the focus. And it became more about the present decisions than previous decisions. And I think that’s what excited me and what I think enables audiences to strip away their judgment a little bit further.

Q&A with Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas

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The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of Oppenheimer.

Subjectivity is very present in this film in many ways. The title is Oppenheimer as opposed to the longer, more academic title of the book. When you’re talking with Cillian about that and how you’re going to essentially be inside of his head for a lot of the film, what do you discuss about him embodying this man?
Christopher Nolan: I think the first and most important conversation was the one where we both agreed that we were not interested in some kind of impersonation. There’s a wonderful phrase from Ken Loach that he coined several years ago. He talked about the cinema of Madame Tussaud. There’s this idea that just by imitating or the facsimile of somebody, there’s inherent value in that somehow. And particularly with Oppenheimer, who was an iconic figure at the time. But the iconography is not even so well-known these days. I think Cillian slightly breathed a sigh of relief with that, that I was saying that we did not need an interpretation. We’re making a dramatic film, not a documentary. We’re not trying to impress people with the similarity between what you are doing and what you can see on YouTube archival footage. I think he found that freeing. That said, having all of these points of reference and having months to be able to work on that gave him something to sink his teeth into. Listening to the way the real man spoke, the way he dressed, the way he moved. I think for the best actors, after you cast them, there’s this period where we’re building sets, we’re traveling the world, figuring out how to do things. We’re very busy while they’re sort of left at home waiting. You know, there are hair and makeup tests or wardrobe tests, but it’s few and far between. Sometimes there’s stunt training. I believe that anything that gives an actor something to grab a hold of, to really work at will help them use that period productively. And he certainly came to set the first day with an incredible amount of knowledge and a very fully developed take on the character.

This is a film about consequences

Your physical sets are incredible and you’re well known to be someone who uses practical effects as much as possible. Emma, knowing that this is the case going in, what was your thinking about how to best produce these major set pieces? Especially the Trinity sequence. 
Emma Thomas: We had worked with an amazing visual effects supervisor before called Andrew Jackson. Particularly on Dunkirk, where we had many big sequences with explosions, but also with the planes and so on. We did as much of that as possible practically. We revisit perhaps slightly older methods of filmmaking. It works really well for us because the old becomes new again since the modern audience’s eye isn’t necessarily used to the way those effects look. On Dunkirk and then also on this film, the visual effects department very seamlessly integrates their work with the special effects department. In that pre-production period that Chris described, while Cillian was sort of getting his teeth into the character and we were location scouting and so on, we also had our visual effects and special effects departments working. Very similarly, actually, to the way it then ended up working on set. You know, anytime we would shoot makeup and hair tests, we would have the visual effects and the special effects department off in a corner working on their little miracles. It was almost like a whole other film was being made in parallel. And I don’t want to talk to you specifically about the way they did it because that, you know, you don’t want to know how the trick works. But it worked seamlessly and those were some of the first dailies that we looked at, and it was absolutely incredible. It was just magic watching this stuff that hadn’t been touched by a computer; it literally had just been shot in a corner on the stage. It was really miraculous.

CN: In very experimental conditions. Which, from Emma’s point of view, from a production point of view, it’s really tough to get any kind of experimentation into the framework of a big budget Hollywood film. It’s a strange paradox where the more money you have, the less you can actually just sort of turn up and go, well, what if we just experiment, we shoot a bit of this, or shoot a bit of that. The whole machine, the number of people you’re employing and everything fights that. We were able to find some very good ways because of Andrew. He’s done a couple of films with us—he won an Oscar for Tenet and he did incredible work on Dunkirk. For me, it’s the pinnacle of visual effects because everyone thinks we did everything for real! He’s getting away with all kinds of things that people just aren’t seeing. He knows computer graphics, but he also knows analog methods. He started in the special effects world like Scott Fisher, his partner on these films. He just wanted to be in a closet with his camera and some odd bits and pieces, but he knew that this was going to need to be him. I said, well, we can’t do quite that, but when we were shooting the security hearings, we were in a place with a very large parking lot next to it. So we put up a big tent and we let him kind of move in there and he’d borrow our cameras and give them back as needed, and they’d set all these kind of weird little things up and they’d just be shooting the whole time. It took many, many months of experimentation to get the visual language and the pieces that we needed to put together into the finish film.

