HIS THREE DAUGHTERS: Natasha Lyonne, Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen & Azazel Jacobs | CherryPicks

it's funny I um originally had heard the synopsis of the movie and unfortunately I have way too much personal experience with it so I said absolutely not and then I saw Natasha Carrie and Elizabeth and I said well get me a box of Kleenex we're going in there and I went in and of course cried my heart out but really really uh just loved it so I said I have to talk with them about it I've been thinking so much about it and I really started thinking of it kind of in a wizard of AZ sort of way in that Katie was kind of needing a heart by you know throughout and Rachel was needing strength and Christina was needing kind of confidence to knew that you know her problems were as big as everyone else's and right that she belonged and so kind of uh starting with Carrie and then going on to Natasha and then Elizabeth I'd like you to talk about basically what the movie has to say about finding that heart that strength that confidence in the midst of grief in the midst of loss in the midst of the absence of those things that's lovely I would say that one of the things I think The Crucible of grief does is force ver vulnerability even against our own best intentions and so even people who don't who are protected sometimes get cracked open by that and I think you're right about Katie being invulnerable in a in a way with her sisters um and what gets revealed about her is actually that she's quite stunted she's quite emotionally immature and there's actually a little girl inside of her who who um is feeling really defended and defensive and um I feel like she that that little girl somehow kind of Peaks out from behind the alcoholic and is feeling misunderstood and in in the film what happens for her is that um there are moments of tenderness where that little girl gets gets some attention and so there's like a little a little glimmer of opening into some possibility of um that kind of growth for Katie but she's got a long way to go yeah I want to say it's a beautiful question like you really made me uh think so thank you uh I I think actually where I really identify um so much with Rachel is once you've sort of told yourself a story or the world has told you a story about yourself about like you know uh in both our cases being self-destructive you sort of take on this narrative um of I'm a broken person you know and when you put it in this Wizard of Oz terms it's like something that personally in my life I'm uh deeply aware of which is like I'm so in need of this flip this strength to be able to say like hey that's that's an old story you know what I mean um and it's okay to not identify as such that so the strength to then say I'm you know just another guy in the world I'm not looking at the world and sort of observing it like you know Philip Marlo playing my own tape inside and beating myself up about the past or anything like that or feeling um CU really what it is is I the isolation like the separateness that it creates uh from her sisters from her family is in part um sort of a prison of her own making because that heart shuts down so it's like it's a very beautiful question when when you put it that way of it's like the strength to believe that it's safe to trust her sisters even if they might have judgments about her you know it's it's a nice question yeah and the way you've I think uh I I agree with with the the what what you what you're learning or what you saw that we all had to gain at the end and I think the thing that was really interesting is in the same way oza wrote the script which was starting from an idea not knowing exactly where he was going to end up I think there was a world because we were filming in real time and there's as much as you can right uh structure a performance or an arc or an understanding um from a uh a analytical point of view when a approaching a script but I do think because we were able to film as much uh in real time and we did actually finish the film with the that those last scenes um I think we all were maybe a little bit surprised by our reaction on the sofa I don't think it was our intention so unexpected it was never Our intention to have those realizations it was part of the Journey of the filming up like I didn't know that Christina was going to sit with a of confidence on that sofa while her other sisters were actually becoming like the younger I didn't know that I was going to end up lying down on you guys and being like that I'm the one that needs like the sort of stroking and like that you guys are by saying um say it's also a very basic life lesson of like once you sign up for love it's like there waiting for you on the other side right yeah there's yeah and I also I think there's someone someone just said something to me recently that I I can't unthink right now which is if you if you uh start out if you if you end a project a film with the exact result is how you started from then you learn nothing and so I do think that we all learned something at the end when we got to the sofa and sat in the father's chair and we we uh we also surprised ourselves with what the sisters learned because we got to learn it like through them while we had the the while we were filming like a like that your assets are your defects like when I'm thinking about Carrie's character it's also that like she still feels like you know like the the one in charge somehow in that scene but yet like you're saying it's now with the heart of like we want you to have that role right right yeah and embracing something yeah that's so beautifully said and I think it comes through so lovingly throughout the film I really really enjoyed it as much as it tore me apart but I can't wait for it to devastate lovingly more people as they watch it and to be able to kind of feel that cathares it was so well done thank you lady thank you for your thoughtfulness I wanted to ask just kind of generally speaking I know you said that you kind of got the idea just kind of watching people of New York but some of the experiences that they go through especially when talking about the idea of forming this family and having these kind of resentments within it from the way that you know the dad kind of took in Rachel