Anne Hathaway & Jessica Chastain Interview - Mothers' Instinct

Well, Jessica and I met on Interstellar, but we met more on the press tour than we did because we were characters that didn't have any scenes together. And I, you know, and we just, I don't know, we just started hanging out more and more and more and then eventually we fell in love. So when she sent over the film that this was based on and said she was interested in exploring it and doing an adaptation in English, I was just all in. It just seemed, I was just really excited to go on a creative adventure with her and see what it was like and learn from her as I do in so many ways. And then one very grim June in New Jersey, we made this very dark film. And now we're back to just having fun. Thank God. The mood has lightened. And Jessica, director Benoit Delon, he said he couldn't have, he thought he couldn't have made this film had he not been a father himself. I wondered for you, kind of being a mother yourself, what that kind of aided you in delving into Alice's character and obviously the story as a whole. Oh gosh. I didn't think in terms of my personal life, in terms of being a mom, I thought a lot about what would it be like to be in a society and to be in love with a man and a partnership with a man who really had the power to commit you if you weren't towing the line in some aspects. And the one role for Alice that she's really valued by and visible in society is that of mother. So how important does that then become? Yes, of course, there's an emotional connection and love and desire to nurture her child. But it's also a societal thing of like what happens when you're denied the thing that has given you value, which is motherhood in the 1960s. And so that's really kind of was my way in to the character. Absolutely. And like you talked about those emotional scenes and those sort of painful, emotional moments. How do you kind of approach them at the start of the day? You know, they're coming up there on the script that day. And kind of how do you recover after those moments? I'm not just saying this. I've genuinely blocked it out. I don't know. What I remember is I asked Jessica and Benoit, who I was lucky enough to work with on a film called One Day. And I know Jessica worked with beforehand also. And I just said, guys, I know we've got history, but I need you to please only call me by my character's name. Please do not ask me about my personal life. Please do not ask about my children. I know you love me, and I love you too, but I just need to just kind of walk through a threshold every day. And then at the end of the day, I need to leave. And so I just kept a very, very sizable gulf between myself and the character. And I don't know. I don't really remember how it happened. It was just 24 days. And I just remember looking up. And then moments when I felt like I was myself, I would look up and I would see Jessica gripped by anxiety. And I'd be so worried. I'd be like, oh, no, no, it's not Jess. It's Alice. And so it was a very strange, very strange blur. The longest and the shortest 24 days. And now it's nice. And now we're back to this part, which is so much, so much. I know. I actually wanted to ask you about that. You know, I mean, it does sound very short. What does that actually mean in practice? Is it really long days? Is it every moment of every day kind of spent together, mealtimes, all the rest of it? No. I mean, we were both producing it as well. And it was a very limited budget for a period piece film. So there were days we didn't know. We're like, I we don't know if the scene will be in the movie. If we if we don't shoot it today, it's cut from the movie. We're not going to shoot it. So it was quite stressful working with that kind of speed. I mean, we get as any was saying earlier, we get to take sometimes of something. It was really I mean, it fed my anxiety. That's for sure. I have to say, Jessica only ever needed one take. I've never seen anything like it. It was true that one performance like crazy, but that also upped the ante because I was just like, I cannot leave my scene partner hanging in this. So as Jessica said, really, really well, it was both the longest and the shortest shoot because you just literally couldn't ever drop. You couldn't take your eye off the ball. And so even if you were even if you got a break, you couldn't actually take a break. And and so we were just kind of in it. And we did we did the deep dive. Yeah. And then we came up and we haven't talked about it. Well, we did. We did. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just exaggerating that effect. Wonderful. Oh, an absolute pleasure to talk to you. You're both exceptional in it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, you're watching. Hey, you guys. Hey, you guys. Hey, you guys.