I’m curious as to how much your perspective on all of this may have changed because you just did your first wonderful directorial debut, “Passing,” last year, which is very beautiful, nuanced, and mannered. So how does that change everything now that you’ve been behind the camera and you’ve experienced that side of it?
This was a very specific role to agree to do for me at a very specific time in my life. When I accepted and said I was going to do “Resurrection,” I hadn’t yet edited “Passing.” I’d just shot it, and we were on hiatus before editing, post-production, and everything else. And I’d just come out of the shooting of it, and that experience so fulfilled me, truly fulfilled by that experience. I hadn’t missed acting at all. But I knew I didn’t want to go straight into directing again. So I sort of felt, “Well, I’d like to take an acting job, but I need it to be like the Olympic triathlon of acting.”
If I’m going to feel in this particular moment of my life, I need something that’s going make me feel like I’m really pushing it [laughs], like I might not be able to achieve this. Like it’s gonna be a big fat mountain to climb, you know? And I do worry sometimes that I’m like the extreme sports, mountain climbing version of an actor. I’m always looking for the bigger mountain and the extremely dangerous thing to do. Although, of course, it’s not dangerous at all, but, you know, in terms of the ask and I dunno that I’ll always be in that moment in my life, but I was at that moment after shooting “Passing.” So this fits the bill very specifically.
Ha, yes, very much so [laughs]
A seven-minute monologue where you don’t cut away off my face ever. OK. Yeah, that’ll do it [laughs]
Given what you just said, I assume you want to direct again.
I do. Yeah, I’m desperate to; I do. And I’m never giving up the acting, don’t get me wrong. I love acting and don’t always need it to be an Olympic triathlon. It’s just at that moment, I think I did. But directing is…acting is a deep love for me, that has been there my whole life. But directing feels like, it sounds very grand, but it feels vocational. It’s like, I’ve got to get on with this. [laughs] like, this is what I can do, and I’ve got to do it. So I dunno, as soon as I can.
Do you have anything planned?
I have a couple of things in the pipeline that I have written that I’m sort of developing and, and trying to start going out to people to raise money for it. So, you know, we’ll see. But yeah, two [scripts] simultaneously, we’ll see.
I’m glad to hear that. I want to see more, and I’m relieved you don’t want to leave acting behind because that would be horrible for us [laughs] Quickly, I want to get into the elephant in the room of the movie. What’s real and what’s not real in that crazy third act. I’m wondering what your take is because, well, some audiences need answers, right?
Yeah. I can’t give you any answers, because, like I said before, from my perspective of playing it, everything has to be real for her because she’s experiencing it as real. So, that’s sort of where my head was at the whole time, But I think that should you want to explore other avenues? There are clues in the last scene that should be delved into.
Yeah, I was going to say, I felt like the whole thing is scattered with a few clues on the second watch.
There’s stuff to do with how she wants Abby to be dressed, but then, you know, there’s stuff about…. there are certain things [laughs]
And I’m assuming you, Andrew, and everybody involved is not interested in answering or spelling those things out anyhow.
No. And why would we be? [laughs]
“Resurrection” is in theaters, in limited release, starting Friday, July 29 via IFC Films. The film is then available Digitally and OnDemand, on August 5. Shudder will be its exclusive streaming home in November 2022.
