Making Women Talking: Sarah Polley explains why laughter was key to adapting Miriam Toews's novel

I've never acted really I acted once do you want to try now do you want me to exercise am I not who are you really aren't we all right Sarah if you really think about it man [Music] Sarah hi how are you really good how about you I'm not too bad congratulations on the film thank you uh nomination for best screenplay from the Golden Globes uh nomination for best direction from the critics choice of words and then the Boston film critics Association yeah you're getting the good one now gives you best ensemble cast which you share with the cast of Jackass forever yeah and then that's all you ever need to be happy in life is only that I just think that's the greatest thing it's so good what did you make of that I was thrilled I felt like it gave our film some kind of credibility with regular audiences no I do feel like um I don't know I thought it was delightful I thought it was a delightful um reveal to have those two cats and our cast really wants to go out for dinner now with a jackass forever team and they haven't responded and I think that's because they know secretly deep down their hearts that we're more fun than than they are and they don't want to come to terms with that I think they know that you can do the stunts better than they can everything certainly the jokes have you seen women talking oh yeah I wonder oh yeah I wonder how many people have seen both jackass forever and women talking I'm the kind of person who had like I spent last night watching Billy Madison for the 800th time I am I'm the target audience for that pairing conditioner is better I have I have seen that was really good evidence and recall thank you very much I have seen both jackass forever and we've been talking nice yeah and I love I'm not gonna lie to you I loved them both nice I love them both kind for the same reasons I mean we could do that I probably could do that I think you could do I could do that but why why do it um how was working with an ensemble on this that would it did make me when I saw the best Ensemble thing and I was thinking about the film it's a lot of actors it's a lot of actors in the same scene for a long time and quite an ensemble in it how was that for you it was amazing because I I got to cast the people who are in my mind the best actors working in the world and um and not just the best actors in the world but they they created such an amazing Community with each other and were so selfless and so amazing at making space for each other and it was intimidating at first but that really quickly faded just into gratitude for getting to work with with this group of people how do you mean they created a community with one another everyone was kind of there to support everyone else and it started to feel like it was the Summer where the Canadian women's soccer team was really you know in the news a lot and we were watching all of these clips of them jumping up and down and holding each other up you know after they scored goals and that's what it felt like being on set someone would give you know an amazing monologue and it'd be a great take and everyone would just rush at them and hug them and cry and it just felt like everyone was sort of cheering for everyone else and everyone was giving their performance Full Tilt full emotional levels for everyone else's off camera and sometimes people would be off camera for three and four days at a time before we ever got around to them because the scenes were so long there are so many characters so it took a kind of egolessness and a sense of community building that you know all of those people participated in um just to make this film and so we I kept sending around these montages of the Canadian women's soccer team because it would just remind me so much of this sense of people with score goal and everyone would be part of it and everyone would feel um that you know they were winning as a as a team is that uh rare yeah it's really rare sadly um I mean first of all it's very just have a this big a cast where people have this many people have important roles so the structure of itself itself was rare um but I think that sense of camaraderie and that sense of people being willing to make space and and treating other people's victories as their own um is rare and and we were really conscious when we were putting together this team of casting people not just for their ability to play the part but also for their ability to have those kinds of relationships where they could step back and make space I mean that's lovely and I've never acted really I acted once do you want to try now do you want to be an exercise am I not who are you really aren't we all right Sarah if you really think about it man um that's a big joint but I did act this year and I found out I acted in a thing this year I played myself what what did you do it was like a CBC gym thing okay were you good as yourself or would you prefer to be played by by somebody else I thought I'd be better to be a candid I thought it'd be better I think they would like just be yourself Tom host a Q and I was like hi I'm you know oh no well you know amazing right but I didn't know that I can't believe I'm saying this to you given your your career um that there is this thing that has to happen when you are acting and they're closing doing a close-up on somebody else is this like me saying the ABC's to you by the way so they're doing a close-up on for people who don't know this because I didn't know this you're in a scene me and Sarah