Boyd Holbrook & Hiam Abbass for ‘Atonement’ | Conversations at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation

You know, there have been a lot of films that have been made about this war, the Iraq War, and I'm curious what it was specifically about Reed's script that spoke to you so significantly. It's obviously it's based on a New Yorker article, it's based on real people, but it takes a really different tack than a lot of war films, and I'm curious what it was specifically about the script and the project that really, you know, attracted you to it. Well, first of all, thank you all for staying and coming. You know, I felt so moved by reading the script initially that I knew that it was very special. I've seen the films that we're probably referencing here and how there is no identity to a lot of the other characters in foreign countries, and I just knew that this was a very rare script, probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work on, and to take a second to say something about Hyam and her performance. It's truly amazing to watch you in this film and have the opportunity to say the same thing about you. Yeah. Well, it's incredible. So yeah, I just knew that it was, this is a rare perspective, right? This is not something we're seeing. For me, it's the same really, like I read a beautiful script, but being from that part of the world, I'm always very skeptical about like projects that come and going to talk about the Arab, you know, and for me, it was very important that this Arab for one time was a human being and not only a number or a soldier in front of the American Marine. This was real, real family with real history, with real story, with real culture, with real daily life with, you know, brave people that are trying to make their way through life like anybody, any other family in the world. So I like that very much. And then there's another thing that I really loved about the script. It's the structure in which Reid just kind of like told the story of these three characters and the way he built it, you know, starting with the family, then the mother, introducing the mother, Miriam, and then going like introducing Lou shortly after and then the character of the journalist, Michael. And until we just like kind of the tragedy happens and then we really don't know for a while in the movie what's going to happen. But then when we reconnect with that character, suddenly like something very almost like beyond humanity happens that attracted me very much because I was really wondering what would happen, you know. And after knowing that it just was based on a true like true stories, true journeys of true people, you get connected more to the story because like suddenly you go, OK, like we hear often like the victims of war being just numbers like 200 died, 300 died, millions, whatever. But we never know who they are, what their stories, what their individual journeys are. And putting the light on that journey suddenly just made everything different, right? Because suddenly you just identify with these people that you don't know, with this culture that you don't know. And you say and then you start interrogating yourself about what is the use of all of this, right? All of this war machine that exists since I was born till today. And I really keep just interrogating, lucky I'm doing this job, you know, acting where I can interpret it and just like, you know, get the emotion going in order to tell these stories. I'm curious, I wanted to ask about Reed's directing style, because for the audience, for me, I found it incredibly immersive. And I think that he, especially in the war sequence, or the sequence at the intersection where this event happens, it was like long takes, the cameras looking back and forth. It's the confusion, it really captures the confusion of that moment of Lou's misunderstanding of the family's misunderstanding of what's going on. I found it so immersive. And then I also in the meeting at the end of the film, you know, just sort of resting on these moments of kind of awkwardness or fumbling together, trying to find a connection. I just found it all so human, and where you can really understand what these people are going through. But the effect of it was so immersive for me. But I'm curious what it was like for you, how he brought you into these moments? Did it feel immersive and like really involved, you know, you're plunging into this thing? Or was it more, you know, piecemeal? I'm curious about that, just kind of from a technical standpoint. You know, I, we I think we were blessed to work with somebody like Reed, because he's really a great actor director. Now the way he brought it, it depended on the scene, you know, like, if I want to start from the end, like when we got to that scene, the encounter between Lou and Miriam, and we started to rehearse, you know, he saw how much involved we were and how much loaded we were, so that he decided to stop the rehearsal and go straight into shooting, right? So coverage wise, he does a lot of coverage in order to get whatever he needs. But it's never like in the abuse of your emotional system, he's always there as well to help you get wherever you need to get. If I go back to the core scenes, and all that, you know, like shooting scene and like the traveling of the family, same like, I'm talking about these two scenes, because I think they were the hardest for us emotionally, like for you more, yeah, the other scenes maybe were more involving in that sense. But like, it was very physical, right? And he's very close to you. I mean, I don't know, like he whispers sometimes things. And it just like makes you want to go further and just like try again. Of course, it's cut. It's not like a one sequence sort of, you know, movie or scenes, because they're very hard sometimes. And you have to wait until the gloss breaks with the shots. And then you have to cover every cover everybody in the car or cover everybody in the scene, the end scene. So but he's very present. And