Liz Sargent, Victor Slezak, Marceline Hugot and Ali Ahn for ‘Take Me Home’ | Conversations

Yeah, we'll just start with Liz. What was this casting experience like? I know there was a really unique way you made this film. There was a lot of improvisation involved. How did you go about casting this? Who did you know you wanted in this process? Yeah, thank you. I'm so happy that you're doing this. I feel like we, April came in further into the process and sort of jumped in and I feel like you have this insider look into this process that was really developed from the inside out. You know, I always knew that Anna was going to be the star of this film. I had written it for her in her voice, in her words, in moments that we've lived together. And so, you know, if I cast someone else, I would have changed the script completely. You know, I'm very inspired by work by like Sean Baker and like Mike Lee, who like really develops it off of the world first. So then after that, you know, I was looking for actors who had a deep love for process. So people who had like done theater and, and also just good human beings, it was more of like a sense of if they were going to be excited by this sort of very generative mess and know that Anna was number one and sort of be able to build and play around that. So it was really like a lot of instinct about the humanity of the people involved. And I was very happy when I got to set to see that my old friend Ali-An was on the call board. We know each other from like the many, many moons ago, super, super downtown theater world. So Ali, yeah, I'm curious as to how you played off Anna and vice versa. Like what was, what was that acting relationship like? I mean, I think the thing about this film is that it really takes you back to the very fundamentals of acting, which is literally to listen and respond to your partner because the story is dead without Anna. So I think if you come into the process with like an agenda or like an idea of like, Oh, I really want to like cry in this moment or something like that, it's going to be insincere because it has to be in relationship to what Anna is bringing in that moment. So I feel like in a way it's really liberating because you, I just felt like all I had to do was be in relationship with her literally in the scene and in the, you know, given circumstances that Liz had written in the script. And I tried really hard not to like put any idea of what I thought needed to happen other than the like literal plot points. Like, and it's a little bit, I mean, I'm sure the other actors can speak to their, how they navigated it, but you know, it's a little bit like you're directing within the scene in that Liz would let us improv for 15, 20 minutes because, you know, you're, there's a guide map with the script, but you're trying. And I was just keeping in my mind, what are the things that we need to do in this scene that are literal? Like who has, do you have to open the fridge door? Do you have, does Anna have to go pick something up and trying to be mindful of like how we can make sure we capture those moments. But otherwise I really tried to just be open to what Anna would be inspired to do. Yeah. Can I just say the process was sort of built off of it. Like we would take a scene and it would be our framework and we would do it sort of on a series, like a repetition. And Tara McIntosh is Anna's acting coach who worked very closely with her and also was like another kind of director. Like it was a very collaborative experience of everybody sort of helping navigate this very alive situation. But then we would yell out the line to Anna, she would repeat it and it wouldn't sound very like embodied or good. And so we would keep on doing that and then slowly pull away and she'd sort of figure out the scene and it would grow into whatever it would grow into. So what's amazing is these actors, I always like say that they're like gymnasts, you know, they were just like going with the flow. And like Ali was saying, like marking what like emotional beats happened and what actions happened and then having to piece that together in like the turnarounds of things. And it was like just so much instinct and I just like give them so much credit for being in the moment and giving so much and trusting that the mess would turn into something. I'm also interested in how you three, like with Anna, like made this family dynamic. Like that's always interesting to me. Like I was there for one day, we met Victor for our scene and I met Anna and I didn't get to meet you Marceline. So I'm just really interested in if you all three of you can kind of talk about what creating like that history and that, you know, unspoken sense of family was like. Well, we played people who exist. So that was an interesting challenge. I've been thinking about the essence of over time of the process and it was interesting. I tend to, I think a lot of us do show up with all kinds of possibilities and not choices, right? Well, is she this way? Is she that way? Is she this kind of person? And you do rely a little on your own instincts. But in this case, I had an opportunity to meet the real mother, their mother. And whose name is Joan, right? Yes. And we really hit it off. And I think after a bit of rehearsal, after I had spent some time with Joan, I showed up on set with everything coming together. And Liz said, Oh my God, you look like my mother. And there was something that kind of opened up with that. And so all the choices, all the thoughts, all the who is she just became who I had met. And then as time went on, took on that role. And then as Ali says, you're with Anna who is so immediate and pure and real and doesn't fabricate at all. She just is. And so when you listen and react off of her and she reacts off of you, it becomes all the things you worry about, what kind of choices you need to make, they just become organic. And that's been the profound as I think more about it and want that kind of experience in all kinds of projects. That's been the profound memory of what it was like to work on this project with such a collaborative philosophy and permission. And then this one great soul, who is Anna, who carried the story so beautifully for all of us. Yeah. Marceline was so great. She visited my mother so much. We're still buddies. Yeah. She's so excited. Like you give her so much, just like hope and joy. And what I love is that Marceline really met my mother as a friend. You know, I had written it from my perspective and I try to be as fair as I can in the writing. But Marceline had her own relationship and perspective with my mother. And I just, I love that, like the character changed, you know, and you challenged me on moments in the script. And I think, you know, even Anna as well, being in the moment of each scene, you know, would make her own choices and judgments about how that scene should go. And sometimes she didn't like maybe how I had written it. So fair enough. She's got notes, you know. Yeah, Victor. So, well, the first thing that comes to mind, I have to go back to the casting part of it. And we were on a Zoom call together and it went on for a really long time. And I was showing off. Sussing you out, Victor. Yeah, she was. And. No, it was so emotional. It was so lovely. It was like such a deep conversation. And I felt like he like just understood the themes in my heart. And it was, you know, we're making this film in my parents' home with my sister, you know, such a vulnerable story with, you know, you know, sensitive moments. And I felt like I could trust him taking those on. Yeah. And just that statement alone is huge because not only is this a film, but it is also a link to real life. And so there is a huge challenge being asked to do roles like this because we all know that it's more than acting in that moment because this is a person's life. And so that's a huge, huge challenge. And an interesting thing happened two weeks before I met Liz, which really pertains. So there's a scene in the script, there's a scene in the movie where Emily and Dad are on the bed and she says, why, why'd you do it, you know, why did you adopt and why did you adopt Korean and why did you adopt a disabled kid? And Bob says, because we had love to give. And that's huge right there. But I know that Bob is ex-army. And so something happened two weeks before the material came to me. And my son is now 25. My father mustered out of the army at 24. And he saw combat in Korea. And I'm at a certain age where I'm sort of parsing everything that's happened in my life. And I saw my father as a 23-year-old in Korea talking to young Korean children because that's what they were there for, fighting for them. And that happened two weeks before the script came to me. So by the time the script came to me, there was something already in the works and going on. And we do have a similar situation in my family. I've spoken to Molly about this. And I've got a niece who's our Anna. And so the smart thing that Liz did was right away, I had lunch with Anna alone. And Liz gave me the parameters. And I started to see correlations. I was able to see very quickly what to do and what not to do so that Anna and I could communicate so that I would never talk down to her and so that we were really communicating. And one of the first things I learned is if you touch her and she doesn't want to be touched, I caught on to that right away. And so we started to communicate to each other immediately, and that was extremely helpful. Yeah. I feel like the rock, paper, scissors moment was funny. Somebody in the edit was like, Victor's letting her win. No? Nope. She won fair and square. She won fair and square. But also, I feel like there was that moment where I feel like you guys really clicked in the humor of it and getting what her reaction may be in a moment like that and how to be playful and build off of it. Oh, it was so much fun. Yeah. It was so much fun. Yeah. She really has a very cool kind of deadpan humor. What was that like just on set? I know you were saying, Liz, that there was a lot of repeating things and just starting and stopping, but I'd love to hear more about the levity or humor that popped up. Well, she has great timing. Great timing. I met Colin McCulkin when he was six before he turned into a huge star, and he walked on stage and he was Jack Benny. And Anna is the same. It's like it's ingrained in her, and I mean, she never misses a beat. But I'd like to add that she also did what she wanted to do to some extent, at least that was my experience. And a classic example for me is in the bath scene. One recurring line that was, I think, hoping to trigger her being a little bit annoyed at mom is she doesn't like to be called Anna Banana. And so we were improvising, and I tried it at one point and I just said, all right, Anna Banana. She didn't say anything, didn't react, perfectly happy. She was feeling safe and in the bath with me, nothing wrong, and we had our other things and Liz threw out some ideas and we were improvising and I tried Anna Banana again, no reaction whatsoever. She was still very, very happy. So we sort of let go of that without discussing it. But then in between shots at one point, I don't know if you remember, she turned to you and she said, Liz, this is fun. So she had taken on a whole state of being about the bath that made us throw away script ideas. Who cares? Because we're