are in a scene together they've shot the scene in the wide and me and Sarah are talking to one another and then they zoom in on Sarah and I'm acting with Sarah off screen and I said to the person I said do I still have like really like what do I do here do I just read the lines or do I just and they said the great ones the generous ones are the ones who still give it their all even when they're not on screen and that's what came to mind when you said that these actors your Francis mcdormands your Rooney Mary's these like high-level actors yeah yeah they there's something to that right yeah and and in the case of this film it was a bit of a strange creature because because we had these scenes that sometimes last 10 and 15 minutes and they're these wild debates and people are incredibly emotional and angry and laughing uncontrollably and so much happens in these very long scenes and we had 12 people sometimes to shoot it would sometimes take us three to four days to get around the room and finish the scene so by the time you know Claire or Jesse or Rooney had done or Sheila McCarthy or Judith Ivey had done their most difficult moments some of which were monologues that went on for long Pages they would have done it 120 times literally I mean we once counted Claire did a monologue 120 times Full Tilt crying screaming and never did it less for anyone else's coverage than she did for her own and that went for everybody on that set nobody ever gave less when they were off camera um is that rare I think that's rare to have 12 people who do that yeah I I think great actors um it for the most part will know they need to do that but they're not usually you don't usually have to do it for that long and that many takes because usually there's a team with two or three people not 12. yeah so the kind of stamina and Technical ability and endurance that's required was really abnormal and it would be abnormal to find 12 people who would be both willing and capable of giving everything they had for every single take for everybody else it speaks to me of like I've read a lot about the environment you tried to create on the set right like that it speaks to me of that environment you wanted to create one that was trusting that was Collective yeah I mean that was the intention I think um we had a lot of focus on making sure it was a good experience for people that was a healthy working environment that our working hours were not as long as usual in the film industry that people could get home to see their kids at night um we had a rule that if people needed a break or 20 minutes we would take one no matter what people very rarely asked for that but we just wanted to get rid of that emergency room mentality that film sets can have that I think are so unproductive and kind of unhealthy at their core um we had an onset therapist for the scenes that were most difficult for people emotionally she was with us her name was Dr Lori Haskell she's an amazing clinical psychologist who specializes in memory and what trauma does to the brain and sexual assault and so she was with us at the beginning in terms of helping us develop tools to deal with stuff that might come up was there for the Actors and The Crew when things came up on set um and was just a a resource that was invaluable so we just tried to put guard rails in place um we had a rule when kids were on set that if things got uncomfortable or even a bit boring they could just leave and we would have to work around it so I think just trying to create an environment that addressed some of the things that had been difficult for me as an actor and growing up was enormously helpful for me personally but also it creates a kind of optimism to realize things can be different and I think the the guiding principle of this novel is you know thinking about I don't want to say guiding principle I don't want to speak for Miriam but what I took away from it that was important to me was this idea of thinking about what we want to build not just what we want to tear down and what we'd like to see yeah I think the book gets Mis um misrepresented as a book about women deciding or not they're going to leave or stay in fight it's about women deciding if they're going to leave and create something better you know what I mean yeah I do and I I think another sort of um mistaken assumption about the book and the film is that it's this very heavy devastating difficult material and the background is it's funny it's joyful it's also it's about creating a better world it's about what what could be different and and how capable we are of sitting with each other and coming to A Way forward with people we might not agree on every issue with which is I think something that's getting lost in the conversation generally so um I find it a tremendously hopeful Enterprise I felt the book left me with so many open-ended and exciting questions and and that's what we tried to bring into the spirit of the film how did the book come to you so somebody at my book club um took me aside in the kitchen and said I know what the next film you need to direct is I just read this book you're in a book club oh yeah it's like the great joy of my life I feel like you'd be an intimidating presence in a book club not in my book club really yeah no my book club is full of people that I kind of idolize I'm terrified of just because of how amazing and Brilliant they are I don't of course not but like other writery actory people are already people people from all kinds of um different professions there are some some writers there's a historian a judge