specifically, he really knew what he wanted. So it didn't feel like we couldn't, like, get where he wanted. But like, I remember what he would come to me in the midst of my emotion with that lady. And he would go like, if you say that line like this, and that line like this, and maybe here just emphasize this or that you just you're in the emotion and you just recall all these instructions and you just like do it again. And you just try to be better every time, you know? How was that for you, Boyd? Yeah, it reads a really, I think, a kind of emerging voice with this perspective on this film. And it really starts like the seed of a tree or a flower. He started so well off with a script that told me everything that I really need to know. You can train with soldiers and meet people and but there is a true essence of truth in that script. And that, along with talking to him and finding out, well, how are we going to like, I really thought that this script is so special, but I was just dumbfounded on how do you make a performance out of that authentically to, you know, to be honest to the men and women who have served to the duty of that. And so we talked a long time, way before the project. And I think for a project like this, prep is absolutely everything and that probably relates to a lot of actors out here that you have to come in and marry yourself to those circumstances as quickly as possible. And what is that? How do you do that? And knowing first what Reed wants and then marrying to those circumstances so that when you're there on the day, you have the tone of the script, you have the hopefully you've sat with this long enough. And then to the point of like the actual just practicality of sometimes if you emphasize there's the technicality of the instrument that is coming out and the clarity of the voice and I love notes like that, that, you know, you're emphasizing a word or slowing down here, going faster there. That really is a technical note that goes into like the lifeblood of the character. But that can always be adjusted if you're available to it as an actor and I think that's the good quality of an actor is that you can take this direction. But you have to have done all this prep work to, you know, while you're washing dishes, you're replaying the bullets in a microscope of hitting the car and hearing the baby and really feeling the haunting guilt that Lou is finally like cracking to. One thing I noticed about like, you know, the structure of the film, but also your performances. I mean, you have 2003 and then 10 years later, it's as if you're playing each of you are playing two different people because they are so radically changed by the trauma, the loss, the years, the time that they, you know, that has passed. Did you approach? Did you see your characters like that, that they were very different, like your performance physically even was different, you know, in 2003 versus the latter part of the film? Absolutely. I mean, again, that as an actor, you're like always trying to figure out where are these like landmarks of the arc, like where does this guy start? Where does he finish up and, you know, reading the script, you knew that your arc was incredibly challenging and Lou's arc is the reason why I was like endlessly curious about figuring it out is because you go in with a certain idealism, maybe of war. I don't know. I'm not really sure, but you get into circumstances and those change your life forever and changes the life around you. And I think what was really beautiful about the script is that, you know, lots of things have changed for rehabilitation since then. But at the time, you know, Lou is hitting, he's driving to a rock bottom. There's something internally that's going on inside of a vibration that is getting louder and louder until the point that he physically cracks from that. And I saw how beautiful that was and his courage to climb out of that and some spiritual calling to go find this person, because internally, you know, that's the right thing to do. That's the truthful thing for him to do. And he doesn't even know that. And so you're exploring that. I don't know, really, if I considered the two characters are two different people, as much as I was aware of the fact that they were 15 years between and there was a tragedy. So when she was living at the beginning of the movie, her family and the war situation, she was still like, you know, moving, doing everything at home and trying to get, you know, like she was the household basically of everybody really over there and, you know, living a happy life if these Americans would go away, you know. But later on, we really talked a lot about this with Reed. And this is something you said, and I agree completely, like the preparation is such a great part when you have to go visit like these kind of parts, right? Because you think about her younger than you have to think about her older, like, how does she look like? I'm like, I'm the same person. I'm not going just to age 15 years in a second, right, because they decided so everything is thought of. And honestly, we tried a lot of makeup and, you know, whatever. And at one stage, I remember I told Reed, I said, like, come on, let's try with costumes and just like the sadness of that woman, right? Let's try with the physicality. And then there was written that she limps when she's older. In the beginning, I didn't believe it. I said, Oh, what a cliche, you know, like, and then, honestly, when we were lucky, because we shot the first part before, so we came to the second part loaded of our past, basically. So once we hit, like that second part, and you come to that character with whatever had happened to her, 15 years of grief, 15 years of sleeping pills, because she cannot sleep 15, 15 years of rebuilding her life. You go, yes, she limps. Right? Yes, she's, you know, it's like us actors, sometimes we have like ideas about things that we want to do. And but the reality catches up with us and shows us that, okay, whatever you