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Elle
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Elle
A24's New Under-the-Radar Gem 'Sorry Baby' Tackles Trauma With Humor
Eva Victor began their career in the comedy scene, going viral on TikTok and writing for satirical sites like Reductress. Subjects would range from how (not) to make small talk in an elevator to paying the check at a restaurant when you're not sure if you're on a date. But when it comes to their debut feature, Sorry, Baby, Victor isn't even sure there's a single joke in it. 'Humor is always there, but it's a very different feeling,' the writer, director, and star says. Sorry, Baby follows Agnes (Victor), an English lit professor in a small New England town, before and after 'the bad thing' that happens to her. She was sexually assaulted, though the film avoids saying or depicting it outright, forgoing stereotypical, on-the-nose portrayals. But it doesn't minimize Agnes's pain or trauma either. In Victor's hands, we don't fall into a well of despair around the incident. Instead, we spend more time in the crevices of everyday moments that make up Agnes's complicated and beautiful life. Sorry, Baby received the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance, where A24 immediately scooped up the film for distribution for around $8 million. Even without jokes, Victor thinks there might be three reasons why viewers laugh during Sorry, Baby. 'One of them is witnessing the joy of a friendship and feeling like you're a part of it,' they say. Victor is talking about the actual core of Sorry, Baby: the relationship between Agnes and her best friend, Lydie (Naomi Ackie), who went to college with Agnes in this small town and has since moved away. 'I wanted the beginning of the film to have a lot of joy and laughter in it and to feel like it's just these two people in this big world,' Victor says, 'so that after we go through really hard things later on, we can return to a place of joy and laughter because it's been established.' There's also humor in the way Agnes navigates the world; how she sneaks a cat into the grocery store or how she interacts with her kind neighbor, Gavin (Lucas Hedges). And then there's the way the movie holds people in power accountable. 'It's kind of cathartic to laugh at them,' Victor says. At various points, the film highlights the failures of the medical system, a college's HR department, and a courtroom during jury duty. Victor's approach to movies comes from a place of joy. They grew up watching the likes of A Hard Day's Night, Top Hat, and Swing Time. They still rewatch Singin' in the Rain, moved each time by Gene Kelly's extended dance sequence in the middle of it. 'It's joyful and for the sake of beauty. We sometimes are told everything has to exist for a reason, and I don't think that's totally true,' they say. Since then, Victor has gravitated more toward movies like 45 Years, the Three Colors trilogy, and The Double Life of Veronique. During the pandemic, Victor embarked on this self-led film education to get an idea of the kind of movie they could one day make. It then took years of preparation and confidence-building to step into the director's chair. 'I don't think anyone's ever going to let you make a movie,' Victor says. 'You have to continue knocking on the door to make a movie. And then finally, you get to, maybe, if you're lucky.' After Victor cracked the film's non-linear structure and finished the script, they sent it to Barry Jenkins, Adele Romanski, and Mark Ceryak's Pastel Productions, who signed on as producers. 'I never brought it anywhere else,' Victor says. The producers set Victor up to shoot two scenes from the movie so they could get comfortable directing. Victor made storyboards and reverse-shotlisted movies they loved. By the time they got to set, Victor had compiled a massive binder (which is now used as a doorstop) of acting notes, directing notes, and storyboards for every scene. Jenkins, aside from being a visionary artist—and one of Victor's early post-college inspirations—proved to be an invaluable mentor. 'He gifted me with this idea that what I was doing, before I ever made a film, was working out how to make a film. And that was very affirming,' Victor says. Victor took their online videos seriously, even if the tone was comical; like when they shared the many ways ladies love to brag ('I go to bed at 4:45 A.M. and I wake up at 5 A.M.'), or when they serenaded their cat after two hours apart. Jenkins saw the value in them too. 'He had so much confidence in me,' Victor says. Jenkins gave them script notes, helped cast Lydie, and offered advice on set, all 'intent on helping me make the film I wanted to make.' Sorry, Baby couches Agnes's experience in humor, tenderness, and warmth. Life can be dark and yet, in unexpected moments, we have to laugh. As a culture, Victor considers, we tend to mark people who've been through traumatic incidents as tragic figures. Victor, on the other hand, created a story that was primarily about friendship in order to give Agnes 'this fighting chance of being a whole person that goes through this thing, but isn't defined by it.' Victor has said that the film comes from a personal place. And while no experience can be completely healing, directing gave Victor a unique power over their own story. 'The act of directing myself as an actor, deciding where my body went, and then everyone in the crew and cast supporting that decision was very powerful. That part was very meaningful to me.' After years of working out feelings of anxiety and awkwardness on Twitter, Victor found fertile ground in feature-length storytelling. They approached it differently from the beginning—with research, homework, and Oscar-winning producers—and the product became something intensely personal and, much like Victor's video of opening a seltzer during a meeting, deeply relatable. 'I really wanted the feature to breathe,' they say. 'I wanted people to feel like they had to lean in to meet it.'
