![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Passing5-1024x768.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nSynopsis : Adapted from the celebrated 1929 novel of the same name by Nella Larsen, PASSING tells the story of two Black women, Irene Redfield (Tessa Thompson) and Clare Kendry (Academy Award nominee Ruth Negga), who can \u201cpass\u201d as white but choose to live on opposite sides of the color line during the height of the Harlem Renaissance in late 1920s New York. After a chance encounter reunites the former childhood friends one summer afternoon, Irene reluctantly allows Clare into her home, where she ingratiates herself to Irene\u2019s husband (Andr\u00e9 Holland) and family, and soon her larger social circle as well. As their lives become more deeply intertwined, Irene finds her once-steady existence upended by Clare, and PASSING becomes a riveting examination of obsession, repression and the lies people tell themselves and others to protect their carefully constructed realities.<\/p>\n
In this Q&A conducted with director Rebecca Hall and cast members Thompson, Negga and Andre Holland, they explore what it took to bring this project to fruition and poignantly discussed after this preview screening held in the Paris Theater.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Q:<\/strong> When did you realize there\u2019s something here that you wanted to make into this movie?<\/strong><\/p>\n Rebecca Hall : I remember specifically seeing the book in the window. Then I finished the book, loved it, opened my laptop, and started writing the screenplay. It was suddenly like being possessed. I think that I had freedom to do it because honestly, I didn\u2019t think it would end up like this. Or I talked myself out of it.<\/p>\n Also, I was just struck by the modernity of this: how it speaks to so many aspects of humanity, in this tiny, tiny book. Now it\u2019s not just racial passing, it\u2019s all the ways in which the thing that you think you believe in doesn\u2019t match up with the thing that you want. The ways in which we all put ourselves into containers or let other people put us into containers, and then we\u2019re massively spilling out of them because nobody can be defined by one thing. That is a very contemporary idea.<\/p>\n We have words like intersectionality or something [like that]. I was blown away by that so when I arrived to work, I just thought I wanted it to look a certain way. I came up with ideas that shocked me when [placed] in the movie. I got really attracted to the screenplay, thinking, \u201cI\u2019m going to get into this because I\u2019ll never make it. So it\u2019s fine, this is just for me.\u201d And then it was a 13-year process, maybe not quite 13 years. It was about a six-year process of me getting the nerve to take it out of the drawer, and then another six years of actually trying to get it made, which is normal.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Q: What was one of the early shots that you had in your mind?<\/strong><\/p>\n Rebecca Hall : Of the feet. Also I had the idea of the meeting between the two of them. I committed self-matching at that scene. I had [that] in my head. I look at her playing the central character, and is she in a place where she was being observed, and you didn\u2019t know why she was hiding from something, to a place where she was taken in this room and feeling safe, and then she\u2019s looking around and suddenly there\u2019s this other person looking right at her.<\/p>\n Q:<\/strong> In an interview you talked about bringing Tessa and Ruth to your house for a weekend before going into production because you felt that it would be imperative to have that time together. So tell me all about that: what did you do?<\/strong><\/p>\n Rebecca Hall : Well, I\u2019m an actor so I understand rehearsal very much, so I just kidnapped them and said \u2013<\/p>\n Q:<\/strong> Was it like a rehearsal at the house, or was it bonding time connecting everyone?<\/strong><\/p>\n Rebecca Hall : There were some. You and I sat down and did a lot of work. We\u2019d sit down and go through scenes a lot. Mostly it was just time for the two of them to be together and explore each other\u2019s [thoughts].<\/p>\n Q: Tessa, you said that you were terrified to take on this role. But you did it with such grace and depth, it was a beautiful performance. What ultimately made you say yes, what intrigued you about diving in?<\/strong><\/p>\n Tessa Thompson : I guess I like being terrified. In the sense that I like to, when I am approaching work, there\u2019s something that is central to the thing that I\u2019m not sure that I can do.<\/p>\n In this case, it had to do with being in the character and also that there was this \u2014 so much is expressed, as Rebecca said, with her example of that panning shot of their passage. It focused squarely on Irene\u2019s obsession with staring at her. Without the movie looking away, and looking back, there is no cinematic journey. So Rebecca was able to tease that out, and so I felt very comfortable. If she could do it\u2026<\/p>\n What I was worrying about for myself is, there\u2019s this incredible document in Nella\u2019s words. There was a wealth and a depth of feeling that this woman has inside, and when you don\u2019t have a lot of dialogue to express that, and also in that she\u2019s playing someone that\u2019s quite restrained, the moments when she\u2019s feeling strongly is whenever she\u2019s around this person and that stirs things in her\u2014 [which I had to express].