Stand ask Vanessa Kirby what did she take home from the experience of The Sonthe latest film by Florian Zeller, among the many sensible things he will say is that he does not want to «specialize in pain…». If you mention the 50 takes per scene of Mission: Impossibleit’s not to tell you that on the set of the film with Tom Cruise she had a hysterical attack, but to account for the fact that she “loves repeating the same scene over and over again”. Vanessa Kirby«the future of English theatre» according to Guardianis a perfectionist, with judgment.
In The Son (in theaters February 9) is the young companion of Hugh Jackman, ambitious New York lawyer ready to leap into politics and almost certain Oscar nomination. There is a newborn son, a new family with bright prospects. But the teenage son from his first marriage has stopped going to school, he is no longer smiling, something is wrong. Laura Dern, the ex-wife, is lost, the father has to make a gesture. However, the entry of the seventeen-year-old into the nucleus that has just formed is not easy.
The Oscar nomination
And to the actress who two years ago she won the Coppa Volpi at the Venice Film Festival for a role that included a 30-minute long sequence shot in which she gave birth to a dead baby (the film was Pieces of a Womanthen the Oscar nomination also arrived) now it’s time to swing between the pain he feels for this boy’s pain and the hostility for what he represents: an obstacle to his own happiness.
«A more widespread condition than I imagined, much more widespread and complex than the problems that a member of the British royal family can have, for example (Kirby played Princess Margaret in the first season of The Crown, ed)” explains. «I don’t have children, but my friends who have small children often feel isolated because they don’t have a community around them, and can only refer to their partner. And if he’s in a career, if he’s trying to take over the world, they’re left with crumbs. It takes a village to raise a child, but the villages have disappeared.”
Molly Parker and Vanessa Kirby in Pieces of a Woman.
Like Pieces of a Woman this is also a film about pain.
“Everyone in life encounters failures, mourning, sadness. I love that cinema that knows how to share the sense of loss. The universality of feelings is understandable to everyone, even to those who have had the good fortune not to experience suffering. It teaches us to open spaces to welcome them».
Adolescence can be a terrible time in life. She, a bullied teenager, has personally experienced it.
«Not being the most popular girl in school has perhaps contributed to giving me a sensitivity towards solitary characters, outsiders, and an intense vulnerability which in the profession of actor is certainly not a disadvantage».
She has often spoken of the influence her father, a great theater lover, had on her in choosing the path to follow in life. What, on the other hand, did she, her mother, pass on to her?
“My mother is the most lovable and helpful person in the world. And I think she gave me the idea that kindness is important in life and I’m glad she did. The film also says it: in the capitalist society in which we live, the imperative is to be someone, to achieve something, to be successful, and the cost is very high. If this is the bar, it’s not certain that everyone manages to jump, and if we don’t make it, it’s very easy to feel that we’re not worth it».
Vanessa Kirby in The Son.
The film shows three generations of men, the son, the father, the grandfather, unable to understand each other. Grandpa, Anthony Hopkinsfaced with his nephew’s problems, dismisses his generation as “whiny cowards”.
“In that scene, Hugh appears to his father apparently asking for advice: his son is sick and he is unable to help him. But he actually wants to throw his loneliness back in his face. He is helpless in the face of his son’s pain and doesn’t know how to show him his love for him. Because his father never showed it to him. They are repressed men, their anger and frustration bound to pass through the generations unless work is done to heal that wound. The question the film asks is “How do you heal?” and provides no answers. It’s a question we all ask ourselves sooner or later. We have all inherited the scars of our fathers. How we take care of it will determine a lot of our well-being in life. And of those around us ».
When she chose an uncertain career as an actress at a very young age, her family supported her. Would they support whatever decision she made?
“Yes, I’m sure of it. Neither my father nor my mother had an easy life. They lost both their parents very young, and what they wanted wasn’t at hand, but they made it even at the price of great sacrifices (Kirby’s father is a doctor, his mother founded the magazine Country Living, ed). There were no actors in my family, none who had ever had a brush with the film industry. Yet they never tried to instill in me the doubt that I might not make it».
With Hugh Jackman in The Son.
That treasure of the English theatre
And she never doubted? Did you receive no at the beginning, from schools, from theatres?
«I received a no at the beginning and it was a fair no. I was too young, I wasn’t ready. I cashed it and left, I traveled and that experience gave me a lot. It allowed me to understand something more about human beings, which is the essence of the actor’s work. I’m grateful for that no. At 21 I started working in the theatre, everything I’ve done before, studying at university, reading books, going to festivals with friends, had prepared me. A friend of mine says: I learned so much from my mistakes that I plan to make more. He is right “.
Theater in England is treated as a national treasure. Are you afraid that the economic and political crisis the country is going through will change things? Culture is the first to be cut.
“Yes, there is fear. When I wanted to study acting, I listened to Judi Dench and Ian McKellen’s autobiography on CDs while driving to university. That generation of actors is unreachable, legendary. English theater has changed since then, but the fact remains that there is nothing more beautiful in the world than that ancient pleasure, sharing those emotions with strangers. If the show is good. If it’s not good, it’s boring.”
In the cast of tar, Todd Field’s film with Cate Blanchett, there is a musician, Sophie Kauer. She had never acted before and is very good. At the press conference you declared that you learned everything by watching the ten lessons How to act by Michael Caine…
(laughs) “I wonder if he followed Michael Caine’s main suggestion: never blink.”
Vanessa Kirby (Photo by Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for BFI)
But is it possible?
«No, I tried to do it in an audition with disastrous results. My agent told me: you were scary enough, stop immediately. Just if you’re playing a corpse…”
The fact remains that British actors are a point of reference for the whole world.
«When I started, however, it was still difficult for an English actor to find work in America. It’s different now and Americans have great respect for our discipline. If you’re going to be on stage for three hours, you’ve got to have one. And you must also have a good character, to find harmony with the group».
Is the way of working changing in America? Do they choose it for what it is or when it’s there they try to format it?
“They haven’t done it so far. Even when I worked for a big car like Mission Impossible (the next two films in which she still plays White Widow will be released in 2023, ed) it seems to me that they have left me free to express what I can do. But each film is a separate matter».
Do you like action scenes?
“Tom runs them all himself, I only got one. And they put me through super rigorous training, never experienced anything like it. He taught me a lot and I understood how much I like physical challenges, they say everything about your limits. I understand Tom who has dedicated part of his acting life to pulling off those incredible stunts, also taking a lot of risks ».
Laura Dern, Florian Zeller and Vanessa Kirby at the screening of The Son in Hollywood. (Photo by Michael Tullberg/FilmMagic)
Next year we will also see her in Napoleondirected by another daring, Ridley Scott.
“I’m Josephine and I’m not a secondary character. When you talk to the French, they know everything about Napoleon, but very little about his wife. Historians have long been all men, perhaps this explains why. But Josephine was a force of nature.”
When I interviewed her for Pieces of a Woman we were in lockdown, he didn’t work and had no plans, he lived in London with his sister and a couple of friends. Has everything changed since then?
“I now live alone in Hackney, East London, a neighborhood I adore. My sister joined the production company we created a year ago. We have a dozen projects in development, stories of women who otherwise would have struggled to come out. I really love being at the forefront of this phase where there are so many of us trying to change things. After Pieces of a Woman this is my mission. I want to find more stories like that. There’s finally the money to fund women’s stories like never before. And I want to work with directors I’m obsessed with.”
And who are they?
«There are many, but at the top of the list are Paolo Sorrentino, Derek Cianfrance, Charlie Kauffman, Spike Jones…»
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