This year’s Oscar frontrunners have more in common than usual. Start with their films, of course, where overlapping themes abound. The darker sides of motherhood, and the way grief seeps in, are front and center for Jennifer Lawrence‘s Die My Love, Jessie Buckley‘s Hamnet and even Amanda Seyfried‘s The Testament of Ann Lee — which trades more specifically in the grief of not being a mother. There are bad dads of every variety: Renate Reinsve‘s Sentimental Value (distant, narcissistic); Lawrence’s Die My Love again (apathetic, bumbling); Cynthia Erivo‘s Wicked: For Good (megalomaniac). And though Laura Dern was on hand to discuss Is This Thing On?, it’s worth mentioning that she also stars in Jay Kelly, the final boss of complicated fatherhood.
The actress’ performances, though varied in breadth and scale, are all deeply personal to the women who embody these roles. Lawrence and Buckley found themselves unlocking a new connection to their own matrescence. Erivo’s time as Elphaba mirrored her own journey to superstardom. Reinsve and Dern both reunited with dear friends (directors Joachim Trier and Bradley Cooper, respectively) behind the camera. And Seyfried worked through newfound levels of discomfort for Ann Lee‘s absurd (a compliment!) song-and-dance numbers.
Photographed by Beau Grealy
All six women gathered on a rainy Los Angeles afternoon to discuss their experiences onscreen — as it turns out, it’s normal to feel embarrassed! — and in navigating the months-long road show that is compulsory to releasing a film these days. “I really appreciate when other actors do it, and I watch these interviews all the time because I’m so curious about other people’s processes,” says Reinsve. “But doing it myself, it’s weird and the opposite of what I do on set.”
What is a favorite, or most rewarding, way that you have gotten to know a recent co-star? Jessie, I believe you have a great story about going out with Paul Mescal before Hamnet.
JESSIE BUCKLEY I told you that in absolute secrecy. What happens at Joyface stays at Joyface [a vibey NYC bar]. They play ABBA and all the old hits. We got really drunk and went out dancing, which is a good thing to do with Paul Mescal when you’re getting to know him.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE [Die My Love director] Lynne Ramsay had me and Rob Pattinson do interpretative dance lessons before we started filming. And then our first day on set was a naked scene where we were attacking each other like tigers. But it was kind of nice that it was day one because then it wasn’t hanging over our heads.
AMANDA SEYFRIED That’s actually brilliant. And if you know what the genitals look like, you don’t wonder.
CYNTHIA ERIVO Mine pales in comparison because [Ariana and I] just went to my house and sat on the floor and ate crudités. We talked for five hours, got to know each other, and the next time [we saw each other], we were singing.
LAWRENCE Nobody was naked?
ERIVO Nobody was naked.
LAURA DERN Bradley Cooper and I are old friends, and so are Bradley and Will Arnett, so we just dove into a workshop. We shared our dreams and our childhoods because in our movie, there’s no backstory. It’s about a marriage, and in the first scene it’s falling apart, so you have to come in feeling like you know everything.
You’re all in various stages of your careers, and I’m curious at what point you started to feel full autonomy and control over your circumstances in this business?
ERIVO I feel as though we all have that at the beginning, but we just didn’t know it. We relinquish the power to everybody else, and we’re pressured into doing some things that we don’t need or want to do — but from the beginning, our yeses and our nos are our own. I don’t think the choice to do what I wanted was ever not there — it’s just louder now.
RENATE REINSVE I think the signals you get from inside yourself about what is right are really small in the beginning and get stronger and stronger the more you get scolded by experiences. These past few years, I finally feel like I’m on the right path, but it’s taken a long time.
Renate, you were offered a lot of romantic comedies after the success of The Worst Person in the World, but did you feel they weren’t right for you?
REINSVE I love a good rom-com, I really do. They’re really hard to make really good. But I felt like if I do one after Worst Person, then that will just become what I do. So instead I did A Different Man, which was more like a Charlie Kaufman world. It was the opposite of Worst Person.
DERN Renate and I were talking before we started about how lucky we’ve been that we found a filmmaker to work with numerous times. You feel like, “Oh, OK, I know my place in this world.” And that takes me back to the question of autonomy. Especially on a film, I think a lot of times it can feel the same as having autonomy in a partnership. It’s complicated because you want to involve the other person, for people to be your true teammate and partners.
Renate Reinsve styled by Karla Welch. Schiaparelli blazer, blouse, pants; Completed Works rings.
Photographed by Beau Grealy
Laura, your movie Is This Thing On? is a great example of a movie that could have been about the male lead, but it is a true two-hander about a relationship. Is it easy for you all to find movies that are about women as opposed to a movie that just has women in it?
ERIVO No. That’s the short answer.
LAWRENCE Do you care if it passes the Bechdel Test?
ERIVO You know what, I didn’t care, but now I do. I’m always like, “How much is she speaking, and what is she saying when she does speak?”
Laura Dern styled by Elizabeth Stewart. Gabriela Hearst suit, vest, shoes.
