Within that, there has to be a line of logic. You have to make sure that you hit the right timing, that there are cadences and rhythms. The pace, or lack of—and the moments to pause, to think—were quite specifically charted in my head. She’s experiencing memories, and there are memories that are more or less painful; when you hit them, the emotions come or they don’t, because you’re trying to suppress them. Acting is very weird.
As Margaret’s past reappears, it’s also fascinating to see these ripples in how she starts to manipulate those around her, especially the young women in her life.
RH: That’s another reason I found it credible, that Andrew was bold enough to write this character so honestly. I was fascinated by Margaret’s relationship with her intern. She’s this person giving you a job, then all this emotional advice that’s useful on some level, but she’s also slightly getting off on how good she is at giving advice. It’s controlling, and then she dumps a huge amount of information on this poor girl, just because she can. She has more power.
That act is fairly abusive, as is the way she parents her child. As things get worse, she gets more controlling, and that is also problematic. The repetition of abuse is subtly woven into this narrative in a way that feels real, but then you also have these outlandish elements, which push it toward something epic, almost mythological. There is this ultimate retribution. Here, we have a woman with such rage, and she has a way to express that in the end that feels very primal. You couldn’t get to that level of primal without the extremity of the story.
Andrew, ’70s conspiracy thrillers like “Klute” and “The Conversation” influenced this film, but you’ve also referenced Todd Haynes’ “Safe” as a major inspiration.
AS: I reference “Safe” all the time, because it’s possibly my favorite movie of all time. I have such a strong emotional reaction to “Safe,” though it’s so austere, partially because it’s the best evocation of generalized anxiety I’ve seen. As an anxious person, that means something to me. When I first saw it, it blew me away, because it was a movie that employed techniques, imagery, and tropes from horror movies and thrillers, but it’s not horror and it’s not a thriller. It engages with that style to tell a dramatic story with elements of satire. I saw it when I was young, and it had never occurred to me that you could employ these techniques in a non-horror, non-thriller space. It was the first movie I’d ever seen that felt so stripped-down and austere. It all takes place in these incredibly mundane spaces that are somehow imbued with a sense of threat or paranoia, but never overtly. It’s a very elegantly made movie. And it’s all structured around this absolutely extraordinary central performance by Julianne Moore, which still blows me away.