a publisher like it's a really interesting group of women who are all um older than I am and I kind of lobbied to get into it for quite a few years before I was accepted it was I just wore them down um paid a fee they finally just got tired and so I got to join but just an amazing group of women to get to listen to talk and and someone took me aside in the kitchen and just said I'm going to tell you the background of this book and you're not going to want to make it but I need you to know this is the background it's not what actually happens in the book the background is this series of assaults that took place over years and years and I was like I don't want to make that and I said no no I said you were going to say that but the book itself is about this amazing conversation that happens amongst this group of women who are elected to make a decision about whether or not to stay and fight whether or not to leave um whether or not to stay and do nothing and how they might create a new Colony or not and it's this incredible debate and this amazing Democratic exercise and it's a pressure cooker cooker they only have 24 hours to decide before the men come back um and by the end of this description I was hooked and I hadn't thought of directing in 10 or 11 years since I had kids and I immediately ran out and got the book and just became obsessed by it and how just amazingly huge the questions that Miriam asks us in this book are and so I found out that Francis McDormand and Dede Gardner had the rights I reached out to them in the very same day they reached out to me which was thrilling and what'd they say I just got this email forwarded from my manager Frank who's also friends manager and it just said women talking was the subject line and it just said what's Sarah Paulie up to these days and I had just sent him an email saying do you know if they have a writer director for this this book yet were you trepidatious about taking on a film at all like you said like it had been it had been a while yeah I had all kinds of fear around it I have three little kids I didn't really want to miss the amount of time that you missed when you make a film usually you miss them waking up and going to bed for months and months at a time so that was a big fear which was quickly resolved by DeDe and Fran quickly agreeing to making shorter working hours so that um none of us would have to miss that part of our Lives completely during this shoot I was also frightened because I'd had a head injury I'd had a concussion that I suffered with on and off for three and a half years and I didn't actually know if I could direct a film again but I knew I desperately wanted to bring this story to the screen and it was worth a try but it there was a certain amount of fear in it for sure when did you talk to Miriam first I talked soon as I was hired and I asked to go out with her and just ask her every question I'd wanted to ask about the book which is the most thrilling part about adaptation if you get to do it I got to do that with Margaret Atwood as well is you just every question you've ever had about a book you love to just get to sit with the author and ask it can you tell me anything you might have asked her the biggest question I had that is my favorite question to ask now when I adopt is if there's one thing that is the most deeply important to you about the translation of this work of yours to the screen what is it and what's interesting is authors have an answer to that really quickly usually and um and Miriam's right away was the laughter that these women have to laugh and it has to be funny and that was really amazing guiding principle to have because there has to be an escape valve there has to be a there has to be a release I think for so much of what your major feel in this film the women need that there's an intimacy that develops with these women when they're in um Community with each other and there are no men around and they're able to talk about this trauma and this harm but also how to move forward there's a joy that had to seep into the film so whenever we could find a place for laughter we did and and Miriam really helped us find that as a North Star right so so Miriam she is saying to you if I understand correctly like there is a version of this story that is only the trauma and assault and rape that these women have gone through and the oppression and assault these women have gone through not just for their own lives but for the generations before them yeah and if you're not not you specifically but like what she would be worried about when she said it to you is that that's the only thing that it's about yeah that it's not about the the love or the Joy or the fooling around yeah and I think that the the idea of having that love and that ability to laugh and that sense of connection with each other that idea that that has to be such a major player in all of the proceedings of this film really gave it the texture I think that was you know so necessary for even just to be able to ask an audience to to go to this film I think it's really important that there'd be space to feel many different things the film makes you think about a lot of things that are not the film like the film obviously makes you think about a lot of things in our current society and sure fully want to talk to you about that but I when I read the book and watched the film I was struck by Miriam coming from a Mennonite community and again this film is not it is it is almost like a I think I've heard you call it like a fable it's it's a story that can be applied