A CHAT WITH ANNIHILATION CAST
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Le 12 mars dernier, Netflix mettait en ligne le très attendu film de science-fiction Annihilation, librement adapté du roman éponyme de Jeff Vandermeer par le réalisateur Alex Garland (Ex Machina, 28 jours plus tard). Trois grandes actrices évoquent le tournage de ce petit bijou télévisuel et l’importance de la solidarité féminine.
On screen in the sci-fi odyssey "Annihilation," an expedition ventures deep into a foreboding terrain known only as Area X, carrying guns and harboring mounting suspicions about one another. These soldiers — a psychologist (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a biologist (Natalie Portman), a paramedic (Gina Rodriguez), a physicist (Tessa Thompson) and an anthropologist (Tuva Novotny) — enter what is about to become a living, breathing nightmare, an environmental disaster zone without scientific explanation, as filtered through the mind of "Ex Machina" director Alex Garland, adapting the first book in Jeff VanderMeer's "Southern Reach" trilogy.
COMPLEX FEMALE CHARACTERS
2. The fact that they're all complex and dimensional female characters is at once trailblazing and, refreshingly, perfectly normalized. "Each of the women have their own destructive behavior," said Portman, who brings steely intensity to the role of Lena, the biologist with her own reasons for volunteering for the dangerous mission. "I find that so beautiful. That's the greatest science fiction, when the psychological becomes externalized.
3. "And to have five women at the center of this expedition — we're so used to seeing five men going and doing something together, it's not even questioned why it's always all men. To give that same kind of attitude to five women is really unique."
4. The sisterhood struck on the London set of "Annihilation" is still strong between Portman, Rodriguez and Thompson, reunited in a suite at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel ahead of the film's Los Angeles world premiere. Sitting side by side on a couch with their legs curled up, the camaraderie came flooding back in waves of laughter and mutual admiration. "I feel like ['Annihilation'] is the kind of movie where if you've seen it only once you haven't seen it," said Thompson.
5. Part philosophical sci-fi, part psychedelic-existential fever dream, "Annihilation" pulses with the looming unease of the unknown. That unknown lurks in the darkness of the vast swamplands and marshes of the Southern Reach, marked by the beauty and horrors of nature run amok, and perhaps more disturbingly in the disquiet of confronting those same mysteries within oneself.
AN INTENSE TRAINING
6. Self-destruction is in our DNA, the film posits. Its approach, however, is one of empathy. And the journeys the three stars went on in search of their characters, expanded in collaboration with Garland from the sparsely detailed counterparts in VanderMeer's book, had profound and lasting effects.
7. Portman, who moved her family near the Pinewood Studios production during filming, responded to the melancholic interrogation Lena embarks on as she pushes farther into Area X while reflecting on a broken marriage (Oscar Isaac, reuniting with "Ex Machina" helmer Garland, plays her husband). "Alex brought the [idea of] self-destructive behavior, and defining the destruction of a marriage as part of that," she said. "You could call it moralistic, but I found it very moving — that it is destructive, hurting someone that you love very deeply." The physicality of the shoot demanded Portman know her way around a military-issue machine gun and train with visionary dancer Bobbi Jene, whom Garland hired on Isaac's recommendation to choreograph a memorable third-act sequence of movement.
CHARACTERS AND PERSONAL LIFE
8. Thompson found a deep connection to her character Josie's growing link with the mutations the group encounters as they get closer to the inexplicable veil of energy known as "The Shimmer." "There was something in it that I was really struck by in the destruction of the Earth, of how we treat the other things that are not human — the planet," she said. "At a certain point with the destruction that we do, we will not have the technology to undo it or to even understand it."
9. Rodriguez's character Anya, a paramedic with a physical swagger, has an outgoing personality that masks her own addictive personality and deep-seated fears — a theme that resonates in Rodriguez's own life. "I didn't realize how much of my personal draw to the character was her reason for going into The Shimmer," she admitted. "Her reason for going on a suicide mission was running away from her past and her addictive personality, her addictions, and her fear of mental illness, and her fear of losing control of herself.
10. "I'm always battling the idea of mental health," Rodriguez continued. "My fear of it personally, the history of mental health in my family, and not ever really facing it because in my culture we don't really talk about mental health. I got to actually enter my own fear as an actor." Also tantalizing for Rodriguez was the chance to step outside her popular "Jane the Virgin" TV alter ego. "Being able to play this very outwardly unafraid badass … was so dope," she said.
A NEW GOAL
11. The trio found themselves linking up again after "Annihilation" with a very different goal: Combating sexual harassment across industries, including their own, as founding signatories of the Time's Up movement this year. "I feel like it's a continuation of the sisterhood we started on this movie," Portman said of her friendship with Thompson and Rodriguez. "It was really awesome to get to experience each other in a new light; as colleagues, and then friends, and then fellow activists."
12. Both Thompson and Rodriguez cheer Portman's Golden Globes moment this year when, presenting the director category during the live telecast, she went off script to point out the absence of any female directing nominees "I've got a video of it, girl!" said Rodriguez.
13. But Portman downplayed her onstage gesture as just one of the many ways the hundreds of members of the Time's Up movement are trying to effect change: "If you look around the room and everyone looks like you, there's a problem and not only should it feel weird, but you need to do something about it.
14. "I think a lot of us have had our eyes opened," she added. "I speak for myself; I haven't always had my eyes open. And it's an amazing, energizing, incredible feeling to be awakened to this, even though it's a lot of ugly truths to try to change — to change myself first and try to be part of this cultural shift."
15. After the female-led "Annihilation," Portman, Rodriguez and Thompson hope more films will follow suit as Hollywood sees long overdue change in the way stories are told. One vital next step, Rodriguez notes, will be getting more underrepresented voices hired behind the camera, and more diverse projects backed, in a Hollywood that remains riskaverse when it comes to making inclusive choices.
"It was really awesome to get to experience each other in a new light; as colleagues, and then friends, and then fellow activists."