The writer-director opens up about her austere drama, starring Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, and Jessie Buckley.
Women Talkingis a film about collective action.
(The film’s starry cast includes Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, and Jessie Buckley.)
The cast of ‘Women Talking,’ including Jessie Buckley (left center), Claire Foy (top center), and Rooney Mara (right center).Michael Gibson/United Artists Releasing
Here, Polley opens up about bringing Miriam Toews' 2018 novel to the screen.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Take me back to when you first encountered Miriam Toews' book.
What was it about this story that made you want to make this film?
It did so in a way I’d never seen done before.
It didn’t relegate democracy to just voting once every four years.
This film walks that line of hyper-specificity and universality.
It’s based on atrue story from Bolivia, and it’s very specific to the Mennonite experience.
But like you said, it also gets at these big concepts about democracy.
What interested you about that contrast?
I think it allowed the film to feel like a fable.
You assembled a pretty incredible group of actors.
What was the casting process like?
It took a really long time.
It was a really rigorousand loaded process because we really couldn’t cast one person until we cast everybody.
Everyone has to work as a collective under very intense circumstances.
It was basically like doing a play over and over again.
I think to work, it had to be harmonious.
Which isn’t to say there couldn’t be conflict, but it had to be healthy conflict.
Most of the film takes place in that hayloft.
What was that set like?
The exterior was outside of Pickering, this little town near Toronto.
I wanted to ask about the visual language of the film.
It’s beautifully shot, but the color palette is very muted and gray.
What inspired that choice?
I knew it couldn’t look like it was based in reality.
This is a slightly surreal experience.
There’s something heightened about the premise.
It’s in the realm of a fable, and I wanted that to be really clear.
We’re not asking you to look at a documentary about something that’s happened.
We’re asking you to go into a world where you might ask these enormous questions.
The concept was partly this idea of a world that’s already passed.
So, that was one of the things that was very much in our minds.
The original concept was to shoot in black and white.
What went into that decision?
I mean, I loved the way the narrator worked in the book.
So, that was a really interesting process that happened in the edit.
One of the things I love about the film is how you have all these different generations of women.
What was it like on set, working with this group of actors?
There wasn’t a hierarchy.
There was a lot of generosity from both the younger actors and the older career actors.
There was a very strong sense of respect amongst them and support and warmth.
They had a green room that they shared, and no one was ever really in their trailer.
They were in a shared space all the time, even when they weren’t shooting.
So, there was a lot of occasion for that community to develop.
For you as a filmmaker, how have your own acting experiences affected your approach to directing?
[When you] keep that in mind, I think people do actually give more of themselves anyway.
I think that actually, people become more invested anyway, which is a nice byproduct.
It’s not the goal, but it’s a really nice byproduct.
So for me, that is always first and foremost in my mind.
I’m not claiming to always be successful at that.
I’m sure there are times I fail, but that’s my strongest intention.
We’re asking people to be very vulnerable and open and generous with their experiences.
Again, do I think I was 100 percent successful at it all of the time?
But I do think that this film couldn’t have been made any other way.
This film goes to some very harrowing places, but there are also these moments of catharsis and laughter.
How did you want to thread that needle and find the right tone for this story?
For me, that’s my experience of being human.
When you think back to filming, what was your most memorable day on set?
There’s a scene in the film that’s an apology from one character to another.
One character hasn’t protected the other person.
We got it to a place that one of us couldn’t have done alone.
That was an experience I hadn’t had before.
Another moment that occurs to me is that we had an actor who was having a hard time.
We had a rule that if we need to stop, we can stop.
We went outside for a while, and I was like, “We can go home.
We don’t have to keep going.”
The actor said, “I’d like to stay.
I just need a few minutes.”
She just got kind of folded into this circle of actors.
That was the very first week.
For you, what was your biggest challenge on this project?
What I learned on this film is to be more declarative about what my process is.
I think the challenge was articulating that and standing behind it.
It’s something I would absolutely do again.
That makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, and I prep for ages when I make a film.
There’s no lack of figuring out whatIwant to see.
But the thing about the filmmaking process is we lie about it, in a way.
I’ve seen it with my own eyes as a director.
And that’s always been a bit of a lie.
