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The house isnt haunted, but it feels like its possessed by all the familys secrets and tragedies.
Lawrance, as the ardent and desperate young mother, anchors the movie.
I thought it was interesting that shes amaternal, Lawrance says over the phone one recent afternoon.
Thats a depiction of a young woman that we dont see very often.
Maternity is presumed to be an innate thing that everybody is hoping for at some point in their life.
I liked that she didnt want to have kids.
Some light spoilers below.
How didKindredcome to you?It came to me through Jack, who co-produced and played Thomas.
Hes also a friend of mine.
I think youd be really good for the girlfriend.
I read it, and then I came in and I auditioned for a couple of rounds.
A little while after that, I found out that I got the role.
What did you think when you first read the script?I thought it was really intriguing.
I keep saying I was drawn to the ambiguity of it.
I like that it subverts your expectations, that you cant really trust anyone.
So somebody whos gonna come into this world, but not change who she is.
Shes so removed from anything thats potentially familiar, but sometimes I imagined that familiarity was quite triggering.
Between Charlotte and Thomas?Between her and Thomas, and her and Margaret.
It was nice because the latter half of the film feels a bit like a three-hander.
So were all just playing tennis, essentially.
She has to try and get one-up on either of them separately.
Im very curious about that.
Charlotte is being ganged up on, individually by Thomas and Margaret.
But apart from that, no, it wasnt intimidating.
I think there was a little trust and playfulness between Jack and I, because we are friends.
Fiona has a very playful ingenuity and shes a very spontaneous, super-creative woman.
There were ideas always coming out in the moment.
Each scene is a conversation with questions.
So I didnt feel like this is going to be difficult in terms of working with those people.
Theres also this powerful theme of grief as a horrific and very isolating experience.
I was like,Oh, this feels kind of odd.Because I wasnt facing the grave.
Its really hard because the death is so sudden, so tragic, and so violent.
Charlotte immediately becomes completely helpless.
Margaret just barges in randomly and says that her home with Ben has been sold.Exactly!
That bit in the film was really … it was a lot to carry emotional-weight-wise.
[The scenes] gently showed a day in the life of just true love, despite the odds.
I think that they bonded in terms of familial angst and resentment.
I think they bonded over, sort of, an anti-austerity, anti-hierarchy kind of vibe.
People who are anti-establishment.
I think both of them bonded over wanting to live a simple life with much more agency and freedom.
I think thats more of a question for Fiona.
I dont know, because on one level, like, this wasnt written racialized in any way.
All of the hostility between them was there on paper.
But obviously me being a black person adds an interesting kind of racial undertone, or overturn.
But theres an argument that she would have hatedanybodythat married her son because she wants to keep possessing him.
Was that house as creepy as it looked?[Laughs.]
Yes, it was.
All of the cutaways to, like, taxidermy and spider cobwebs and fraying curtains.
The set designer didnt have much to do apart from changing wallpaper in one room.
All sorts of things could happen in any corner of that land and nobody would know about it.