San Francisco Chronicle
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘I wasn't going to show the violence': S.F.-raised Eva Victor on ‘Sorry, Baby'
Eva Victor was back in their hometown, the final stop on a press tour for their critically lauded debut feature, and they were ready to party. But first, Victor, who uses they/she pronouns, demanded perfect attendance during a Q&A on Tuesday, July 1, after a crowded screening at the Alamo Drafthouse New Mission theater of ' Sorry, Baby,' which Victor wrote, directed and stars in. 'Good night!' Victor said to laughter as a couple was walking out just as the discussion got started. 'If you leave, I will call you out, it will be horrible for you. Don't leave!' Victor, best known for a recurring role in the Showtime series ' Billions,' is trained as a comedian; they have performed at SF Sketchfest when they were with the satirical website Reductress and was very entertaining as they discussed 'Sorry, Baby.' But while the movie has sharply funny moments, it is a serious and unique drama about Agnes (Victor), a woman processing a sexual assault — called 'the bad thing' — and her life-saving friendship with Lydie (Naomi Ackie of ' Blink Twice ' and ' Mickey 17 '). While Victor insists the film, which counts Barry Jenkins (' Moonlight ') as a producer, is 'narrative fiction,' it is based on an incident they experienced and admitted to the audience, 'I made this film about a time and experience when I felt very unheard, and it means the world for you to be here and listen to what I have to say.' Hours earlier, during a Chronicle interview at the 1 Hotel, Victor said, 'I really wanted to write a film about trying to heal. … It was a real joy to fictionalize an emotional truth in my life.' Victor was born in Paris, but their family moved to San Francisco when they were 2. They went to the International School from kindergarten through 12th grade before going to theater school at Northwestern University. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. A: When I was a kid, we lived in the Marina, and my favorite place to go was on a walk to Crissy Field, go to the Warming Hut, get a cup of cocoa. That's a nice spot. Q: Did you enjoy school? A: It broke my brain, and I still don't know if I've recovered. The best part of it was my junior year of high school. I started doing theater, and that was amazing because (Berkeley-based actor) Michelle Haner was my teacher, and I was in 'Spring Awakening,' the musical, and my director was Brad Korman. They were both incredibly supportive teachers and treated me like an adult and took me seriously. And that made me want to go to theater school as a college student. So I'm very grateful for them. Q: How in touch are you with your French heritage? A: I would love to get French citizenship. Once I got a job on a TV show, I got to have a little more money so I could go to France. I feel very, very connected to Paris. It was very fun to go to the Cannes Film Festival (in May). I think it's beautiful, and I would love to spend more time there. Q: Your previous directorial experience consists mainly of comic videos you made on social media. How did you come to direct 'Sorry, Baby'? A: It was definitely intimidating. I didn't want something to get lost in me taking on too much. I wrote this really privately, just in a house by myself with my cat, and I was desperate for someone to read it, like I didn't want to be alone with it. I really wanted to act in the role, and I thought, 'Well, we can hire someone to direct it.' Then I went to think about it for a month or so and quickly realized I desperately wanted to direct it. I just needed to figure out how. So I spent a couple of years preparing to direct in various ways. I knew how I wanted it to look and feel. I just needed to learn how to communicate that to heads of department, who will then ideally challenge you on your vision. The nice thing about directing the film is you spend a lot of time building the film with other people, and then you shoot it and direct it. It's like this really long journey of creation together. Q: A key casting choice was who would play Lydie. How did you find Naomi? A: We met, and she was just such a warm ray of light. I'd seen ' Lady Macbeth ' (2016) and the Whitney Houston movie (2022's ' Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody '). I was so overwhelmed by how goofy she was. The universe sent her to me, and on set, it just clicked. Q: You chose not to show 'the bad thing' but instead show her walking into the place where it happened, then later walking out. Why? A: I always knew I wasn't going to show the violence. It was for a person like I was who couldn't sit through a film like that; it would turn my body into shock mode, and I didn't want to put anyone through that. Her body goes in, but I don't think her spirit does. I think this might be more of a memory of what that experience was like. It's frozen and disconnected. So it's kind of out of body.