\u00a0She\u2019s a feeling person. How do you say that without saying that? And that terrified me. And then also other stuff terrified me, but I won\u2019t go into that. But the easy thing is that she just needs to be really beguiled and blown away by this woman and look at her.<\/p>\n Q: Ruth, in bringing this really complex woman to life, what compelled you to play this woman?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ruth Negga : I love the word \u201chaunting\u201d. I love it. I was haunted by this book. I was haunted by these characters, and I think what struck me most is, I never really read a friendship like that:\u00a0 the full, deep complexity of female friendship with all the usual attractions, and also repelled by one another at the same time, that push and pull. We have all combatted the disease of UJE: the ugliness of it, the jealousy, the envy. I was bewitched by these women.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For me, for Clare, I was so curious about this woman \u2013 her intention of living so fully and authentically. It brings to mind a Mary Oliver quote: \u201cWhat is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?\u201d Clare, for me, she embraced it fully and deeply. And I guess after reading it, I found \u2013 I don\u2019t know, this atmosphere of sense of ending somehow that haunts the book and that lingers way after the final frame.\u00a0I think Rebecca shocked us, and that\u2019s a terribly hard thing to do. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen film writing that captures the feeling, the emotion, having read it, onscreen, sufficiently.<\/p>\n Q: Had you read the book before anyone suggested you read it?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ruth Negga : Yeah, I\u2019d read the book. I\u2019d wanted to work with Rebecca for a long time. We met up in New York and she said she was adapting this, and I [said] I\u2019d do it anytime, anywhere.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Q: Andr\u00e9, your character is so complicated and so rich. There are so many scenes that jump out at me when I think of them. But I ask you what I was asking them: what was it that intrigued you about this character, and do you want to explain it to the audience?<\/strong><\/p>\n Andre Holland : This character gave me a chance to explore this world. I think that\u2019s one of my favorite things about this job: getting a chance to learn about men I didn\u2019t know before. I didn\u2019t know about Nedda\u2019s work, I hadn\u2019t read that.<\/p>\n Q: In the dinner table scene, there\u2019s an argument that you have with the other characters. It\u2019s very much of that era, but also very contemporary. Black parents have had these conversations all the time. What was it like preparing for that and diving into that performance?<\/strong><\/p>\n Andre Holland : Well, I was really looking forward to that scene from the very beginning. Which is exciting.<\/p>\n Q: Tessa, how was that exciting for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n Tessa Thompson : What struck me is just that: how modern it felt. And this was before the events of last summer. But it\u2019s like forever and always in this country, right? I think that\u2019s the negotiation you make as a parent to black children and in particular, I\u2019d say, to black men. So there was that on one hand, and to activate that which would do him a favor even now. And on the other hand, I think the scene has a uniquely important physicality that it felt like we were playing a piece of music together. To me there was a real specificity in rhythm. So that was what I liked.<\/p>\n Something that I really enjoyed about this project is the precision, I think, because of the precision of every angle. If you were off your mark by a little bit or just objectively not in the right place, Rebecca would come and be like, [gestures] \u201cOnce again.\u201d But I don\u2019t know \u2014 I like that. I didn\u2019t do sports and I\u2019m not into doing anything else. This is just something I like, so I\u2019ll do it right.<\/p>\n Ruth Negga : You did, you know?<\/p>\n Tessa Thompson : And inside the form is such freedom when you know what the form is. When I was into Shakespeare and the Classics… But [Ruth] knows, go see her in \u201cMacbeth\u201d [on Broadway co-starring with Daniel Craig].<\/p>\n Q: Ruth, you talked about the precision of the technicality of the camera. How did that stretch you as an actor? How did you get that joy of finding freedom?