Earlier this year, a number of Denver cinephiles were lucky to be invited to an early screening of Fox Searchlight’s Sundance hit Martha Marcy May Marlene, starring Elizabeth Olsen and John Hawkes. Those in attendance received an added bonus, as there was a Q&A with Elizabeth and writer/director Sean Durkin following the film.
You may not yet be familiar with Elizabeth (who often goes by Lizzie), but rest assured, you will be. She comes from a well known family of actors, most notably her twin sisters. What’s refreshing about Elizabeth is not only that she has a healthy look of beauty to her, but the depth of her acting range seems infinite. Her performance in this film will simply blow your mind.
Martha Marcy May Marlene is a psychological drama about a young woman named Martha who has escaped from a cult and is temporarily living with her sister and her brother-in-law. Martha’s behavior after being in the cult for a few years is anything but normal, and she struggles to acclimate to her new surroundings, while having flashbacks from her past.
Click here for my full review.
I had a chance to sit down with Elizabeth and Sean to ask them some questions about the making of the film, got them to each dish on funny facts about the other, as well as fun things that happened on set, and what their plans for the future look like. Read on to see some highlights from our discussion.
With such a serious tone for the film, were there any funny moments from filming that you can share?
EO: Yeah, let’s talk about it.
SD: There was something involving stealing golf carts and a paddle boat, but we’re not going to talk about that.
EO: Yeah, because that had nothing to do with the film. The golf carts weren’t stolen, they were provided by the hotel.
SD: And misappropriated by the hotel guests. At the Rockland House, some of our crew members stole a moose head, but they returned it.
EO: The best prank that they did, was they figured out how to put a boat in someone’s bedroom.
SD: You know, when you’re isolated on set for like a month, people like to get rowdy.
EO: Especially when you’re like... I mean, Hugh Dancy, when he first arrived on set, the first thing he said was, “I’ve never seen so many hipsters on a set before.” So you’re with all these young kids who look like they’re straight out of Williamsburg, Brooklyn and they’re making a movie with hip outfits and hats.
SD: We had a lot of fun. It was a really fun shoot. In terms of like actually shooting the film…
EO: Well, Sara and I would sing a lot…
Original music or singing favorite songs?
EO: No, music from the First Wives Club. “You don’t own me…”
That’s somewhat appropriate…
Who would you like to work with?
EO: It’s funny because people who I think I’d love to work with, I don’t. Then there’s all these other people you don’t think of, and then you work with them and I’m like, “I want to work with them again!” Or with new people like Sean, I mean, I want to work with Sean forever, but there could also be someone else who you meet who’s also a new director or a new actor or something and you discover that again.
For people that are already in the industry, I’d love to work with Annette Benning, I’d love to work with Kate Winslet, Pete Anderson and Wes Anderson and Woody Allen. So yeah, those are people I first think of.
SD: There are so many amazing actors. I don’t really have a list. I get asked this question and I always blank. There are so many talented people who’ve done such great work that I admire. With each project, when the project comes, I’ll think about who they are and make an effort to try and work with them.
What is your favorite movie?
EO: Gone with the Wind and Annie Hall, because they’re two totally different types of movies so I have to say both.
SD: Just one? I guess I’d have to say, The Shining.
Lizzie, what would we be surprised to learn about Sean Durkin?
Sean loves Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy movies.
Are you mad that she just revealed that?
No, that’s fine. I also love Matthew McConaghey.
Sean, what would we be surprised to learn about Lizzie?
When she eats food she likes, she does a little shoulder dance, like the way a little baby does a dance when they like the food they eat. She does it.
Sean, you did extensive research in preparation for the film. What was the most shocking thing you came across in your research?
It’s hard because it’s all shocking. When you get into it and you read these stories. There’s so much stuff that I read about and talked to people about that I had to downplay, because if you put that in the movie, people would just not believe you. They’d think it was excessive or exploitative to include it in a film. There’s a few things, ritual things and abuse things that I wouldn’t even feel comfortable talking about that were just so shocking I had to downplay them.
What was the biggest challenge for you going from short films to a feature film?
I produced a couple features and directed shorts working with the same people for like eight years, so it’s not a huge difference. I guess the only difference, is as the director, there’s no place to hide. You’re fully focused and fully present every single day, through the whole process. Sometimes as a producer, you can go off and hide. But with directing, there’s nowhere to go.
It sounds as if you’ve both wanted to act (Lizzie) and make films (Sean) from a very young age. If not these careers, what do you think you’d be doing?
EO: I’d try and open up a restaurant. Concept? Farm-to-table.
SD: I have similar interest in restaurants.
EO: Gosh, we’ve been eating so much on this trip.
SD: I‘m also really interested in sports.
EO: Professional soccer player?