just living the moment of what her reality was. Which is also how like each of the relationships totally changed, right? Like as a real sister and her real mother, it is a pain in the butt to get her to take a shower. And so she's going to hate taking a bath. Yeah, but yeah, so it's like every relationship on that screen is because of the actors and what they gave to Anna and the relationship they built with her off camera as well. And I think you can see that also with like Shane, the boy next door, who she was like really just naturally madly in love with. But also he has a brother who has autism and she could sense that he just immediately treated her as, you know, he just jumped into it very fast in like a day or two as an equal and, you know, like a bro. And that's who Anna is at heart. So yeah, I remember kind of being like, I don't know how I feel about her going over to these guys house. And it just ends up being such a fun, like you feel like she can hang and like, if anything, she's maybe a little too cool for them. Yeah. Like you get that. Yeah. Yeah. In a way, he's the one who treats her the most, you know, like an equal and a human, you know, family sees you through all other kinds of lenses, right? You mentioned this was filmed in your house, like your real house, because I saw like there were some of the props. There's a behind the scenes documentary about this and you get to see some of what it was like on set. And I guess everything's kind of moved around. But you know, I was in Orlando for a day and I had never been there and it had nothing to do with Disney whatsoever. So I'm just really interested in what it was like, like, Ellie, how long were you there? And, you know, like you have that beautiful scene with the ship and like, the fun stuff at the grocery store, just... I think I was there for three weeks, Victor was there even longer. Yeah, I was there for three weeks. And I think the experience, it's such a, as Liz was saying, it's so vulnerable that to invite a crew of strangers into your parents' home and Liz's parents actually moved out so that we could film there. And so it was such an act of generosity that I think also just lent itself to the spirit of the whole project, which was, I just felt like, oh, we have to, I want to treat this with so much care and respect. And I think as an actor, you know, set deck is always so helpful. Like I find, I learn so many things when I go to a set and they're like, oh, your character and they put like certain post-its or something and you're like, oh, that's interesting because now I have an idea who this character is. And I think having Liz's actual home, the artwork that her parents have, you don't have to do homework because it's all just right in front of you. And, you know, you have a sense of the routine of sort of, and Anna's bedroom is her bedroom. So I think the, and the character, Emily, is going back home to visit. And so it just, it allowed us to not have to reach for anything, you know, it was just right in front of us. Yeah, and Emily's such a like New Yorker in that sense, like it felt really, and I noticed also the difference from like the short version of this. And I feel like this time we get more time with the bigger sister. And at the end, the sister's more still in her life. And like, there's a sense that you do things together, even though she has like this beautiful place where she lives, where she has like so many friends and such a large community. Yeah, the end is a place that, you know, it was such a hard decision to go that direction. I think there's a way that this film could have ended that we all know, and we've all seen and maybe that feels comforting to you, but it doesn't feel comforting to me. I don't think that's the world we need to see on camera or, you know, or create and, you know, the ending is supposed to be an invitation to imagine an alternate place where that's totally feasible and possible, where we can all thrive. And part of that with, you know, the sister character as well, it's like, it's not imaginary. It's not utopia, you know, like, it's her dog's not back, her parents aren't there. Like, she's just as disabled as she was in real life. And she's also thriving, you know, and she also wants her sister to be a part of her life. But she also is an adult and wants to be independent, you know, and I just like, I wonder, that world, you know, is a glimpse into it, and hopefully opens up people's imagination to think about like, how possible that is. Victor, I was interested in how you calibrated his own disability with, I don't know if you call it dementia or memory loss. There were, I noticed, there were times where it seemed like it was really foregrounded, and sometimes where it seems like, you know, he's masking, you know, maybe when he's at the social workers, or like, but sometimes it's hard to when he's at the grocery store. How are you thinking about calibrating that? So all this happened awfully fast, I mean, really fast. And all of a sudden, I was down in Florida. And I had some inkling, but not a lot of experience with people with Alzheimer's. Since then, I've had a lot more. Anybody here have experiences with family? OK. I feel for you all. So, Ollie mentioned that I was down there longer. And I opted to stay put. And instead of go back home, there was like a two or three week period, two week, three week period when they were shooting the end of the movie. And I spent that entire time in my little motel room in Orlando, Florida. It wasn't like a motel. It was a motel. A hovel. Low budget sag film. And I spent the time doing everything I could to catch up. And I learned a huge amount. Thank you for the internet. And I was