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ruth Negga : In order to play you have to have rules because it just tightens everything up. I felt a great comfort and relief in it because I think the way Rebecca works is a very lavish process. We were let in on this. This wasn\u2019t a proletarian office. We knew that there was a goal as we were [performing], and we were recruited. And that\u2019s a lovely thing, I think, about Rebecca, especially in her being an actor as well. There\u2019s a gift in ensuring trust. That\u2019s a lovely thing for an actor to have, a director\u2019s trust, and to let us in on it. We had freedom to discover within the scene, working with Tessa and Andre.<\/p>\n Q: The framing is so beautiful. There is such a precision, and such a beautiful stillness in every shot. How did you arrive at that framing as the visual language of this film?<\/strong><\/p>\n Rebecca Hall : It\u2019s as I said earlier. An inherent problem in adapting this book for the screen is that if you were unable to show the inside of your protagonist\u2019s mind, it would [belie her reality] because she\u2019s not truthful to herself. That\u2019s the whole point of this story. She doesn\u2019t really know who she is. She\u2019s so bound up in the idea of this respectful, proper, erect life \u2013 wife, mother, and everything \u2013 that there’s no room for her expression of herself.<\/p>\n So this was the bottom of that problem: How do you get you guys in on that? How do you show that? I think the formality of it felt to me, finally, correct, that there should be a way of slowly giving signals to the audience that this person is unreliable, and finding the visual language to do that. You slowly start to see what you are saying or she is saying it, maybe it\u2019s not real. It\u2019s fuzzy, it\u2019s blurry, and you literally use lenses that compressed the image, but were soft on the top and bottom. That creates a sense of her world dissolving around her.<\/p>\n Also, it occured to me what I thought about this novel. The ’20s are famous for being loud \u2013 the Jazz Age, color, photographs — and there was something so \u2014 this book was so simple and held so much in it because it allows you to do the work. So I couldn\u2019t help thinking about… What’s the simplest version of this? And that comes down to shot-by-shot. I didn’t want to have to cut away. So let’s see how long I can contain the two-shot. Let\u2019s use a mirror if we have to. Let\u2019s play a two-shot in the mirror with that person as well.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n That formality also literally puts them in a box, it puts them in this place of restraint \u2014 Irene, specifically. It should feel claustrophobic. And, the music is deliberately beautiful, and haunting. It\u2019s deliberate. So I was very specific about everything.<\/p>\n Q: It made us curious as well.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Rebecca Hall : Yes. Correct. Well, she was an exile for most of her life. And that song that you hear all the way through the movie is called \u201c[unclear] Walker Rag.\u201d I heard it when I was doing a rewrite at some point. Not right from the beginning, somewhere in the middle. I remember hearing that piece of music and thinking, “That\u2019s the film.” That\u2019s the time, that\u2019s the feeling, and that\u2019s the sensibility, and what we were looking for. If I can make this film sound like how this sounds, then it\u2019s worth it.<\/p>\n Q: And the house [which was used in the film] was a character as well.<\/strong><\/p>\n Rebecca Hall : Well, the house was pretty bright. I did want the feeling that the house was meaningful. It was meaningful to be there in Harlem, in that house, in a brownstone like that, knowing that these houses and these spaces, and the apartment that\u2019s at the end of the film was a historic building. There were probably parties in the \u201920s that took place in that building.<\/p>\n Ruth Negga : Yeah, I think so. The house, the residence, we learned a lot and we would use the bedroom as the place where we were all sitting.<\/p>\n Tessa Thompson : So we\u2019d all be sitting in this bedroom together. It was a little claustrophobic. Which was helpful for me, because Irene was supposed to feel very claustrophobic. [I would go] \u201cIrene would love this.\u201d But the bathroom was open, and I could go in there.<\/p>\n Tessa Thompson: I was very happy for you except when I had to pee.<\/p>\n Ruth Negga : And it\u2019s the set you want to work in\u2026<\/p>\n Rebecca Hall : There were things that weren\u2019t right.<\/p>\n Ruth Negga : I believe that when I\u2019m not working, I\u2019m haunted. I think the bricks, mortar and moulding carry memories. I am living there. All the memories that one would have in Harlem are so vibrant and so, of course, it is its own costume. I love that. So yeah, I definitely felt that. And it was all that for a lot of nothing [in the end].<\/p>\n Here’s the trailer of the film.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Passing2-1-1024x768.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Passing3-1024x768.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Passing4-1-1024x768.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Passing6-1024x768.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n