Jordan Bayne
I caught up with the actress/filmmaker to talk about the new movie and all of the attention that the movie has been receiving on the festival circuit in recent months.
- The Sea Is All I Know is your new project so can you tell me a little bit about the film?
It’s a thirty minute short film but in many ways the response that we are getting is that it is impacting people much more like a feature - unlike most shorts it doesn’t just deal with one little layer of things it is very complex and has many layers.
So although it is short in length it is certainly not short in content. It stars Melissa Leo, who won the Academy Award this past year for The Fighter; she was brilliant in that, and it also stars Peter Garrity who is really a phenomenal actor who is on par with the Clint Eastwood’s and the Gene Hackman’s.
They play the parents and it follows their journey, they are an estranged couple and they are at odds with each other, as their daughter comes home to die as she is terminally ill - it is really about their journey as she makes a request of them to help her facilitate her own choice in a way to experience her death.
It is a journey through their own personal belief systems, their relationship to each other, their relationship to their child and their relationship to love and death.
- The film looks at the controversial subject of assisted suicide this is a script that you also penned so what made you want to tackle this subject?
As far as the subject matter specifically I was tackling the concepts around it more in a more existential manner because there are some people believe that by really living and being fully present in your life also means the choice of being full present in your death - if you have that.
For those who are terminal their own choices are drugs and things like that that make them not present and I think this particular character, she has her own spiritual journey here, she wants very much to be present for every moment of her life including the moment of her own personal demise.
So I was looking at this idea, what is love? The concept of love, the capacity of love; how far can love go? At one point does love get out - when does one human being get out of the way of their own needs, the parents needs to have their child alive and with them, at what point do they remove those needs and just love their child in an unselfish and unconditional way?
And those were the ideas that I was contemplating when I created the structure of this film. It is a controversial subject but what I feel I am doing is showing one family and one slice of life, one possibility and one thing to think about; I feel that it is an important discussion to be talking about.
- As you say Melissa Leo is aboard the project so how did she get involved and how did you find working with her?
I had done a film with her as an actor, we had done a small scene together, and we had just hit it off and had a lot of respect for one another.
I had really been a fan of her acting career but had thought that she had been under-recognised and underrated so I wrote the film for her, it was before she had been nominated for an Oscar, and I just felt like there was no one giving her meaty roles so I though ’I will do that (laughs)’.
Being that it is a short film she didn‘t know, at the time, what it would look like because most short films are not all too complex like this is - she was diplomatic and she was like ‘ok sweety I will take some time and have a look’.
But when she did she didn’t even finish the script before she called me and said ’I have to do this’. And so throughout her journey as she finally started to receive recognition she has stayed by my side, really as a champion of this film, and we got it made as she felt it was an important film that needed to be made.
- And can you talk me through the rest of the casting process?
After that we were looking for someone that Melissa hadn’t really worked with, she had worked with a lot of the guys who might have been appropriate for this role.
I was out one night at a little place and I was going to see a friend play and it turned our Timothy Hill was playing that night, Timothy is Peter’s nephew and Peter was in town going to see him. And the friend that I was there to see introduced me to Peter and was like ’you should consider Peter for your piece’ and I didn’t know who Peter was but I was like ’oh yeah sure’.
So I went home very quickly and looked him up on IMDB and was like ’oh wow. I spoke to Melissa the next morning and she was like ’Get Garrity, get Garrity he would be perfect’.
And so I called him the next day and gave him the script and he was very much like Melissa and had an immediate response.
We had lunch two days later and he was already the character he knew him inside and out, he had the heart of him, and it really was an extraordinary and beautiful thing as well as a gift to receive; to see my character come alive in front of me over a little lunch.
- This is a film that has already been a hit with critics so how do you respond to comments such as this film is an 'an Oscar best bet'?
(Laughs). There has been a small write up about how I did respond to that. My body shook for about twenty minutes it was just a collision of emotions; you don’t spend your life as an artist, at least I don’t, trying to reach for statues and awards but certainly that is a big deal (laughs) - and in you psych you know it. But you just try to roll with it as it is exciting.
But then again I worked with an Oscar winner who is just the most down to earth human being. I hope we do well and I hope that the film does reach a wide audience because I do think it’s an important topic and I think that we handle it from a very interesting angle.
- And how have you personally found the response to the movie?
It is pretty moving and when I sit with an audience I can hear it. I have had the experience of sitting next to someone, even before I would think that you would understand the turn of events, is sobbing - and you come to find out that they are parents who just can’t handle the possibility of that choice; they can’t even conceive of it.
Or it’s people who have come to me who have had loved ones who were terminal and they took care of them during those stages and have said’ I wish we had considered this’ after seeing someone that they love suffer so much.
So the response for me has been very powerful and it’s very moving for me to be able to connect, that is why I do this anyway, I do art so I connect with strangers and people all over the world.
Hopefully I have told a universal story that it doesn’t matter that it is in English that there is a human being in Yeomen or there is a human being in Spain that can find some sort of connection with this kind of story. It has been an amazing journey and we have only been on the festival circuit s short time.
- You started your career as an actress so how have you found the transition to filmmaker?
Well for me it has been a pretty easy evolution. I trained as an actor in the American method way so my approach has always been from an internal place - even when I am telling the story from a director’s point of view I… when I wrote it I was inside those characters as if the approach was the same for me as acting.
So when I am telling a story, even in the editing process, what I am looking for… even when I was with my cinematographer the thing I said over and over is ‘ I want this emotional beat’ so it has to have this emotion here so it can have this emotion there.
To me these things flow together quite nicely and I feel like sometime I have an edge because I did train from and internal and emotional place and I can bring that to the table.
Also I am an actor and I know how to speak actors speak - I also teach actors and so it is something that I do all the time; helping them to achieve an arc or a moment. I am visual I love the idea of acting just being part of a whole, I love light and I love space and so to be able to frame and do a composition with light and space is exciting.
Sound is another thing that I am crazy about so being able to do sound design and layer music to me is the ultimate; it is like being a kid and you have shelves full of toys and you have the Lego over here and the army men over here and you make them all work for you.
- Your last movie was 2007 so have you any plans to step back in front of the camera?
I love doing the work as an actor and I do have plans to do that again in the future - I feel like now we are in consideration for an Academy Award we have a little more work and I also have my feature that I am writing, I have just finished that, but I am looking to get that on the board.
I think once I get those things in motion and a place that I like the acting things that are floating around me I will reach out and try and bring one of those to fruition as well.
- Finally what's next for you - you have just mentioned a feature?
There is definitely a feature film plan and I am really excited about. It’s another story that I… and because I know that it hasn’t been heard and I have only told a handful of my closest friends and each of them have said ‘I have not seen or heard a story like this’.
So I am incredibly excited to get this one on the board. And having made a thirty minute short that deals with such a complex subject, a complex relationship and working with some of the best actors in the world I think I am well oiled and ready for the feature - it’s only a few more days on set (laughs).
So yeah I am extremely ready and excited to helm an hour and a half to two hour story.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw