1 at the box office.
That then gives you a swagger.
The strength of it.
Viola Davis in ‘The Woman King’.Ilze Kitshoff/TriStar Pictures
It gives you a huge swagger.
On preparing mentally, not just physically, for the role:
The characters have their own personal narratives.
And the thing about it is we wanted it to be authentic.
‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ and ‘The Fabelmans’ rise as major contenders in the 2023 Oscars race.Marvel / Universal
And whenever it is authentic, I’m sorry, it’s gonna cost you something.
You’re channeling another human being and most of these human beings are in trauma.
you’ve got the option to imagine where those came from.
Margot Robbie and Diego Calva in ‘Babylon’.Scott Garfield/Paramount
And [her character] Nanisca is a sexual assault survivor.
I am a warrior and I don’t need to have a sword to be a warrior.
I have the warrior spirit in me.
Director Maria Schrader and actors Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan on the set of ‘She Said’.JoJo Whilden/Universal
I always say, you gotta dare to fail.
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Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan as Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey in ‘She Said’.Universal Pictures
“There was not a moment I did not want to do it.”
What was it about this story that made you want to bring it to the screen?
MARIA SCHRADER:I mean, this is not just a true story, right?
Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan as Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor in ‘She Said’.Universal
This is a story that moved all of us in the wake of its publishing.
Really, it felt almost like a revolutionary moment.
I remember being involved in so many conversations in the workplace with colleagues, with friends, with family.
Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
And now, here was the script, which was telling the story about how that story came about.
We have a purely female team of two journalists, two A-class journalists in search of the truth.
It’s kind of in the tradition of a classic journalistic genre movie.
Dolly de Leon in ‘Triangle of Sadness.'.Neon/Everett
And what an honor to introduce that female team.
When do we have two female main characters?
It’s still so rare.
Charlbi Dean and Harris Dickinson in ‘Triangle of Sadness’.Neon
And [we get to] see them being so good at what they do.
They’re working women, but also working mothers.
They’re investigating a matter which is so incredibly intimate.
Charlbi Dean, Dolly De Leon, and Vicki Berlin in ‘Triangle of Sadness’.Neon/Everett
How impossible is it to distance yourself from it and leave it back in the newsroom?
One of the interesting things about this film is how it shows Megan and Jodi as working mothers.
What interested you about depicting that in this film?
‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’.Marvel Studios
So I think, what are movie heroes?
Are they heroes who are just greater in every sense?
You mentioned earlier that there’s a long history of journalism movies, and they often focus on men.
Were you thinking about that history of journalism movies as you were telling this story?
Of course, and I do think that this movie serves the genre in many aspects.
Of course, we tried to create a suspenseful and an interesting thriller.
That was very important to us to treat these characters as real people.
Every character is a real person out there [who deserves] care and integrity and respect.
It’s interesting that you cast several of the real people involved in this story.
Ashley Judd plays herself, and there are a few survivors who appear on screen.
I think it’s just wonderful.
It was her stage.
It almost feels like when you’re in the theater, and you pull down the fourth wall.
So, I think these layers of reality just empower the movie.
It was probably the only silver lining of COVID.
What’s the reaction been like for the film?
It was quite overwhelming.
[I hope] it encourages people to speak and to connect and to communicate.
When you think about the entire filmmaking process, what has been the biggest challenge?
The cleaning crew’s focused resilience crystallizes in the form of Abigail, played by Filipino actressDolly de Leon.
“, while their white employers drive the plot.
Without the class structures of their pre-shipwreck lives, it’s clear that there are new rules.
She then tosses out additional bites of food only when her hungry peers acknowledge her as their captain.
you might’t blame her because that’s all she knew.”
It’s a movie, so Abigail does some outrageous things.
But just as much outrageousness occurs before the ship goes down.
“She fell in love with the son of her boss but he wasn’t in love with her.
Her character work aside, de Leon felt the intense pressure of representing her country.
For de Leon, the bigger picture was never too far out of sight.
“I was terrified because I didn’t want to misrepresent us Filipinos,” she says.
“I didn’t want to represent our workers abroad.
I certainly didn’t see her as a joke.
It’s gotten better in recent years, of course.
But that’s why portrayals like de Leon’s, and projects likeTriangle of Sadnessare so important.
Because they presents background characters as foreground.
And that’s groundbreaking.
The strong early response toBlack Panther:Wakanda Forevermoves it up a couple notches in my rankings.
