Fiona Shaw Lives in the Moment: “I Don’t Believe in Playing a Character”
Perhaps no one is more excited about the Berlinale than Fiona Shaw.
The Irish actress is no stranger to the German capital — she’s directed a performance at the city’s opera house, Deutsche Oper Berlin — but it is a first appearance at the film festival.
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“I’m just going to see everything I can see in any moment I’m not needed by the press,” Shaw, famed for roles in Harry Potter, Jane Eyre and Killing Eve, tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I’m excited that a festival exists in which a lot of people are going to turn up in order to see films. I just admire that that is still what we do.”
This year, attendees will be turning up to see Shaw as the wheelchair-bound Rose in Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s directorial debut, Hot Milk. Based on the bestselling novel by Deborah Levy, (though, as Shaw points out, is not an adaptation but “a film adapted from a book”) the movie follows Rose and her daughter Sofia (Emma Mackey) who travel to the Spanish seaside town of Almería to consult with the shamanic Dr. Gomez, a physician who could possibly hold the cure to Rose’s mystery illness.
But in the sultry atmosphere of this sun-bleached town, Sofia, after being trapped by her mother’s illness all her life, finally starts to shed her inhibitions, enticed by the persuasive charms of enigmatic traveler Ingrid (Vicky Krieps).
Ahead of its world premiere and in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, Shaw tells THR she relished her time at the forefront of Lenkiewicz’ film. “I often play the person who slides in and changes the temperature in some way… This is much nearer my theater life, where I am the protagonist of the film. You’re taking responsibility for the event. That was really lovely for me.”
In a conversation with THR, Shaw unpacked the simmering tension of Hot Milk, diving right into a screaming match with Mackey on their first day of filming and why her career pivot away from the stage has been nothing but liberating: “I’m very lucky that in late middle age, I don’t mind what the camera sees. It’s very freeing.”
So, this is your first Berlin! I’m surprised.
I’m obviously very young, as you can tell. I’m such a late bloomer. It’s quite amazing, isn’t it?
How have we got here with no Berlinale for Fiona Shaw?
Well, I spent 35 years in the theater pretty much every night. I’ve really only been in [the film] business for the last seven or eight years. And I’m having a ball. I’ve just done Bad Sisters, which is nominated for thousands of IFTAs (Irish Film and Television Awards), which unfortunately is the same night we’re showing our film in Berlin. I’m very excited. So it’s my first Berlin. I mean, Hot Milk is a marvelous thing to have been asked to do. And Rebecca Lenkiewicz, who I’ve known for a long time, we just stayed with it for a couple of years as they raised the money, and then to finally make a thing that you’ve been waiting some years to make was really heady.
And this is Rebecca’s feature directorial debut.
It’s actually a very well-written book, and Rebecca has really extrapolated the fundamentals of the issue but she’s changed it quite a lot. She is a wonderful writer. She’s always been a wonderful writer. She’s written so many films either visibly or invisibly. She really understands writing.
Were you always her top pick for the part of Rose?
I hope so! [Laughs.] I think I was, yes.
So it was a no-brainer for you.
It was a no-brainer. If somebody comes to you and says, “We’ve got this wonderful film,” I tend to say yes! Then you wait and hope. I also made last year a film called Park Avenue that’s going to the Dublin Film Festival. But the pleasure of these parts [in Hot Milk and in Park Avenue] is they were very big. I often play the person who slides in and changes the temperature in some way. But actually, these parts are fundamental. This is much nearer my theater life, where I am the protagonist of the film, as it were. You’re taking responsibility for the event. That was really lovely for me.
That’s meatier, isn’t it? Is that what’s attractive for you as an actor?
Not necessarily, because sometimes the protagonist has to do a lot of asking questions to people who are able to play much more interesting things. The character who turns them blue or red is actually a very, very good thing to be able to do because you can ambush the film. To play the person in it with a daughter is to get to have an elongated conversation with the audience and with the other characters, which you do in a TV series, where you can develop and change from one place to end up in quite another, rather than being a thing called a character, which I never really believe in. There is no character. There’s only the moment.
Well, I was about to say, tell me about your character…
You can say my character. I mean, “protagonist,” the whole Greek root of it is that you do something, something happens that is transformative. And sure enough, that happens in Hot Milk.
Rose is dealing with this ailment, this woman can’t walk. And sometimes she can, and that drives the daughter mad. This illness — it’s got a name that I can’t even repeat — but it comes with a series of nervous ticks. I have a lot of nervous ticks in it, which was very hard to drop at the end! [Laughs]. They began to stay in my body.
Oh, wow. That’s a very physical performance for you.