to a lot of different parts of our life but I all it also makes me curious about maybe what you were curious about when you talk to Miriam who does come who did leave her family did leave a Mennonite Community what did you what were you interested in sort of about cloistered religious communities and what can happen at those yeah I mean I have talked about this film as as a fable and that's certainly how I envisioned it I don't think it's what Miriam Vision when she wrote the book I think that's probably where the book and the film diverge from each other a little bit um for me it is this kind of huge sweeping Fable almost like an allegory um I think for her coming from a Mennonite Community um it was much more like rooted in reality in some way and it is based on a true story I mean like we have to remember this book was written in response to a real series of assaults that happened over years in a Mennonite community in Bolivia the Manitoba colony and this book is not about those assaults but it's a response to them a very hopeful response in a way in terms of a way forward and a Reckoning with harms and and moving forward um but yes it was deeply important to even though we don't say the word Mennonite in the film for a whole host of reasons it was important to us to be really authentic we don't ever say the word Mennonite in the film I never caught that it said in the book um I think uh first of all my experiences with metanet communities have been overwhelmingly positive I have Meta Knight friends um I'm really drawn to the collectivity and selflessness in those communities and I really wanted to represent that in the film as well as telling this story um but I'm not Mennonite and me telling this story is different from Miriam telling this story in a certain respect so for me it's more in the realm of a fable but it was also really important to me that we be very authentic the details of what these Mennonite communities are like in terms of design and wardrobe and and we had Mennonite Consultants at every step of the way I think one of the reasons I don't use the word Mennonite also is I didn't want to give a secular audience permission to use the idea that this is happening in this already very misunderstood Community this could never happen here like I want it to always feel closer than you think because actually this is about all of us the questions this raises about what we've allowed to have happen the harm that we've enabled systemic Injustice hierarchical power structures that allow terrible things to take place and violence against women it's interesting having this conversation in the studio right now but I mean it is it is sort of the cloud hanging over the whole thing don't you think let's just say the thing yeah so I do feel like um that to me is what's most interesting and what's applicable to all of us in this room and everywhere um and so I didn't want to give contemporary secular audience permission to say actually this is you know this is just something that happens in a Cloister cloistered isolated religious community I think the conditions can be more ripe for this kind of thing and it could be like this but it's we have um these very difficult questions to face everywhere you didn't want to other it and you didn't want people to get a break by going oh no this is Debbie that's what happens to the crowd who wear Bonnets and that's what happens to the crowd who where um no more than we might say oh that's that's what happens in rural places that's what happened that wouldn't happen here yeah you didn't want to give people an out exactly to not be able to look in their backyards yeah and also with this reaching this broad audience and again I am not Mennonite we're talking about a community of people who cannot by its very nature speak back they're not going to write an op-ed they're not going to go give interviews they don't interact with the world the Contemporary World in that way so you kind of have to measure how you're telling a story about a community that is not your own knowing that it is not on this playing field and so one of the things that was super important to me in the film was really honoring um the faith and and pulling that apart from the hierarchical structures that have sprung up around that Faith so that we really honor these women's faith and how they feel about it and what their version of being a Mennonite is and we are saying that that is separate and in fact much of their conversation is parsing out how is that different from this toxic Insidious structure that's built up around the religion did making the film make you think about faith yeah it did a lot um I think what's beautiful is that these women have this anchor of this Faith to guide them through this incredibly complex problem and they have a language around it I do think a lot of it becomes kind of theological at times um and I love the strength that it gives many of them to find their way forward and move towards what is good and what is just what is Honorable they to say this verse from Philippians quite a few times of just figuring out a way forward through the prism of that faith and the best part of it do you have that do I have faith yeah um I wouldn't say I have a religion but I would say that I have um you don't have to talk I'm not sure I can put it into words I have an enormous amount of faith in a basic goodness in human beings to be honest with you and I have enormous amount of faith in people's ability to change and find a way forward and in a way I think that that faith is so strong that it