Winnipeg Free Press
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
How ‘Sorry, Baby' writer-producer-star Eva Victor made the year's most exciting debut
The Oscar-winning producer of 'Moonlight' really wanted to get in touch with Eva Victor. Adele Romanski and her producing partner Mark Ceryak were 'kind of obsessed' with the short, comedic videos Victor was putting out on various social media platforms. Titles of some that still exist online include 'when I definitely did not murder my husband' and a series called 'Eva vs. Anxiety.' Romanski and Ceryak started bugging their Pastel productions partner Barry Jenkins, certainly the most well-known name of the bunch, to make the first move and send Victor a direct message. But they had to ask themselves a big question first: Would that be weird? 'We had to negotiate whether or not that was appropriate for Barry, a married man, to send Eva a DM,' Romanski said. 'We were like 'yessss, do it!'' What started as a curiosity about a distinct voice, someone whose observations about the world and society were hilarious, sharp and undeniable, just a few years later would become one of the most exciting debuts in recent memory. 'Sorry, Baby,' which Victor wrote, directed and stars in, is a gentle film about trauma. It's also funny and strange and fresh, a wholly original statement from an artist with a vision. And there's a cat too. The film opens Friday in New York and Los Angeles and expands nationwide in the coming weeks. A boost from Barry Jenkins It's a wild turn of events for Victor, who goes by they/she pronouns and who never dared to dream that they could possibly direct. Victor grew up in San Francisco in a family that cherished and pursued artistic endeavors, even if it wasn't their primary careers. At Northwestern University, Victor focused on playwriting — it was something they could have control over while also pursuing acting. After college it was improv, writing for the satirical website Reductress ('Woman Seduced by Bangs Despite Knowing They're Bad for Her,' 'How to Cut Out All the People who are Not Obsessed with Your Dog'), some acting gigs, like a recurring role on the Showtime series 'Billions,' and social media, where their tweets and videos often went viral. But there was an itch to work on something longer form, something beyond that immediate gratification of virality. Jenkins' message came at the right time. Then at Victor's first meeting at Pastel productions, he planted a seed of an idea: Maybe Victor was already a director. 'He said something that very profoundly impacted me: That the comedy videos I was doing were me directing without me realizing it,' Victor said. 'It was just a different scale. That kind of stuck with me.' 'Sorry, Baby' was born out of a personal story that Victor had wanted to write about for a while. After the general meeting, they had a renewed sense of purpose and went away one snowy winter to a cabin in Maine to write, with their cat, movies and books as companions. The screenplay, in which a New England graduate student named Agnes is assaulted by her thesis adviser, poured out of them. 'I wanted to make a film that was about feeling stuck when everyone around you keeps moving that didn't center any violence. The goal was to have the film and its structure support the time afterwards, not the actual experience,' Victor said. 'I really think the thing it's about is trying to heal and the slow pace at which healing comes and how it's really not linear and how there are joys to be found in the everyday and especially in very affirming friendships and sometimes, like, a sandwich depending on the day.' Somewhere along the way Victor started to also believe that they were the best person for the job. They were the only person standing in their way. 'The less focus there was on me as the creator of it, and the more focus there was on how to tell the story as effectively as possible, the more comfortable I became,' Victor said. 'I understood exactly what I wanted it to look and feel like.' Learning to direct But there was a lot to learn. Before the shoot, Victor also asked Jane Schoenbrun, who they'd met once for pie, if they could come to the 'I Saw the TV Glow' set to just watch. Schoenbrun said yes. 'It was a completely wonderful, transforming experience of friendship and learning,' Victor said. 