Photographed by Beau Grealy
Is there any sort of formula to finding, and then keeping, those long-standing director-actor collaborations?
REINSVE Joachim Trier and I mutually felt on the set on Worst Person in the World that we had more things we wanted to explore together. We didn’t really say it because it’s up to him [whether we keep working together]. In Norway, it’s really the director’s vision and not so much an actor. It’s almost the opposite, where if you’re too famous or you become a star, it can get in the way of things. So Joachim and his co-writer Eskil Vogt had to decide if they wanted to work with me again. And then they did write that character [in Sentimental Value] for me.
BUCKLEY Did your relationship change the second time around?
REINSVE Yes, because Nora is really angry. I don’t do the thing where you’re in the role all the time, but it’s like a transference of feeling. I talked to him in a different tone. The character also is depressed throughout the movie, so it affected our communication. After you have that experience, you come out of it and you’re still friends, and you actually get closer.
SEYFRIED It’s intimate. Growing as an artistic couple, the things you create grow, it seems like the best of both worlds. They say don’t mix business with pleasure, don’t mix business with relationships and love, but I don’t agree with that because you’re going to make something deeper and be fulfilled by it. Unless of course, somebody does something fucked up and you’re not friends anymore.
DERN Cynthia, I’m curious how the experience was in making the second iteration of this film.
ERIVO We actually shot simultaneously.
LAWRENCE So some days you’re shooting for number two and some days you’re shooting for one?
ERIVO Sometimes all in the same day. When we shot the song “For Good,” we were meant to be shooting something for film one, but it was supposed to be outside, and it was raining. It’s a sort of surrender. There’s something lovely about being able to just let it be.
LAWRENCE Well, at least you’re green no matter what. [On X-Men,] we could never do that because sometimes I’d be blue, sometimes I’d be blond. They’d say, “We’re going to try to shoot something else,” and it’s like, “OK, just give me eight hours.”
Cynthia Erivo styled by Jason Bolden. Rabanne top, skirt; Roberto Coin jewelry.
Photographed by Beau Grealy
Is that hard to get used to? Since there’s probably no world in which you could say, “I’m just not ready for that scene yet.”
LAWRENCE I worked with one actor who did that.
Did it work?
LAWRENCE Yeah. We didn’t shoot the scene that day.
Amanda, with all of the choreography and singing you did on The Testament of Ann Lee, did you always feel ready?
SEYFRIED We did get this luxurious preparation period that you don’t get for other genres. If there’s music and movement involved, there’s built-in time. And thank God because my brain is not clicked into the movement. I am always very uncomfortable dancing.
ERIVO I would never have known that you were uncomfortable.
SEYFRIED Thanks. It’s the preparation, right? It’s also very intuitive movement, so it’s different than Mamma Mia!
REINSVE Were you uncomfortable in that too?
SEYFRIED Very much so. And it’s internal because no one’s got time for that [on set]. There are too many people doing too many things. So I’m just like, “I’m a piece of shit, I’m a piece of shit, are we rolling?”
LAWRENCE That’s a good mantra.
Amanda Seyfried styled by Elizabeth Stewart. St John vest, pants; Aquazurra shoes.
Photographed by Beau Grealy
Jennifer, it seems as though there’s a fair amount of improv involved in Die My Love, especially during the moments when your character is breaking down or acting out.
LAWRENCE In the bathroom scene, what was in the script was just: “She destroys the bathroom.” So I did that. I scratched at the wall and then in post, they peeled off the wallpaper for me. It was just me in the bathroom with the camera guy. Once it got going, it was like I was living an intrusive thought out loud. How often do you want to take a shampoo bottle and just (mimes squeezing it out) and smash things?
Do you ever feel like, in promoting this film, you have to be the poster child of the postpartum experience?
LAWRENCE Not to sound stupid, but it is a privilege to talk about something that, 10 years ago, we weren’t talking about. I had really bad postpartum with my second — whom I was actually pregnant with while we were making this [movie] — so I had to watch cuts of it while I was suffering from postpartum. More than any other movie I’ve made, it’s very ripe for projection about your own relationships and family. But I’ve talked about postpartum a lot in the last six weeks, for sure.
Does the subject matter of a film, and more specifically the subject matter that you’ll be required to discuss ad nauseam during the press tour, ever influence your decision to take a role?
LAWRENCE I was surprised when I started doing this because I’ve always been really strict about, “I don’t want to talk about my kids.” But it’s impossible not to, so I’ve landed on, “I will talk about my experience as a mother.” But it did make me realize that it was not something I had considered.
And you’re really generous with it —
LAWRENCE Too generous. I hear what you’re saying.
Jennifer Lawrence styled by Ryan Hastings. Givenchy dress, shoes; Longines watch; JAR. earrings from Sotheby’s.
Photographed by Beau Grealy
Like the interviews talking about the meds that helped you.
LAWRENCE Zurzuvae. Really helpful.