feels uh it feels spiritual at times and and even if it isn't about a bigger thing like I have a I have an enormously strong faith in in people and their ability to to do good and be good there's a line in the film um and I don't know if it's from the book and in fact I read the book so recently that I said I don't think it is but one of the when they're coming up with sort of the treaty the manifesto for how they want the future world to be as she said a religion based on love is one of the things that I think Sheila McCarthy's character says [Music] and I guess it made me think about as we try to rebuild our society in a more equal and in a more kind and a more just way what what do you use as a stone in the ground for yourself um these women are motivated by the goodness of God and the thing that the things that there's a great line that like if God is benevolent he will understand that we're leaving so I guess the reason I wanted to know about your faith is not because I'm taking a census yeah but it's because though I am as a representative of the government you got Trudeau called me and said if you don't mind I was I was also wondering because you do strike me as someone who has a an anchor somewhere of goodness and I was wondering what what that anchor is for you yeah I mean I go in and out of being sort of more interested in in actual religion in different religions all the time but I think that for me the consistent thing is is that I've seen people survive unbelievable things and come out I mean there's that that you know this thing that runs throughout the mythology of the Wounded healer I've seen that so many times in my life of people who shouldn't be able to function because of the trauma they've experienced and are generous and good and helping others I've also seen people who've done Terrible Things be accountable and take responsibility and have a kind of self-inquiry that seems to me like the true hope in this world I just don't think in my personal experience and I don't speak for anyone but myself here I don't think of anyone as a write-off I think there is enormous possibility for people to change and shift and be affected by each other um so I think that kind of guides every decision that I make not always easy to get to that place no and I think probably appropriate to feel grief and rage at times too it's where this is where I kind of am living right now though is this sense that um I think human beings are capable of so much more than we think we are and um we should have I think we can have more faith in ourselves and in each other and I don't think um I'm certainly not speaking from a naive place of having never experienced trauma or been harmed but I I do I just I hold out hope and faith that um everyone is due for a moment and hopefully has one in their life where they really recognize and are accountable for and commit to changing things that they've you know done in the past I wondered about that in the context of the child actors on the set that you have of course were a child actor and I wonder I mean I guess did you just did you feel anything when you were working with them did you do you know what I mean yeah so I'm just basically uncomfortable with kids being on set period I I thought you know in this film it's necessary to have kids not as a major well I would never make a film I don't think where a kid played a major role and had to make that time commitment but it was necessary to have them in the background playing and give a sense of what these women were fighting for I mean they're ultimately in this conversation to fight for and protect and Safeguard their children um so uh they had to be there but I thought okay well I'll just put literally all of my energy into making sure this is a good environment for them so I didn't really direct them we followed them around with the camera we let them play there was a speech made every day where I just said if you get bored or uncomfortable at any time if you just don't feel like being here anymore you can walk out we'll work around you you're only allowed to be here if you're having fun as soon as it stops being fun there's no obligation to be here just tell me or your mom or whoever um so it was pretty good as part as far as working experiences went for kids but what I realized in doing it was I can't I can't control for what their home life is like and what kind of pressure is on these kids that I can't see and what they're comfortable objecting to and not at such a young age so I don't know that I will know if this was a positive experience for these kids until they're 40 and have had a bunch of therapy and maybe they'll come out say it was great but I just I don't think you can know that and I think it's um unfair to expect a kid to be able to properly advocate for themselves so I mean you would know right yeah so I I'm uncomfortable with the premise I did everything I could I think we were successful but I just can't be assured of that it was funny you mentioned that like you said something just then like I would never cast a kid in a liberal I would never do it um I had I got to interview Jeannette McCurdy not that long okay yeah have you met her yet no I haven't met her but I've seen interviews and stuff and a really Incredible Book she wrote called yeah I'm glad my mom died yeah about her experience as a child actor and she said to me um Tom I'd never she said not only do I think there shouldn't be child actors at all that there should not be child actors at all but I think we as a society need to reckon with why we want