Tony Award-winning character actressDeirdre O’Connellis having a moment. Not only did her hit HBO seriesThe Penguinjust get showered withPrimetime Emmy Award nominations, but her highly anticipated A24 filmEddingtonis now hitting theaters nationwide. MovieWeb recently caught up with the veteran performer to learn more about the latter, a sprawlingCOVID-erasatirical movie fromacclaimed filmmaker Ari Asterthat also stars big names like Oscar-winners Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone. Read the interview below.
“Particular Kind of Paranoia”
O’Connell, who has been in the acting game for decades, began the interview by detailing how she first approached her standoutEddingtoncharacter with director Aster:
O’Connell:Ari and I spent a lot of time, from the very beginning, from our first conversation, trying to decide whether I was the right person to do it. I think about the pitfalls of Dawn… it would be very easy for us all to enjoy, which would be making fun of all of the people who became paranoid conspiracy theorists during the pandemic…. Ari said Dawn is the hero of the movie. He feels very strongly, as if Dawn were his favorite, and he loves her so much. And I love her so, too. But we all know, you know, where she sort of sits in the story of how we think about the pandemic and how we think about our lives. Ari was very committed to not having her dismissed.
MW:I had the pleasure of speaking to Joaquin earlier, and he said — similar to what you’re saying — he had to approach it from, “Who is this person?” It’s interesting hearing that Ari said that [Dawn is] the hero because… she rises in a way that parallels, I think, a lot of what’s risen in the last five years.
O’Connell:When we finished the movie, we didn’t know that it was going to be quite such a high rise for the ‘Dawns’ of the world. I think we thought the world was gonna be a different place, sure — but we also knew what we had all gone through during the pandemic. I always feel like Ari’s work, the particular kind of paranoia that he’s been interested in his whole life… is exactly what we all went through in the pandemic. He’s like the uniquely suited human to sound a clear note about what that felt like. It’s kind of remarkable to me. That’s really when you look at his other stuff, and you think, like, this man has been preparing to make this movie — because it is not an exaggeration.
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MW:Your character is deeply into the conspiracy stuff. She’s way out there, really. And I’m curious. I’m curious if you spent any time trying to get to know that world and that stuff, so you could honestly portray somebody who’s kind of buying a fair amount of it, because you, you made it seem genuine. You made it seem like it was coming from a real place.
O’Connell:I really had to come out from two angles because I could only spend so many hours with the actual conspiracy material before I thought I was going to lose my mind. I could do it to a certain extent, and then I would start to feel just completely crazy and so sad. I couldn’t think straight. I could do that homework to a certain extent. I also found myself doing a lot of reading about the time when I was coming up, which was the mid-’60s. That was right when I was a teenager and going to college, and during the Vietnam War, and we were very paranoid. And we were, as it turns out, right about a lot of things.
Emma Stone and The Penguin’s Mom
MW:I wanted to ask about collaborating with Emma Stone. You seem very believable as a mother-daughter, especially the hidden things between the two of you. Did you discuss subtext and these family secrets?
O’Connell:It’s funny because certainly Ari and I talked about it a lot. I thought about it a lot, a lot, a lot, and read about it a lot, a lot, a lot. I learned a lot about how this family dynamic tends to work. It’s an impossible guilt to live with. It’s also an impossible thing to accept as reality. So I thought about that a lot, talked to Ari about it a lot. Emma and I had a very instant, easy connection as people. And so sometimes, when that happens, you oddly don’t have to do a lot of talking. She had her lane, and I had mine. She had one take that nearly burned my face off. I mean, she is such a great actor when she comes after you. It was remarkable to watch her navigating that part and to keep my distance from her. We didn’t discuss it a lot. We had each discussed it with Ari ad nauseam. I think Ari kind of works like that. Like, you know, he has the two fighters, and he puts them in the corners, and he’s the coach for both of them. And then he just, like, rings the bell.
MW:I saw you inThe Penguin, and you were incredible in it. There’s such a parallel. It’s not just a mother — it’s a person who’s holding this kind of pain and these secrets, and how it’s influencing everybody around them, kind of like driving them to these horrible extremes. And the chilling ending — I don’t know the parallels were so clear. Did you feel it as well?
O’Connell:Yeah, you know, I’ve been making stuff for a long time… butThe Penguinlevel is not quite what I’m used to. And the idea of either one of those ladies — you could just have them show up, and they would be a fun lady to play, even if you never give the audience a clue to the truth of why they are like that. It was so wonderful to be able to do that, and then to also have each one of them turn in actually the opposite way. One turns powerless, one turns to complete power.
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MW:As dark asEddingtonis, I was wondering if the experience on set was positive or what the energy was like, because you guys are going to some very dark places. But there are some scenes with Joaquin, Emma and Austin Butler that are funny, and I imagine there was maybe some playfulness.
O’Connell:Oh yeah. I mean, they were delightful and funny… and even when you were sitting downstairs in the basement knowing you’re gonna have to go upstairs to do that hard thing, you were, like, laughing so hard because you were like, ‘I can’t believe how scared I am to go upstairs. This is absurd. I’m so scared to go upstairs and start shooting this right now.’ There was also, I gotta say, as for me, always a great pleasure in pleasing Ari. You know, Ari is not an easy man to please and will not let go until he feels like he has found the gold that he needs… the moment when he turns to you and goes like, “I’m happy.”
Check out the “absurd” and impactful end result for yourself. From A24,Eddingtonis now playing in theaters.
