William Oldroyd’s psychological thriller “Eileen,” based on the 2015 novel by Ottessa Moshfegh, is a challenging film. But that’s exactly what attracted Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway. McKenzie, who plays a withdrawn young woman working at a children’s prison in 1960s Massachusetts, remembers being completely unsure of herself the first few days of filming, mirroring how the New Zealand actress approaches her entire career.
“I never want to feel comfortable,” she says, speaking over Zoom alongside Hathaway. “Maybe it’s my ego talking, but I want to feel like I’m still testing myself, challenging myself, and exposing myself. “It’s wanting to explore all the different parts of myself and all the different types of people that exist.”
Hathaway plays Rebecca, a prison psychologist with a faux-glossy veneer, and also saw the film as an opportunity to stretch herself. The film is part of a collection of projects she made around the same time, including “She Came to Me” and “Armageddon Time.”
“I didn’t go to drama school, so I’ve been learning on the job and trying to find roles that really, really, really scare me so I can become a better actor,” Hathaway says. “The joy of it is always: What is the scariest, most challenging, seemingly impenetrable, seemingly impossible challenge? And who are the right people to agree to try it?
In “Eileen,” co-written by Moshfegh and Luke Goebel, the tension came from Rebecca’s glamorous, self-assured presentation, which captivates Eileen. She is a product of her time, when not many women had the education or position of a prison psychiatrist.
“He intends to remake the world,” Hathaway says. “She thinks she knows more than everyone else. Ottessa’s writing in the book gave me permission to make it really over the top, because I went with Rebecca’s summary in the book, which was “If she seemed affected, it’s because she was.” I heard that phrase and said, ‘Bingo!’ She set me free.”
He adds: “I found his devotion to his own sense of importance heartbreaking, fascinating, hilarious and intriguing. How long has it been like this? At what point did it stop being a performance and become her, and how much does it cost? She’s a really cool looking puff of cigarette smoke, but she’s going to kill you.”
Eileen is less sure. She struggles with an abusive, alcoholic father (Shea Whigham) and a dead-end job, and often imagines committing suicide. Rebecca represents the possibility that there is something bigger for her.
Thomasin McKenzie plays the main character of “Eileen.”
(Neon)
“I identified with Eileen in many ways,” says McKenzie. “I didn’t want to play that she’s weird. She is very isolated and everything happens from her perspective. You are with her. She approaches the world and interacts with other characters in a very raw and raw way. And that was pretty fun.”
Hathaway was cast in 2020, amid an early lockdown and just months after the birth of her second child. Although she is confident that she would have accepted this role when she arrived, there was something about being “inside the chaos” that seemed to connect with “Eileen.”
“From that specific place of feeling as disconnected as you feel in a postpartum state and how we all feel at that time of the pandemic, it struck a chord with me,” she recalls. “It wasn’t at all what I expected and I loved that. I also loved walking the tightrope; I had no idea how we were going to achieve it. It seemed almost experimental in nature and I found that really appealing.”
The film was shot in New Jersey in late 2021. The weather was as cold as it looks in the film, which is set during the Christmas season.
“No one had a trailer to go back to after filming,” Hathaway recalls. “There were no luxuries or pampering or anything. We were all in this together. I really feel like we all look out for each other in this. “We take care of each other.”
The relationship that develops between Eileen and Rebecca is unconventional, and the actors had only a few days of rehearsal to prepare for it. Oldroyd has joked that the film was a Christmas love story, but McKenzie describes the unlikely connection as “obsession and repressed desire.”
“There are a lot of false connections,” he says. “In reality, no one is heard or seen. It is a story with the appearance of love.”
“It’s complicated, isn’t it?” Hathaway responds. “For me, it’s more about infatuation, intoxication and obsession than about love. But I think Eileen loves everything she can. It’s such a specific story. This is for her the fulcrum that marks the rest of her life.”
Both McKenzie and Hathaway found what they were looking for in the process of making “Eileen.” Although production was isolated due to the pandemic, the duo found common ground in exploring the comically dark story.
“I keep wanting to think about [the film]”says Hathaway. “Eileen is not nice and maybe she doesn’t try to be nice and she doesn’t stand out in any particular way, but she still exists. She has this roar inside her. “It’s really cool that we all wanted to come together in the middle of COVID to explore what would make someone like Eileen someone like Eileen.”
“I could feel her pain and I just wanted to hold her somehow,” McKenzie adds. “I loved that there is still life in it. She is not a victim. It’s a great character movie. “There are so many layers to each and every character.”