child actors and what it says about our feelings towards children and our feelings towards like mortality she was like I feel like we could all use some cognitive behavioral therapies what she said to figure out why we want child actors in the first place I think it's complicated I mean I've certainly held that position very strongly for long periods of time so I get it but yeah [Music] what I will say and yes we have made a decision as a society that kids will not work why on Earth would film be the exception in terms of Industry it makes no sense yeah however are we really going to see no films or TV shows without kids for the rest of our lives is the question that gets posed to me when I say that and I'm sort of taking that in and going okay well what can we do because actually this isn't going to stop even if we're railing against it it's not going to stop so what can we do to ensure it's better or safer and I mean I think that you should limit the amount that a kid can work in a year I think there should be really strict rules around that yeah I think there should be a third party that has nothing to do um with the kids family or the production I think probably there should be an onset child psychologist at all times any time a kid is in a working environment who is assessing independently whether things are going okay or not for that kid because I don't think anybody else in that equation can be trusted um so I think I think you know working hours should be much shorter for them and ultimately I would just advise you know parents to say no like let your kid have a childhood they can work for the rest of their lives it doesn't have to be now and there's no statistic that backs up the idea that being a child actor is a good predictor of a healthy happy career later I mean it almost never happened so I think that making sure people are really informed about the pitfalls of it are really important and then also having tons of safeguards on set when it does happen but yeah of course my instinct is the same as hers there shouldn't be kids working at all but I don't think in the absence of that being the reality I'd like to see what we can do to make it better when your your kids were on set for this thing I think I should say I think mainly because it was the pandemic and it was you know it was a good place for them to be you know to be with you and and all that was that occasion to look at them and and I don't know how well they are and nor do I expect you to tell me but is that an occasion by which you look at them and go hey youngsters when you when I was your age I was doing this in a very different way or I would just or I was just doing this I mean I was you know my kids really wanted to come on set and they wanted to visit and because of covered rules the only way someone could come on our set was if they were employed that was a rule and I couldn't have an exception just for me and not the rest of the crew so they were also very interested in being background performers so I amazingly relented on this which nobody could believe especially me um that you let there yeah I mean I just didn't understand why I was in this situation actually our costume designer Kita Alford who's amazing was actually worked on road to Emily when I was a kid and she was as she was fitting my kids in these period costumes she was going are you are you sure this seems like actually the last thing you would want to have happen this is so surreal um but you know of course you know I made my speeches every day about if you're bored you don't have to stay and at some point my oldest kid intervened and just said everyone's having a good time this is about your childhood you need to relax with basically like summer camp here everyone everyone's happy your oldest kid said everyone's having a time this is about you yeah no he she the exact words were of my oldest kid were um we know stop boring us with your childhood which you need to you need to absorb and take it can I laugh at that in my life you're allowed to laugh at everything well I don't know them literally everything well I don't know but like how was that for you when they how was that for you I mean good in the sense that I realized okay we're not damaging anybody here but also you realize you you know we're all lugging our baggage along with us and we gotta be conscious of that as well I think the least fun part of the experience of being on that set for those kids was me being neurotic about whether or not they should be there and worrying about their well-being but at the same time better than the alternative so yeah and of course you would right yeah a couple of things we were talking about in the office um with with regards to this film and a couple of choices that I wanted to ask you about um in the Miriam Taves book August the male school teacher is the is the narrator in your version I said Ocha is that is that her name the 16 year old daughter who has uh is speaking to a future child um but you just talk to me a little bit about that decision yes so um in the book August Ben wishaw's character is the narrator and it works beautifully in the book and I I love that Miriam gave him the narration we're sort of reading the minutes that he's taking of these women's meeting and it's so beautifully done in the book and I assume that would work similarly in the film I wrote it that way we shot it that way we recorded the voiceover and then in the edit it became clear that in the translation of this story to this different medium um not having the story told through the voice of