When you read the book, what sort of small details gripped you about this character?
CN: Well, the book was written over about a twenty-five year period. The level of research and detail that Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin put into it is unparalleled. I’ve had an interest in Oppenheimer for some time. I included a reference in my last film, Tenet, in dialogue to the moment at which Oppenheimer’s fellow scientists at the Manhattan Project realized they could not completely eliminate the possibility that a chain reaction from the Trinity Test would destroy the world, and yet went ahead and pushed that button. And that’s the most dramatic situational scene that I’d ever heard of. After Tenet, Robert Pattinson gave me book of Oppenheimer’s speeches from the 1950s. Reading those speeches, reading the words of this person trying to wrestle with the consequences, the implications of something that he’d been a part of unleashing into the world was very frightening. And very moving. When I came to read American Prometheus there’s a moment relatively early in the book where you suddenly realize that Los Alamos, this place that’s so important to the history of the world—famous, or infamous, depending on your point of view—it was just a place that he and his brother liked to go camping. It was a place they would go pitch a tent and ride their horses around. And he thought it was one of the most beautiful places in the world. Realizing the relationship between the personal and the global, the massive significance of that, to me, that was uniquely traumatic. It hit me in a very profound way. And I think from that point onwards in reading the book, I knew that it was something I just had to do.

That makes me think of the moment in the film where he’s asked, what should we do with Los Alamos? And he’s like, “give it back to Indians.” It feels like that’s actually a thing he thinks could happen.  
CN:  Yeah, I mean the conversation with Truman is as best I can tell, pretty accurate to the actual sort of… I don’t know what you call a meeting of the minds that isn’t really a meeting! It’s a scene about misunderstandings and Oppenheimer has the type of naivete at times in this story that only really brilliant people seem to possess. You know, the intellect allowing him to sort of miss some really basic things. When he said that Truman, it wasn’t as a provocation. I was very happy with the way Cillian plays the scene with Gary. I was very happy with it because it’s not a provocation. I think this speaks to that earlier answer about the personal; he feels that Los Alamos is his place and that now that he’s done with it, they’ll give it back to him, give it back to the Indians, give it back to nature or whatever. He sees that the things will go back to the way they were. And there’s something very heartbreaking about that because this is a film about consequences. Unintended consequences, particularly.

Q&A with Paula Beer

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The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of Afire.

What was it like, collaborating with director Christian Petzold for a third time?
Paula Beer: Well, working with Christian is just fun. And his way of working is different from everything I’ve experienced so far. When they asked me to do Transit, the first movie we did together, I was like, well, we are going see how it’s going to be in real life. But the thing is, he really takes his time for rehearsals in the morning. There’s no one there except the actors and the director. Then the DOP will come at the time we’re ready. And we go down to makeup, costume is already on rehearsal, and then they prepare the set. We come back, we shoot one shot for this angle, then the next angle, next angle, okay. Then rehearse again for the next scene. So it’s really focused and calm and it’s just easy to lose yourself in the story because you’re not interrupted by technical things. It’s really about the story. And Christian has this vibe of, he just loves cinema and he has this energy of telling stories and being like, “great, you know, I saw that movie. I want to show you that scene because it reminds me of what we’re trying to do here.” And so it’s like a dictionary of atmospheres and working now for the third time with him, of course I got to know him very well during the last two films, and now coming together again, it’s just a huge gift working with him because it’s so unique and so, so relaxed and you can really dive into these characters and be like, “okay, but what is it really about?” And not just the first scene, but yeah, it’s just, it’s really, really fun.