able to take the actual test for early stage Alzheimer's. And I learned all about the symptoms that come and go. And the difference between early onset, early, middle, and late. And Liz and I would have conversations before every day of shooting. Mostly the night before. And we'd say, hey, this is what I got today. And we put it in. Yeah, it was so much of your research. And so much of because we were rewriting the script all the time of like calibrating it throughout it and sort of us figuring out where this scene might fit in the end and what clues we should show. And I think because of that, it's like what makes the character of Emily work so well. Because I think it shouldn't have been clear. Because there's like this ethical dilemma and there's this middle moment for people who are, you know, having Alzheimer's or dementia. And it's like we don't know when you can interfere. You know what I mean? And I think that's the big question and the takeaway people have about her character as well. Like why didn't she stay? Why didn't she do anything? Right. And I think there's this gray area where we all feel uncertain and so does the father, you know. And exactly. And one of the things about Alzheimer's is at the beginning, some of the symptoms could be other things. So you really you really don't get the major diagnosis until you really know. And we used all of that. And I want to thank my fellow actors because there were a couple of times when I got looks like what the fuck are you doing? What are you doing? And why are you behaving that way? Where's Victor? And that was on purpose. And I saw the time that we had and I knew what the mission was. And it's a lot of those reactions ended up on screen. I remember one between us that did not. It was a scene, you know, you have to pivot and choose how to tell your story. But there's one scene I heard was near to the final cut, but then got cut. But we were having fast food together. And he as a fellow actor, he decided without us discussing it, but I saw that he came forward in his eyes and he was the loving husband. And then he suddenly just shut it down. And it broke my heart. And I realized later we were chatting and I told him about that moment. And he said, oh, oh, good. Well, you get it then. I was like, how can you miss it? You know, it was just profound what he would bring to those beginning because it's still in that questionable stage when mom is still alive. And so that scene, there is a moment, I don't know if it was captured, but between actors, it was so clear that I was drawn to him because he had given me so much of love. And then it just went away. Anyway, memories. Thank you, Marjolaine. You're welcome. Yeah, that's really sweet. All right. Well, I guess we can maybe wrap up here. I don't know unless there's anything else. Can I say? Yeah. We talk about pivoting as actors. We have never really talked about how much pivoting you did. All the time. It was one of the reasons I think the film is so successful is because if it didn't work, Liz was like, okay, move on. Let's move on. Let's do something else. It was raining. We couldn't be outside. Okay, let's make it a different setting. And so she was just as willing to pivot and go with whatever was given in the circumstance and in a challenge and then just making it work with a whole different idea as much as she was asking the actors to do. Okay, you're going to get me going now. There was a scene where it was supposed to happen in the car and it was a full day of shooting. The Florida State Police were involved. Tow trucks were involved. The towing of the car was involved. And nothing worked. Lightning. Nothing worked. And so an entire day was lost, which for the situation, it was dire. And we have never spoken about this yet. No, but everybody knew, you know, oh, we're screwed. And so that is not in the movie at all. But the 20 minutes in the kitchen with Anna, I know that that period of time helped you immensely because it ate up a lot of that footage that we couldn't get. I mean, it was we took the scenes in the script and the actors knew what we needed to accomplish. And to me, it doesn't matter where that happens. You know, it's an emotional beat we have to hit. So it was really just about everybody's like generosity and pivoting within the film. And I would say like for this entire process from fundraising into the distribution that we're doing right now, it is just a constant creative process, you know, because it's so hard for an indie film to get out in the world. And right now we're doing it in the most creative approach. That's really about creating more of a conversation around how this process is actually is, you know, a process that is additive to the screen. And and also creating a conversation like a national discourse in this country about caregiving and what is happening and really using film as a way to make change and give insight into people's lives like Anna. Anyway, so we're you know, this I'm so fortunate about every single step of this and the creativity that's happened in every moment. And having even like having April here being our moderator and just doing it in a different way, you know. So we open on September 23rd at IFC and then we go to L.A. and do a bunch of different screenings all over the country. So please share about it. This is all been made from people's passion and the conversation and posting. And it's amazing that there's this, you know, so much technology in this world, but it's still done by word of mouth and by, you know, personal connection. And in a world of like A.I., you realize that it is this emotional connection that is is still so important and valuable. Thank you all. Thank you.