Yeah, despite being in a wheelchair. It was very, very concentrated and very, very uncomfortable. I had to do a lot of preparation, but really because Rebecca writes so well in language, what Rose says is very good. And what she doesn’t say, and what she says to hide things. I mean, she sort of lives a lie in a way.
Tell me about the relationship between Rose and Sofia. We see mother-daughter relationships onscreen a lot. We see it in art elsewhere. Is it familiar in Hot Milk, or does it subvert our expectations?
You wouldn’t want to put a tissue paper between mothers and daughters, because the intensity of all mothers and daughters. I have a mother — still have a mother — and there is no such thing as mother and daughter. There’s only your mother and your daughter. There is only that mother and that daughter. It’s one of those words, isn’t it, “mother”: both universal and entirely particular. So they have a particular relationship. I don’t like to judge Rose, but it’s one of those relationships where Rose takes a lot for granted about her daughter, the intimacy. But of course, it’s very hard, because we believe we know the people that we know very well, but in fact, we don’t know them at all.
Is that the wider takeaway, the unknowability of family?
There’s no takeaway. [The film] is the takeaway.
Emma Mackey was your scene partner. Had you met before?
No… There’s a huge scene, a really big scene between the mother and daughter. We had to do that the first day that we met. [Laughs.] It was really hard. When you’re just [saying], “How do you do?” and then suddenly you’re screaming at each other.
Filming out of order is very bizarre. You land in on an emotional moment that you hope is accurate to the other moments that have come before and will go after. In theater, from act one, scene one, you learn so much. But something else happens in film because that doesn’t happen. You can prepare it, but you can’t plan it. The film is trying to steal the thing that you’re not trying to show.
Emma’s a rising star of her generation and you’re a seasoned pro, so well-respected in this industry. Where did you two meet in the middle? Were you offering any advice?
I’m in a wheelchair, so I made her take me to the set in the wheelchair every day. That was quite hard for her!
Very method…
You’re playing a game and you have to totally be in it. You can’t be getting up out of a wheelchair and back in to be in it for the day.
Did you enjoy it?
I’m not sure that’s the right verb. I mean, I did enjoy it. I’m very pleased with it. I just mean that pleasure isn’t really the activity. It’s very hard to do. But you know your concentration and you’d do it all again tomorrow.
How have your onscreen roles differed to your career as a stage actor?
I hate saying anything in an interview that will be labeled forever as something you say and mean but today, I say to you that I think I had to stop acting in the theater, to really yield to the camera. I think in the theater, my job was to express the moral ambiguity of a situation. Usually, I was playing Mother Courage, or Hedda Gabler or Richard II: these people that are just declaring the argument of the evening to the audience. I represent the audience to the audience and we all look at the situation, and we’re all in it. I had to lose that. I had to allow the camera to look at me. I’m very lucky that in late middle age, I don’t mind what the camera sees. It’s very freeing. I’m enjoying it no end.
Might audiences see Rose as an antagonist rather than a protagonist in Hot Milk?
It isn’t like that. She’s a very, very interesting person, a very sad person, and it’s very interesting. But she’s also very funny and full of life. It’s desperate for her, her situation, but her desire for life is what I would hope the audience will identify with for themselves. The desire for life is the thing that shoots out of our heads. That’s why we go to movies or go to anything because we want to see ourselves. A film is an exploration of human nature, isn’t it?
How are you feeling about the state of the film industry?
Well, we don’t go into the cinema. We’re retreating. I’d be grateful that people watch it on a big screen, let alone watch it on their phones. I mean, that’s where we’ve got to, which is destroying the landscape of film, but that’s maybe a temporary thing. Who knows?
Is Hot Milk getting a theatrical release?
I certainly hope so.
What are you most excited about ahead of Berlinale?
I mean, I want to say Rebecca. I’m just excited that a festival exists in which a lot of people are going to turn up in order to see films. I just admire that that is still what we do. Now, people watch things and say, “Did you like that?” and it’s no more than if they’re walking past a painting. But at least at a film festival, the concentration and application and point of the thing is elevating.
I have to stay for various things, so I’m going to enjoy seeing other films too. That’s what I’m excited about — seeing other films that were also made in the last year or two. You do get a chord-like tenor of how things are, don’t you, from film festivals? I’m just going to see everything I can see in any moment I’m not needed by the press. I can’t wait to see films in the morning. It’s a different way of watching, it’s gorgeous.
I’m so happy to hear that. I hope you get to see as much as possible.
I think, in the end, the essence of the theater and of film is good performance – not special effects, not bangs or noises. It’s performance.
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