'Jane is so confident about what they want in their films and it was a real honor to watch them so many decisions and stay so calm.' Empowered by what they'd seen, Victor assembled a 'dream team' of experts, like cinematographer Mia Cioffi Henry who also teaches at NYU and an editor, Alex O'Flinn, who teaches at UCLA. Victor rounded out the cast with Lucas Hedges, as a kind neighbor, 'Billions' alum Louis Cancelmi, as the thesis adviser, and Naomi Ackie as her best friend Lydie – the first person she talks to after the incident, the one who accompanies her to the hospital, and the one whose life doesn't stop. 'We built the schedule in a way that allowed us to have all our friendship fun scenes at first,' Victor said. 'We kind of got to go through the experience of building a friendship in real time.' Ackie immediately connected to the script and thought whoever wrote it, 'must be the coolest.' The reality of Victor, she said, did not disappoint. 'They don't realize how magnetic their openness is,' Ackie said. 'There's something extremely honest about them and curious and playful.' A Sundance sensation Romanski and everyone at Pastel productions knew they had something special, a gem even. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. 'They're chasing something tonally that I've never seen anybody go after before,' Romanski said. 'It's the blend of both a very, very specific, personal comedic tone and also a true sense of artistry.' But nothing's ever guaranteed until you put it in front of a public audience, which they did earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival where it quickly became a breakout sensation, with standing ovations and the screenwriting award, whose past winners include Lisa Cholodenko, Kenneth Lonergan, Christopher Nolan and Debra Granik. 'You just don't know. Then on the other side, you know,' Romanski said. 'We felt it with 'Aftersun.' We felt it with 'Moonlight.' And we definitely felt it with 'Sorry, Baby.'' And like 'Aftersun' and 'Moonlight' before it, 'Sorry, Baby' also found a home with A24, which promised a theatrical release. Among the giants of the summer movie calendar, in which everything is big, bigger, biggest, 'Sorry, Baby' is the delicate discovery. 'I wanted it to exist in this space between reality and escape. I wanted it to be this immersive thing,' Victor said. 'It's a sensitive film. I hope it finds people when they need it. That's my biggest wish.'
San Francisco Chronicle
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
How ‘Sorry, Baby' writer-producer-star Eva Victor made the year's most exciting debut
The Oscar-winning producer of 'Moonlight' really wanted to get in touch with Eva Victor. Adele Romanski and her producing partner Mark Ceryak were 'kind of obsessed' with the short, comedic videos Victor was putting out on various social media platforms. Titles of some that still exist online include 'when I definitely did not murder my husband' and a series called 'Eva vs. Anxiety.' Romanski and Ceryak started bugging their Pastel productions partner Barry Jenkins, certainly the most well-known name of the bunch, to make the first move and send Victor a direct message. But they had to ask themselves a big question first: Would that be weird? 'We had to negotiate whether or not that was appropriate for Barry, a married man, to send Eva a DM,' Romanski said. 'We were like 'yessss, do it!'' What started as a curiosity about a distinct voice, someone whose observations about the world and society were hilarious, sharp and undeniable, just a few years later would become one of the most exciting debuts in recent memory. 'Sorry, Baby,' which Victor wrote, directed and stars in, is a gentle film about trauma. It's also funny and strange and fresh, a wholly original statement from an artist with a vision. And there's a cat too. The film opens Friday in New York and Los Angeles and expands nationwide in the coming weeks. A boost from Barry Jenkins It's a wild turn of events for Victor, who goes by they/she pronouns and who never dared to dream that they could possibly direct. Victor grew up in San Francisco in a family that cherished and pursued artistic endeavors, even if it wasn't their primary careers. At Northwestern University, Victor focused on playwriting — it was something they could have control over while also pursuing acting. After college it was improv, writing for the satirical website Reductress ('Woman Seduced by Bangs Despite Knowing They're Bad for Her,' 'How to Cut Out All the People who are Not Obsessed with Your Dog'), some acting gigs, like a recurring role on the Showtime series 'Billions,' and social media, where their tweets and videos often went viral. But there was an itch to work on something longer form, something beyond that immediate gratification of virality. Jenkins' message came at the right time. Then at Victor's first meeting at Pastel productions, he planted a seed of an idea: Maybe Victor was already a director. 