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Sarah Polley's Uncompromising Vision
In her feature film debut as a writer-director, the Canadian actress creates an astonishing portrait of a couple confronting change in the winter of their marriage.
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MM: Were you intimidated directing actors like Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent?
SP: They were friends, so that helped a lot, and they were both really supportive and nurturing of me. But yeah, it was absolutely terrifying to direct them, because they’re people I’ve really looked up to and want to learn from and they’re icons and who am I to be directing them? It was intimidating, but they really welcomed me into their process in a very generous way.
MM: Did your experience as an actor make it easier to direct actors?
MM: Did you find each actor had a different process to which you had to adapt?
SP: Absolutely! I felt like that was part of my job, to learn each of their languages as best as I could in that short amount of time. They’re all totally different performers and they have completely different processes, so it was a matter of figuring out the best common language for all of them.
MM: How was Julie different from Gordon?
SP: Julie loves direction and wants a lot of it, which seemed so strange to me because she’s Julie Christie—and I felt so out of my depth directing her. She really wants you to be involved in her process and she’s really obsessed with finding out what the filmmaker wants for a scene or a moment or the entire thing, so that she can serve that. It’s kind of amazing as a first-time filmmaker to have somebody like that.
Gordon is a lot more instinctual in many ways. He’s an incredibly intelligent actor, but I think he lives much more in the moment and, in fact, he likes quite a bit less interference and operates better that way.
MM: Casting Michael Murphy as Aubrey was an interesting choice. He brings the history of all those charming rakes he played for Robert Altman to the part.
SP: I felt like that character needed to have a certain amount of gravity and charisma. In my mind it was almost the most challenging role in the film because he’s a central character, yet he doesn’t say a word.
I felt like it needed a really strong actor and someone who did have a kind of charm and real appeal to him.
MM: Atom Egoyan was an executive producer on the film. How involved was he?
SP: He was available whenever I needed him, but he didn’t impose himself in any way. If I was stuck, I would just call him and he would give me a really great anecdote that shed some light on the situation I was in. He read every draft of the script and saw every cut. He was so generous with his insight and yet gave the process enough space, which was great.
MM: How has he influenced you as a moviemaker?
SP: I didn’t think film was a very useful thing to do with your life until I worked with Atom. He was my original experience of really watching a filmmaker and respecting what they did.
MM: It must have been fascinating to edit a film about marriage with your husband.
SP: It was amazing, actually. I feel like we learned so much about each other. It felt like some kind of crash therapy course, where you edit this movie together about two fictional people in a marriage and have to work it out. (laughs)
MM: How much did the film change in the editing room?
SP: I worked so closely with David: He read every draft and we were kind of editing while I was writing. We walked through every shot in the film—he was so involved. There weren’t many huge changes in the editing room [because] he was sort of editing throughout. The only thing that really changed was some of the structural stuff—when the Marian scenes came in sort of shifted.
MM: Do you know what your next directing project is going to be?
SP: I’m just in the middle of writing my first draft, so I do know what it is, but I don’t really have a way of talking about it yet.
MM: Do you think having directed a feature film will change you as an actor?
SP: I think I learned a lot from these actors about how to commit and how to give of yourself in a way that I don’t think I understood before. They were so generous with me and my film and I feel like I would like to take that lesson and use it on somebody else’s project.
MM: Why have you been so committed to working in the Canadian film industry as opposed to Hollywood?
SP: I think there is more creative freedom for filmmakers [in Canada]. That affects me as an actor, too. When I sign on to a film, I’m signing on to a filmmaker’s vision of the film, not the studio’s vision or anybody else’s. I just want to know that it’s going to be the filmmaker’s film that I’m making. Of course, as a filmmaker, I feel like, in Canada, it’s a given that a first-time filmmaker always has final cut. Why would I choose to work anywhere else? MM
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This story was published in the Spring 2007 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
Sarah Polley's Uncompromising Vision
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