REINSVE It’s funny, I struggle with the period where you’re like, “Oh, I have to articulate what I did a year ago.” You never think that you’re going to be an advocate for anything when you’re making the movie, and then you end up in conversations with people having similar experiences [to the movie].
BUCKLEY I find it can narrow the experience. Everybody can have a completely personal, unique relationship to whatever you’ve made. Sometimes I wish we didn’t have to talk about it at all and could just put it out there and let it be.
LAWRENCE We have to turn into a salesman. I get it, it’s a business, but it’s bizarre.
SEYFRIED And we’re not experts on what we’re talking about.
DERN Often people turn to the actors when the director doesn’t want to tell you what his or her movie’s about. Actors often become the spokespeople of the intentions. I don’t know if you guys ever had a director upset with you about how you described their movie …
LAWRENCE Was it David Lynch?
DERN Yes. It was funny. It was the first time I had to describe what Blue Velvet was about, and I was 17 years old. And he was like, “You don’t ever have to tell them anything about what we’re making. You could just say that we had fun.” I was like, “Oh.” And, by the way, and then I betrayed that because I’m still trying to explain what our movie was about.
LAWRENCE I really love that moment when he brought a cow.
DERN Yes, for the first Oscar campaign. He did find it kind of insane what has happened with the promotion of movies.
BUCKLEY I never want to project any idea of what the women I play are meant to be, I just want to go down the river with them and let them have their own voice with it.
Jessie Buckley styled by Danielle Goldberg. The Row sweater, skirt, cummerbund.
Photographed by Beau Grealy
In the scene when Hamnet dies, you have this incredibly visceral scream-cry. How did you get yourself there that day?
BUCKLEY Well, it wasn’t in the script, that moment. I guess my job in exploring grief was to try and touch the edges of that in as honest a way possible. The little boy who plays Hamnet, Jacobi Jupe, is so extraordinary. We shot that setup maybe three times, and the scream came out on the third time. I’d created a really strong bond with this little boy, and it felt like that scream was ancient. It just came through, I have no idea how.
ERIVO I’ve got a question. How do you come out of something like that? How do you protect yourself? I’m always concerned when I watch your films.
BUCKLEY I have a pretty simple life outside of my work, and coming back to something grounded is really important to me. Making a slice of toast or gardening or going for a walk. I’m also grateful for it because I don’t want to wear a mask — I want all the shadowy bits to show. But I have an amazing husband, I have great siblings and I’m very close to them. Don’t be worried, I’m fine. I also have therapy.
DERN As actors, we give ourselves permission to feel all the things because they’re true, and then in life, culture teaches us not to have those feelings. Sometimes I think I’m more compassionate about needing that time [in work] than I am in real life, when I’m supposed to be together and show up for my kids even though I’m in pain.
Earlier, Amanda pointed out that no one here is an expert in whatever topic their movie is about — but what are you experts in?
LAWRENCE English royal history. I love it, I always have. The Tudors, specifically.
REINSVE I love quantum physics.
SEYFRIED I believe that.
LAWRENCE That’s so annoying.
BUCKLEY That’s really hot.
REINSVE You said you garden?
BUCKLEY I’m absolutely rubbish at gardening. I have grown one flaccid courgette. But I love my garden.
SEYFRIED I keep trying to picture it, but I can’t.
BUCKLEY It was small, yellow and flaccid.
SEYFRIED Flaccid?
LAWRENCE If she says “flaccid” one more time, I’m leaving.
ERIVO I feel like it’s obvious, but music really is my second language.
SEYFRIED You are an expert at finding notes and making them fucking throttle your soul. You are an expert at moving metaphorical mountains in people’s bodies. I don’t know how else to articulate it.
I’d like to end by asking if any of you have a memory of what you bought yourself with your first Hollywood paycheck.
REINSVE Probably just rent.
BUCKLEY I think it was rent as well. I got a bit nicer place.
ERIVO I bought my first Chanel bag and paid off my student loans.
Do you still have the bag?
ERIVO It was stolen. I remember I went into the store and paid for it with cash because I’d saved up my per diems from the job. I was like a little grandma putting it away in a cupboard.
SEYFRIED My favorite Louis Vuitton bag that I spent too much money on during an early movie was also stolen.
DERN I bought a camera and a tripod. And then the camera was stolen. I was so proud that I got to buy this for myself, so I put the tripod in the corner of my bedroom and used it as a coatrack for two years because I wanted it to matter. I don’t know why I didn’t just save up and get another camera, but I was so traumatized. I had been studying photography, and I just sort of let go of the passion. By the way, it might have been a boyfriend who stole the camera. He knows who he is.
ERIVO Fuck him.
LAWRENCE Fucking bitch.
DERN I think it’s time to get myself a camera, guys.
ERIVO You must, I’ll go with you.
DERN OK, I love this.
From left: Laura Dern, Cynthia Erivo, Jennifer Lawrence, Renate Reinsve, Jessie Buckley and Amanda Seyfried
Photographed by Beau Grealy
This story appeared in the Dec. 17 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