'He said something that very profoundly impacted me: That the comedy videos I was doing were me directing without me realizing it,' Victor said. 'It was just a different scale. That kind of stuck with me.' 'Sorry, Baby' was born out of a personal story that Victor had wanted to write about for a while. After the general meeting, they had a renewed sense of purpose and went away one snowy winter to a cabin in Maine to write, with their cat, movies and books as companions. The screenplay, in which a New England graduate student named Agnes is assaulted by her thesis adviser, poured out of them. 'I wanted to make a film that was about feeling stuck when everyone around you keeps moving that didn't center any violence. The goal was to have the film and its structure support the time afterwards, not the actual experience,' Victor said. 'I really think the thing it's about is trying to heal and the slow pace at which healing comes and how it's really not linear and how there are joys to be found in the everyday and especially in very affirming friendships and sometimes, like, a sandwich depending on the day.' Somewhere along the way Victor started to also believe that they were the best person for the job. They were the only person standing in their way. 'The less focus there was on me as the creator of it, and the more focus there was on how to tell the story as effectively as possible, the more comfortable I became,' Victor said. 'I understood exactly what I wanted it to look and feel like.' Learning to direct But there was a lot to learn. Before the shoot, Victor also asked Jane Schoenbrun, who they'd met once for pie, if they could come to the 'I Saw the TV Glow' set to just watch. Schoenbrun said yes. 'It was a completely wonderful, transforming experience of friendship and learning,' Victor said. 'Jane is so confident about what they want in their films and it was a real honor to watch them so many decisions and stay so calm.' Empowered by what they'd seen, Victor assembled a 'dream team' of experts, like cinematographer Mia Cioffi Henry who also teaches at NYU and an editor, Alex O'Flinn, who teaches at UCLA. Victor rounded out the cast with Lucas Hedges, as a kind neighbor, 'Billions' alum Louis Cancelmi, as the thesis adviser, and Naomi Ackie as her best friend Lydie – the first person she talks to after the incident, the one who accompanies her to the hospital, and the one whose life doesn't stop. 'We built the schedule in a way that allowed us to have all our friendship fun scenes at first,' Victor said. 'We kind of got to go through the experience of building a friendship in real time.' Ackie immediately connected to the script and thought whoever wrote it, 'must be the coolest.' The reality of Victor, she said, did not disappoint. 'They don't realize how magnetic their openness is,' Ackie said. 'There's something extremely honest about them and curious and playful.' A Sundance sensation Romanski and everyone at Pastel productions knew they had something special, a gem even. 'They're chasing something tonally that I've never seen anybody go after before,' Romanski said. 'It's the blend of both a very, very specific, personal comedic tone and also a true sense of artistry.' But nothing's ever guaranteed until you put it in front of a public audience, which they did earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival where it quickly became a breakout sensation, with standing ovations and the screenwriting award, whose past winners include Lisa Cholodenko, Kenneth Lonergan, Christopher Nolan and Debra Granik. 'You just don't know. Then on the other side, you know,' Romanski said. 'We felt it with 'Aftersun.' We felt it with 'Moonlight.' And we definitely felt it with 'Sorry, Baby.'' And like 'Aftersun' and 'Moonlight' before it, 'Sorry, Baby' also found a home with A24, which promised a theatrical release. Among the giants of the summer movie calendar, in which everything is big, bigger, biggest, 'Sorry, Baby' is the delicate discovery. 'I wanted it to exist in this space between reality and escape. I wanted it to be this immersive thing,' Victor said. 'It's a sensitive film. I hope it finds people when they need it. That's my biggest wish.'