SD: I wasn’t good enough to be a professional soccer player obviously but that was my first goal in life. But maybe something in professional sports, soccer particularly.
After your success at Sundance, what has been the most surreal moment for you during this process?
EO: Walking down the stairs at Cannes was kind of crazy. Because we’re all dressed up, and 9 months before that we were like eating bad food in a motel, in unpleasant circumstances sometimes and then here we are in this luxurious place with our movie, dressed up, in Cannes.
SD: Yeah, probably the same for me. Walking down the red carpet at Cannes, we were all together and it was like time slowed down and they were playing the score from the film, and you stand in a line and they turn you, and you felt like you were floating, and they’d turn you to the other side and it was like slow motion. It was this weird, amazing moment. It actually was surreal.
EO: Yeah, none of us knew how to turn properly.
You left the back story of Martha to the imagination of the viewers, but in preparing for the project, I’m sure each of you created your own back story. Can you share any of that with us?
SD: We don’t share any information that’s not in the film. But I fully work it out when I’m writing so that it’s underneath the surface. It’s a delicate balance of how much you choose to put in. My goal is to always to put it in and try to let things come out in a natural way, where they’re not being discussed or explained. It was really hard for me to find that balance. Then I sort of make myself available to however much the actors want to talk about it. I can tell them what I think, but I think it’s important for them to have things to connect to.
Sean, how long did it take you to write the script?
I think it took about 4 years total, but that’s not really accurate because I wasn’t working on it, I was working on other things and trying to find time. The last year-year and a half was when I was totally focused on it.
Both of you went to school in New York. What is one thing from your studies that you learned that has been helpful to you in the field?
EO: I have a lot. I take conservatory training for acting really seriously, and I really love it. I guess it gave me enough tools to feel confident, and also I discovered an aesthetic that I respond to in the actual telling of the story and also what I like to watch because you have to create a lot of this stuff yourself and try to create the feel of a fully realized project with minimal things for a play or something. I think that’s what I learned that’s most effective is exactly what my taste is right now.
SD: I guess for me the most beneficial thing from my time at NYU was meeting the people I work with. I started my company, I met my 2 partners in the first week, and we stuck together. Zach, our editor was in our class. Jody shot my student film. Mike, our sound guy did our sound. Everybody across the board, we all started forming there and eventually got to work together.
Sean, what do you think you bring to the table as a writer/director that differs from other directors?
SD: When I was a freshman in college, I took a fiction writing class and my teacher said something to me that was really interesting. We were talking about originality and she said, “Don’t worry about being original because there’s really no original stories. Everything’s been told in one way or another. But the fact that is, you have to trust that because you’re writing it, and as a person, you’re unique because you’ve only had your life experiences; no one else has. So you have to trust that in being yourself, that’s where the unique quality comes from. That stuck with me over time, and I think that thinking about what separates you and what makes you original is sort of not really helpful but accepting yourself and your own qualities and being okay with them, even though they might not all be positive or you might be embarrassed by them. It’s accepting who you are and what your interests are and what your approach is and being ok with that.
EO: The people that Sean surrounds himself with, they create this amazing, collaborative, place –world, where you feel completely confident in your own opinion and things like that. I don’t know-and it is attributed to Sean, really, but there was never tension that was negative on set. A lot of times that can bleed in and ruin a whole day of work. But he had a ship that had no tension or controversy or fighting.
Lizzie, do you have any plans to write or direct yourself, or do you just want to stick with acting?
Right now, I want like acting. I enjoy writing. I don’t think I’m good at writing dialogue, but I like academic essay writing, so I like playing with structure and the outline of a script, as opposed to the actual content.
I don’t know, directing seems daunting. Directing a play seems a little bit simpler to me. It’s not that it’s simple but it seems like something I understand better than directing a film. I feel like to be a good director, you also have to be a good cinematographer and also you have to talk to so many people in so many different ways and understand their own language, so it’s like a thousand different languages. Right now, I’m enjoying just trying to figure this one thing out.
What was your favorite scene to film?
EO: I liked a lot of them. I really liked filming the scenes that were really challenging also but that’s kind of masochistic. I think my favorite scene to film wasn’t in the film, so I probably shouldn’t talk about it.
SD: Yeah, definitely not. I liked a lot of scenes that didn’t make it also.
EO: They were just not needed, but they were good on their own.
SD: I really enjoyed actually, the simple scene where Martha was with the baby.
EO: Oh yeah, that was a lot of fun. It definitely wasn’t my favorite scene because that day I was really frustrated with myself.
SD: I really enjoyed that scene. Seeing outside of character, it seemed simple and unexpected or sort of can pass you by. And the baby was amazing. The baby was responsive perfectly. What happened in the scene was actually what happened, like we didn’t add sound. It was the real reaction from the baby. It was a very sweet, yet twisted moment because of what was being discussed.
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