you have to be really relaxed to laugh

I read that Christian was inspired by things like Éric Rohmer movies, Chekov plays, and so on. Is that helpful for you, as an actor, to engage with his the inspirations?
PB: It can help some, but I think sometimes for me, it doesn’t help to know the intellectual basis. Because being like, “okay, that scene, it comes from that scene, or it comes from that movie”… maybe that won’t do anything to me as an actor and I’ll just say, “well, yeah, even though now I know it, my heart hasn’t changed about it.” But what helps for me is to understand what Christian’s view is about the inspiration, or how he sees movies and what he sees in these scenes or in these books. And I think for me as an actor, it’s helpful to understand where his mind is because when he talks to me, I’m like, “okay, now I know what you mean.” And I can translate that into my actor language and be like, “okay, I need more this and that.”

How do you see Nadia’s journey? What was Nadia’s role for you in this story?
From the first time I read the script for Afire, I liked the story, but I didn’t know who was going to play Leon. And I said to myself, “okay, this is quite challenging. A main character that is all the time really, like with himself grumpy sometimes, really an asshole.” And then Thomas was reading Leon for the rehearsal. I thought he was amazing, because he brings this comedy to it. And otherwise, if there wasn’t a sense of humor, it would be horrible to follow this main character. And during the preparation, I was just wondering… maybe what Nadia does is, while Leon is grumpy, she brings the balance. And what I really love about her is that she’s so connected to herself, but at the same time in contact with people around her. So she’s in a very good way and… yeah, is just a really loving human being. And, and what I also like about how that she’s… because still in Germany at least, most of the female characters, it’s centered at male characters and a traditional character. When Leon says, “well, I’m in love with you,” a traditional female character would say, “oh, really? I didn’t know.” Or, “oh, thank you for, for talking about your emotions.” And she doesn’t do that. She’s like, “okay, but I don’t have time. I need to go.” And I love that, that she’s so… she’s just herself and not like, “oh my God, a man has feelings for me!” But instead Nadia just says, “yeah, but life is different… And life is like really shit right now. And you could have thought about that before you said that.”

In many ways, this is almost a ‘coming of age’ story. Did you discuss that aspect with your collaborators at all?
PB: The preparation conversations are a bit different than after you’ve seen the movie, because sometimes what we talked about during the preparation, even though it was probably important, I’m sure Christian has other things that he won’t talk about with us during the preparation. And then, for me, it’s like discovering the movie as you shoot: there are themes I didn’t anticipate being so strong in the finished film. And I… for me as an actress, I’m always like, concentrated about, okay, the connection, the emotions. And then seeing the movie itself, for me, the first time, I just think, “okay, I’m really watching a movie.” And seeing yourself onscreen is always weird. I think don’t know if humans are made for it. And to see yourself in a character, it’s like, “ah, okay, whatever.” But every movie with Christian is special because in a way he’s really intellectual and really emotional at the same time. And there’s so many topics in it. Umm… I think you could say this film is about a coming of age, but then again, maybe not at all. So I think it’s everything. and nothing. And that’s what I like about working with him and his about his movies that you can see all the things, and at end you can discuss so many things and so many topics, but in the end you can just watch and be like, “oh, that was surprisingly sad.” And then, then you’re, that’s it. And that’s fine as well.

Which scene were you most concerned about, when you were in preproduction? As far as how you were going to play it?
PB: Well, I think the the goulash scene at the sea when Nadja is falling down with her with her bike and then it’s written that she bursts out laughing. I was like, “oh, shit.” Because laughing for me is really difficult. Maybe that’s a personal thing. I don’t have problem like crying in character. That is not a big challenge for me. But with laughing, you have to be really relaxed to laugh. If you are shooting, there’s always pressure, even though it was Christian, when you’re like, yeah, “it’s easy, but you know, okay, we need to get this done, this better be good because we have maybe just one take,” because that’s Christian’s style. No pressure, but laugh. And I was kind of afraid of that scene.

