Vanessa Kirby, Ellen Burstyn and filmmakers Kornél Mundruczó and Kata Wéber spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about their new drama 'Pieces of a Woman,' which premieres on Netflix on Friday (January 7).
00:09I am facing this. I am facing it. I am facing this.
00:13Congratulations on this film. Such a powerful performance.
00:17And you've been getting so much praise from the critics as well.
00:21What made this role different for you?
00:23I'd never ever seen a birth like that on screen.
00:25Particularly one that was, you know, aiming for a completely unbroken take and that many pages.
00:31And the other thing was, it was about a subject that I know is so rarely talked about.
00:36And in fact, I was even surprised myself that when I started doing research and trying to find people who had been through it,
00:42so that I could really try and do justice their experience.
00:44I had seen Vanessa in The Crown, and I was very impressed with her work.
00:50So the combination of those three really excited me.
00:55I thought to be in conflict with my daughter because I love her in a different way than she would like to be loved is a very interesting thing to play.
01:07We share an experience of a miscarriage.
01:10And I think I kind of felt I should write about it somehow, in some way.
01:16I wanted to write about the loss.
01:18But while I was writing, I realized I'm also writing about the love and the grace and the light within the story.
01:28And that felt so empowering.
01:31It was really the most beautiful and the most personal writing by you I ever read.
01:36But also what I recognize, it's really break our silence.
01:39And I was like, I want to go there.
01:42I know that we're just beginning to be able to talk about it, like Meghan Markle writing that amazing article and Chrissy Teigen speaking about her experience.
01:51And it feels really important.
01:54And I'm so proud of it for that reason.
01:56My daughter came into this world.
02:00For the time that she did.
02:05The labor scene is this intense moment right at the top of the film.
02:10How do you prepare for a scene like that?
02:12Because as a viewer, it felt very raw and emotional.
02:15So I started doing a ton of research and watched those documentaries.
02:18And none of them gave me any full idea of what a whole labor is like, you know, between a contract and everything in its entirety.
02:25So that really scared me.
02:26And then I started writing to a lot of obstetricians and one amazing one in North London that allowed me to come and shadow her on the labor ward.
02:36Then one afternoon, a totally miraculous thing happened where one of the midwives came back around.
02:41She said, oh, there's a woman who's in labor and she's about to start pushing.
02:46And I'm going to ask if she'd mind if you were with her and sat in the room with her.
02:50And she said yes.
02:52And it was just the most amazing, generous act.
02:54And I never could have begun to act it without really witnessing what it's actually like.
02:59And I was just blown away by her power and the animal in her that took over and this really profound kind of sacred journey that she went on.
03:08Certain things medically, we just don't have answers for.
03:17Very sorry for your loss.
03:20And Vanessa Kirby is also just incredible in this role.
03:23What was it about Vanessa that made her the perfect choice, as well as casting Shia LaBeouf to play opposite of her?
03:30I was a huge fan of The Crown and I was a huge fan of Princess Margaret.
03:35And she was strong and she was secretful and she was rich and she was beautiful.
03:42You know, I mean, it was like, oh, my goodness.
03:44This is the icons of the big times, like Cardinale or Catherine Deneuve and, you know, those characters.
03:52And I was like, you know, I want to I want to do this movie with her.
03:56And for sure, you know, we need a misfit for the family and we need someone very different.
04:01We need someone who has experienced with addiction.
04:07And that's why we felt that he's a good choice.
04:10They both know how to be real, to not be superficial or pretending to be the character, but really embody the character.
04:21So it takes on a different experience when you're when you're with actors that are able to go there.
04:32She has to pay for her incompetence.
04:35We need some justice here.
04:37You need.
04:38There's still a level of stigma attached to early infant loss with feelings of isolation, how men should grieve versus women.
04:47How do you think the film speaks to that stigma and sort of changes that narrative?
04:51You know, whenever there's some an event like that in someone's life, there's a certain shame connected to it.
04:59Like, what did I do wrong?
05:01I thought I was doing all the right things, but then this happened.
05:04So I must have made some mistakes somewhere.
05:07And that needs to be aired a little bit.
05:10I spent time with who had been through it and lost babies and shared their stories and hadn't felt able to before.
05:17I always every day it was it was almost for them, you know, in every single way.
05:21It was almost led by them, really.
05:22It's a story of female courage, you know, and one woman's ability to get through something so unimaginably painful.
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