one of the women who had been assaulted created this distance between us and the story and we were so taken by Kate Hallett who plays Oche she's um an amazing 16 year old actress who is from Alberta and this is her very first film and we had been so taken with her throughout the rehearsal and the film and so wanted her to be more Central and so suddenly we started to imagine the voice over being through ACE and and rewrote the narration for her and kind of reconstructed the film around the voice of the youngest person in the room and that was an amazing experience both to get to write that voice over and also get to hear Kate's voice becomes Central to the film you nor Miriam depict the violence the actual violence to the women in either the novel or the or the film um can you can you talk to me a little bit about that sure um I mean the the book and the film are about the way that these women have um moved alongside this trauma processed it come together in community to figure out how to respond um to it and alongside it and find a way forward um the dwelling on the details of the assaults themselves felt both gratuitous and also really besides the point of what the film was about um and the the sort of the last sort of in-office observation was that um you know obviously on this show we've been thinking a lot about it just given that we've been covering it through the years but we're five years out from from me too now I believe but not just in the entertainment industry but in I mean in journalism in nursing in agriculture like there's a there's a ideally a reckoning happening in all these industries and that have been happening at the same time um and I was you said something like it earlier when I was talking to you a little bit about the the Mennonite part but I read this quote about you and it said you said someone asked you about this and you said this movie is about refocusing ourselves on what we want to build and how to get there rather than what we want to destroy and I suppose I wanted to just to see if it could get you to talk a little bit more about that a little bit more about sort of the the allegorical nature of the of the film sure I mean I think we've done a lot of really important work of pointing out um harms that have been done and developing a language around that I'm developing a language around what sexual assault and what sexual harassment looks like um I think that's been a lot of the conversation it's been an important one I think that we also need to now spend as much time thinking about what it is that we do want to see um and there is this line in the film that's from the book um where Rooney Mara's character says Ona she says um perhaps we need to talk about what it is we want to build not only what it is we want to destroy and for me um the project of this film and and for me the impact of the book was it gave me an off ramp from grief and rage and into this sense of using our imaginations to imagine what a just an equitable world might look like and to meditate on what is good and what we could build I think we're also this funny moment in this conversation where both the conversation itself is starting to stagnate and also we're in the middle of a tremendous blowback where people are just sick of it they don't want to hear about Equity anymore I mean we've only been in the conversation for five minutes and people are done yeah yeah okay you had your moment yeah it's time to sit down and be quiet again so it's a funny moment where I think there's tremendous possibility because there has been the beginning of this Reckoning with the harm that's been done and so I think it allows us an opportunity to now think about what next what we want to build but we're also in the middle of also um just needing to kind of hold our ground as well and say you know this this conversation actually does have to continue because there's so much so much work to be done and while there may be some superficial shifts and changes especially you know in the film industry for actors female actors in terms of the rest of the world they're so far they're so far that we still have to go so that's a really beautiful film Sarah thank you um I I hope you keep making them I hope you keep making films you know thank you I'd like to I hope so hope so I mean I think I did see one quote with you you were like I don't know if I'll ever make another one after this you know but well I think I just have to feel like something matters this much I mean I love writing and I I write for a living when I'm not making films and um in terms of what it takes to actually make a film I guess I just want to feel as urgent about it as I do about this one and and I felt like what Miriam Taves does in this book she's saying something that I hadn't heard said before and so to get to be a part of you know translate that into another medium was was a huge opportunity that made it worthwhile to make a film well um we feel so much uh admiration for you here thank you and so much love for you here thank you and I'm glad you came in I'm glad I came in too it's always post-modern and cathartic that's the tagline thanks so much that's the tagline it's lovely to have you here thank you [Music]

Channel: Q with Tom Power

Views: 22,366

Keywords: q on cbc, tom power, tom power q, q radio, cbc radio q, cbc radio, cbc radio show, Sarah Polley, Women Talking, Sarah Polley Women Talking, Run Towards The Danger, Sarah Polley Run Towards The Danger

Id: DsvEcsk6bxU

Length: 39min 20sec (2360 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 31 2023