Q&A with Thaddeus O’Sullivan

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The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of The Miracle Club.

Period pieces are notoriously cumbersome and expensive to make. Did you find that to be the case?
Thaddeus O’Sullivan: The biggest challenge in this context was really the whole Lourdes issue. Trying to get permission to shoot at Lourdes was totally impossible. So we built the set– and that was tricky, both in terms of getting the scale and details right, and in terms of controlling the costs. And so I’d say that was the biggest challenge, and that was more of a logistical thing, really. In terms of shooting in very small spaces, working class homes, you know… we would normally go into a location which we couldn’t do in this case. I think with these three actors, you know, if we hadn’t been able to give them room to just be on the set and work… it would have been difficult. So we we had to build all of the smaller sets. They weren’t difficult to build or particularly expensive; it was just something we had to do. And the design of those was very carefully researched by the production designer. And even though he’s a little younger than me (quite a bit younger than me), he knows the period pretty well. And so we had a very creative time discussing all of the details, down to the wallpaper. All of the stuff. He was incredibly detailed, even with stuff he knew would not be on camera. He would still have it there for the actors to see as well, even for items the actors would pick up or look at that the camera would never see. And it was interesting to see their reactions, to know that somebody was thinking about the set with that level of detail. And that made the actors feel pretty good.

the story itself is really about this kind of self-discovery

Did you feel like a kid in a candy store, working with such an amazing cast?
TO: I was probably too nervous for that! Yes, I was at the outset: these are just the best actors around. And it was daunting. Maggie Smith said to me one day, “What’s wrong with you?” And I said, “Look, I’m standing here in fear,” and she said, “we’re all standing here in fear… just tell me what to do.” That was the second or third day. And I suppose I had one of my gloomy faces on and she was teasing me. But that kind of broke the ice. Kathy Bates is very easy to direct, very, very straightforward, and does a sort of forensic analysis of the script, which, given we’ve had a long protracted development period and we’ve had a number of writers involved, she was conscious of the history and wanted to know about earlier drafts and all of that. Laura [Linney] was easier (not on herself; she’s very tough on herself), in terms of applying everything she knew to every beat, and she had a very clear idea of the character from the outset and and how the character should be feeling in each scene. And she showed an unusual mixture of that kind of strategizing, but also very relaxed about, you know, changing things and so on. She came into the scene knowing how she’s going to do it. But at the same time, if we had changed the dialog, or if there was something that wasn’t working in rehearsal, you know, she’d change it. She’d adapt. But I found them all… You know, once we got started– before you get going with the whole star thing, it’s a big, big deal. But once we got started, it was very easy. Really.

One of the things that impressed me was that you have a film that’s kind of centered around Lourdes but it’s not filled with religion. Can you talk about that aspect of the film? It’s really about a relationship or relationships.
TO: Well, no, it’s it’s not a particularly religious film. The women who go there are all religious. And and Lourdes in Catholic culture is very important, and you grow up knowing about it and and so it doesn’t have to be religious… it can be, you know, a very spiritual pilgrimage, but it doesn’t have to be for a lot of Irish people anyway. Some people go there for a very particular reason: People will go to look for a miracle. Some people will go there just to engage with their spirituality, and then others will go there to pray for Our Lady to intervene and to help them. And then all of that is religious, I suppose. But the story itself is really about this kind of self-discovery. It’s about what the women discover about themselves in the process of making this visit. And and I suppose in a way you get what a lot of people expect, might expect, which is to go through some kind of transformation and to learn something about themselves. They expect to experience something about themselves, and they all do that. And I think people who go there… even if they’re fairly agnostic, you cannot avoid the spiritual atmosphere of being among people who have such a sort of collective spiritual feeling. It’s very emotional. And even people who are not terribly interested in Catholicism come back and say, “it really meant something to me, and it gave me a chance to reflect on things,” and and so on.