and said that this is my daughter um how many of these experiences I guess were personal or from uh experiences that were told from you um how did you kind of cheer rate these this family I I would say that yes inspired by experiences and people and even strangers that I walk around in the city and I I could get a sense a glimpse of people's lives but also I'm at an age now where I have uh parents that are elderly and I've definitely uh you know in a caretaking facility in my own life just in terms of trying to take care of them but also just a reality of what's ahead has become ever increasing apparent and so this was this is definitely a person story but also a personal story of just trying to deal with something before it happens to me like so a lot of it's imagination but just imagination of like dealing with fears that I have or hopes that I have and possibilities it was a way for me to experience something as best as I could before going through it because I have a feeling that when I'm on the other side of it I'll be a very different person I don't know if I'd want to tell this story or even I have no idea who I'll be it just it's very apparent to me that I'll be somebody else it's that it's that clear so um I find myself leaning on the film a lot as I've gone continue to go through it with my own parents like this is a a film that I've needed in terms of just having something to look forward to the joy of making this film The Joy of these performances the humor that's in there the the the foundation of just reminding myself of what I love about this city and its possibilities and film making has been a has has been an important crutch for me right now you know it's it's interesting because you were talking about you know this time coming soon and we are very much in a sandwich kind of generation where you know the kind of baby boomers are starting to need that care and we have this generation that are having children but then also needing to parent their parents and having to take care of them and lead them kind of into that next stage and I thought it was so interesting that this was you know his three daughters because the people kind of taking on the brunt of that are women women kind of make up something like 61% of uh caretakers of their parents currently um was that kind of uh part of why you decided to highlight it as women yeah I felt uh I think because I was writing at a certain point I was clearly like had specific ideas of the who these characters and who these actors were going to be um that I I I I was it was a way for me to acknowledge that I was telling a woman's story but not from the point of view of the woman that is was his three daughters it was the way that they see each other through his eyes rather than anything that they were depicting they were trying to imagine how they how their own father saw the each of them and the reality was that the the whole you know the answer is in the title that he sees them as his daughters and that that question of whether Rachel feels that about herself or whether Katie or Christina are questioning that about Rachel or really truly each other because who's who was a father he was a very different father to all three of them but in the end of the day he was their father and I think that I think that difference that he talks about like that you can be related to somebody you don't necessarily means that you're a parent and you can be not related and you are that's family that family is something not blood related in that way um and that's been very very true to myself like I I have a kid that I've been talking to since I've been in a stroller that we talk every single day to this day like I consider him my brother but we just happen to grow up two blocks away from each other you know it's connections like that that are so important um and we kind of see that a little bit between Rachel and Benji just in the way that they interact but of course then we see that tension between someone like uh K K's character and the Benji and you know squaring off against each other I think that that tension is so important but it's also kind of another form that the grief in the movie takes we see it not just in kind of crying and not just in sadness but there it takes so many different forms throughout the film can you talk to me about kind of some of the different forms that the grief does take and why it was so important to show it in so many different forms well I had this I think what you said about generation of just like going through through um you know friends suddenly getting married friends having babies and then suddenly and then friends that don't make it because of sickness and now suddenly dealing with parents like there's this wave of it feels all around me right and and these different feelings that happened not only uh in the process but from a moment to moment was something that I really wanted to to chase down as best as I could with film especially with how time moved how time moved when you knew the inevitable was going to happen it it feels like it has this effect where suddenly yeah like days very much matter suddenly hours really matter minutes suddenly matter and you're trying to figure out do do I need to be here for this moment do I not want to be there are they waiting for me to leave so that they can go like you're you're questioning time in a very very different way and and in fact and time in back is changing for you in this way that I I needed to get down into on film as best as I could because it was something a that I felt like I hadn't seen so much but something I also I just had to try to have some kind of understanding of how could how could time be this flexible and then this strict and then so finite when suddenly they're gone and it's just that's that's that it just happened it felt so far away and here it is you know yeah yes 100% And I think you can feel that so much throughout the film it really is a beautiful film um the cast is phenomenal and they do such a good job um I we didn't get a chance to speak about J Sanders but he's fantastic and uh his part with it as well so thank you so much for taking a little bit of time to talk with us about his three daughters I can't wait for more people to see it thank you appreciate it