Time Magazine
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
Eva Victor on Finding a New Vocabulary for Trauma in 'Sorry, Baby'
Pop culture has come a long way from 1980s cinema's deployment of sexual assault as a gag (a la John Hughes' Sixteen Candles). But the grammar movies and television use to dramatize such crimes remains by and large unsophisticated. Even #MeToo thrillers and biopics, the projects that on paper appear most likely to confront the subject with the deftest hand, have been known to whiff on their promise; they either treat the abuse as the character, as in Blonde, or the character as a cypher, as in Promising Young Woman, and as such, fail to fulfill their promise as cultural commentary. Maybe these projects can be forgiven for the letdown; assault isn't easy to talk about, to reenact on set, or to watch on screen. It might just take another perspective on the subject—say, that of a comedian—to compel pop culture to expand its visual vocabulary for telling stories about it. Enter Eva Victor, whose feature debut, Sorry, Baby, premiered at Sundance earlier this year to hosannas (including a screenwriting prize) and sold to A24 for a reported $8 million at a festival where buyers weren't shelling out for much. Chief among its praises was that the movie depicts the utterly life-change effect of sexual violence on a victim while simultaneously depicting how the world continues to turn, inexorably, after they've been attacked. 'Something bad happened to Agnes,' reads the official synopsis. 'But life goes on - for everyone around her, at least.' Victor's background as a writer for sites like Reductress, and perhaps especially their Twitter video sketches (where they frantically rant about, for instance, the bright side of the USPS getting dismantled), inform the tone of Sorry, Baby. The humor comes easily but not at the expense of the somber reality it attempts to capture. Apart from writing and directing, Victor plays the lead, Agnes, a grad student in a small, rural town trudging through her days, coming to terms with an assault she endured by her advisor and professor, Preston (Louis Cancelmi); the film takes a chronologically disordered structure, beginning a year after the attack, then flashing back to that time in her life, and to that moment, orchestrated with a chilling sense of distance—a contrast to bubblier moments between Agnes and her best friend, Lydie (Naomi Ackie), who has since moved to New York City, and on with her life. Sorry, Baby doesn't make light of what happens to Agnes. Rather it finds lightness in spite of it. Here, humor—sardonic, wry, and silly—is a balm. Since its Sundance debut, the film has played many festivals, from Cannes to Independent Film Festival Boston, which picked Sorry, Baby as the capstone for this year's edition of the fest. (The film's production took place 30 miles north of the city, in the coastal town of Ipswich, though Victor's buzz was just as much the reason for attending the fest's closing night as their choice in shooting locations.) While in town for the April festival, Victor sat down to talk about how Sorry, Baby leans on comedy to express the experience of living post-assault. Excerpts of that conversation are below, ahead of the movie's June 27 theatrical release. Victor: Totally. It's interesting, because I think of Agnes as very isolated, which is in some ways the opposite of privacy; isolation is being alone, not by choice, but because you're running from something, like your fear that people will devastate you, and so you make yourself lonely for that reason. Whereas privacy is you saying, 'I've chosen to give myself this time as an act of care for myself.' I do think that as an artist, I crave privacy because that is when you get to really check in with yourself. It's really hard to check in with yourself when you're surrounded by voices, and people. There are conscious things and subconscious things in the film that people are telling me about that are interesting, but I think Agnes is maybe on the dark side of that coin. There's very little people are pointing out in terms of threads in the film that I didn't plan. Because you spend so much time working on every element of the film, there's nothing you see on screen that's not been thought out, or tried a different way; everything you see is a choice. I can explain to you why every single thing exists in the film as it does. The thing I find really exciting is when people notice threads in the film that were more intense in the script, but had to get cut down for different reasons. I love a watcher who sees those little things, and pulls out little secrets that are in the film–but I can't tell you [what they are] because someone will have to watch it to see them. But I do like when people watch with a curious eye about why certain things are happening at certain points in the film; there are little secrets along the way. So much of the joy of making a film is you do your part in creating the film as well as you can to be as effective as possible for you, and then people come to it and find what they need to find in it. That's the joy of being a moviegoer: you get to take from a film what you want. It exists to be something for different people, and to exist in these really specific ways based on