Is it scary?
It’s the opposite. No, it’s a great relief.
So why have you focused more on this game, as you put it, rather than doing that kind work?
I don’t know. It’s not that I’ve been actively choosing not to do this. It’s that I have been actively choosing to do the other thing—with my comrades, with Bong Joon-ho, with Jim Jarmusch, with Wes Anderson. It’s just been what I’ve been doing.
Without spoiling anything, this is also a year where you have a film in which you play two characters. Thinking of Suspiria or The Eternal Daughter, you’ve been doing that a lot lately.
To be honest with you, I always did it. I mean, all the way back. I mean, even Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Teknolust from [2002]. I’ve always loved playing with the idea of making one portrait out of several identities. Although I will say that [in this year’s case], it wasn’t my suggestion. I was concerned about it. I was more concerned about it here than I had been in others. But in this, now I see, I believe it was the right decision.
You mentioned Room Next Door being personal for you, which reminds me of a few years ago, when you told The Guardian you were considering a career shift into palliative care. Am I right about that?
We were talking about COVID, and I was saying that during COVID, I’d considered—if we weren’t going to be making any movies anymore—doing that training and working in palliative care. It is something that is always in my pocket, that possibility, yes.
I know you’ve talked a lot about caregiving in general, so was that part of what made this film feel so personal?
It is, absolutely. I have had the privilege to be in the Ingrid position for quite a long time now. It is a blessing in my life, so to make a film about the capacity to bear witness to someone in this kind of predicament is really a particularly personal event for me.
Can you talk a little bit more about working with Julianne, in that context?
We both feel really lucky because the truth is we haven’t known each other for 30 years. We are the same age, and we met each other a couple of times in passing, probably in the corridors here and said, “I’d love to hang out, let’s work together someday.” And I thought, “Well, whenever is that likely to be?” When we came to make the film, which is a film about two women who have known each other for 30, 40 years, that was actually a piece of fakery. But it was so easy to fake because it might as well be true. We fell into a very easy rhythm, and we can immediately imagine having known each other for 40 years now.