what you're coming in with. In terms of humor, it's a really powerful coping mechanism, and it gets you through really dark days. Things are so bizarre and absurd sometimes that laughing is the only way through, and I do think a lot of the funny stuff happens when Agnes and Lydie are able to be witnesses together. Things are a little less funny when Lydie's not there, but when Lydie's there, they're this united front; they're kind of like warriors in this thing together, in this weird world. I think the reason the doctor scene, without giving too much away, lands is because both Agnes and Lydie are contending with how absurd the moment is, but they have each other. On some level, if Lydie's there, you know that Agnes will be okay. Yeah. And, when Agnes is alone, these two women are creating a real gaslighting energy, and she has no one to convene with and say, 'That was weird, right?' She's completely alone, and these women are so unified. Building the tone after the middle of the film was about figuring out how humor moves through that. There's the doctor scene, which does have some humor to it; then the HR scene, which is her by herself, gets a lot darker. And then she runs into Gavin, played by Lucas Hedges, and then there's comedy in that scene because of the absurdity of Agnes coming in really hot and Gavin being this whimsical neighbor. So, it's about finding ways for the humor to go through these waxing and waning moments in the film, and taking the audience along for that journey. Watching this made me think about the way media sensationalizes trauma. [The film] is holistic in the sense that Agnes' life is shaped by what happens to her, but it isn't the entire movie; we aren't forcibly living in that sensation the entire time. I wonder if you feel that we need to develop our language to talk about that theme. Totally. I only know how to talk about my experience with this film, but it's really interesting; the film does a deliberate job at giving you the language it wants to use. The film calls it the 'bad thing,' and the only person who says the word 'rape' is the doctor. So the film is carefully moving through the language of that topic, and it's interesting reading the way people write about the film so far, because we deliberately have a log line that's meant to be more holistic. I don't want anyone to feel surprised in a scary way seeing the film, but it's meant to hold one's hand while watching it, and it's interesting having writers use the word 'rape' or use the phrase 'sexual assault,' which makes sense; I understand. But it's a really interesting experience, since the film tries to create its own language for this topic. I don't know if our world has all the words it needs to talk about this, and I think our world really has trouble with nuance. It's good that there's more work about this, because every experience of sexual trauma is different, and everyone deserves a voice in speaking about their own experience; I hope that we get to a place where we understand how to talk about it without it being crass, or maybe not crass, but violent. I don't know. I'm figuring it out. I definitely know how I want to talk about it, and everything I want to say is in the film. So watch the film and you can figure out what I think. You mention nuance; that's something hard to come by. I feel like empathy is key. I wish that whenever I've had panic attacks while driving, John Carroll Lynch would've shown up and handed me a sandwich. Me too. That's why I made that happen for myself. Well, you have that divine power. You can make that happen for yourself. Yeah. He's wonderful. He is. Now at the risk of stating the obvious, that feels important; that scene contrasts with the scene with the doctor, the scene with HR, where there's zero empathy whatsoever. Yes, the doctor calls 'the bad thing' what it is; but he should care about how that makes others feel. Did that play into your calculus? 'How is this word going to make the people I'm showing the movie to feel?' Yeah, definitely. I made the film for the person I was that needed this film, so making sure nothing felt what would've been incredibly triggering to me, to the point where I couldn't watch it, felt important. In terms of empathy, it's an interesting question; looking at the doctor, and looking at the HR women, they're people doing what their job told them to do. These are the institutions that make it hard for people to feel safe after something horrible happens, and they are the facilitators of that. But they're not evil in their core; they're trying to do their jobs. It's just that they don't understand that their job is doing something hurtful. With the professor, Preston, Louis [Cancelmi] and I spent so much time talking about the real warmth and respect he has to have for Agnes in the scenes we see him in, so that the audience doesn't see him as a bad guy until she does. We didn't want to undermine Agnes' experience of him by showing that he has these dark colors, until it's too late, which is what Agnes experiences too. Each character being as complicated as possible, in the midst of this intense story about something really scary, was a way through it for me; it's not about good and evil, it's about these people who are incredibly flawed, who are incredibly hurtful.