think, it's just bullshit. Just be in the emotion of the thing, be in the emotion of your character. And then you know, you're hitting right, right. And I think that is also because we had a great director, really, again, you know, and one of the things that I really must say as well, one of the most joyful things, despite all the pain of this work that we did together, is working with with you, Boyd, I told you and I'll keep saying it. So this like the partnership between other actors that are so aware of you and of your presence, and what happened to you, I sometimes I just was feeding myself as he am the actress from what I saw Lou doing in front of me, I mean, Lou, but Boyd as Lou in front of me, or Kenneth, same, right? Like I would look at Kenneth and I say, this guy is so patient, right? This guy is so generous by just sitting there listening, and being just like the middle person between these two characters. And you know, you just like think while you're acting, you still think you don't like lose your thinking, right? You think you read you take. And that's the great thing about acting. It's how you just filter everything that goes around you. And just you put it in your system in order to feed your character and the emotion of your character. So really, honestly, like it's a great honor to have worked with you with Kenneth and with Reid. Boyd, you spoke a lot about prep. And I'm curious how much research you did for with Did you talk to veterans, guys who are currently you know, in the army or what was that? What did that look like? Um, yeah, well, I, you know, I, I'm, I'm a trained monkey, I'm a trained actor, it's, I really feel I think I know all that is very important of meeting people and doing that. And I do have like, I do the same thing for every job, which is I do a ton of script analysis, which is like, what, what, what is okay, read it? What is this? What is the writer trying to do right here? And then, because I feel like if I do, if I were to go and I've done that I would train with Marines and I've sat in meetings and I have buddies who were so and so. But if I'm if I'm interpretating the wrong beat, or the wrong note that they're trying to play with their music, then we have a problem. And I need to personally map all that out. I need to map that out. I need to also confirm it with other peers that I respect, other actors, other my old acting coach that we always rehearse together. And and going over that in a way that's just very instrumentally practical, that you are making sure that we're on the right page. Because I have done other ways where you just go down rabbit holes and like, Oh, would it be great if I had a German accent? And then you show up and no one asked for that. But you think that's super cool. And so to really make sure that you're on that page, and then once that is locked in, you know, I just, this sounds maybe hokey, but I just do a lot of daydreaming. And you're constantly reading the script 250 times. And sooner or later, you're washing the dishes. And you have the eureka moment of like, I know what this moment is now. I know what to do with this. Because you're constantly I think you do have to be obsessed about it. Like, for this particular project, we talked about preparation for maybe a comedy. It's all about showing up on the day and being there and doing that and, you know, responding and all that stuff. But this is a different beast. And so you can, I don't want to go through a process like this again, I really wanted to put everything that I had and give myself entirely to, again, marrying myself to circumstances that feel, why we're here for the story, like, I'm telling Lou's story, to the best of my abilities. Was there, this is, I actually don't know the status of like the real people in this article. Was there ever any inkling or interest of like, talking to some of the real people, like talking to Lou, or family members or anyone like that? I'll be very honest, I didn't get a chance to talk to Lou, and I didn't want to be subjective to anything. I thought the beauty of the script that it was so objective, that you're just left with what really happened. And you feel that. And we're not trying to push you in any direction. And so I even at one point had recordings of Lou that I would obsess upon because he had a very particular way of speaking. But I found out, I took that right up to the day of filming, to the first scene where I'm sitting in there with Kenneth, and he's asking me something. And Reid told me, he says, like, you're in this sort of speech pattern, because Lou has a very particular speech pattern. And I was just like, and I talked to people before, and I was wrestling with doing it or not doing it. And I remember what my buddy told me, it's like, no one knows what Lou sounds like. What matters is the truth in the page. And so it was just a very, it's the simplest note, but it's the easiest to get lost in where, you know, leave all that behind, like, be in that moment, you've done the preparation, you don't have to do that, just tell the truth. And I think that's a very simple, simple way. Heem, did you want to talk to any family members or any characters? Not really. I mean, yeah, no, it never came up as a possibility somehow. Because I, as yourself referred to the script and to the vision of Reid, and he what what he wanted to do with that, because he came up with the article, he met the people and I trusted his meeting with the people to write a fiction from their story, whether it's identical or not, it's not the question. For me, speaking with Miriam, the real one would have put me in an embarrassed situation in a way where because her story is so tragic, and because it's so strongly, like inhumane and whatever, like I would want to be all the time just and fair to her and not to the character that was written on paper. So like, trying to imitate her that doesn't make any sense being her that doesn't make any sense walking like her that doesn't make any sense. What made sense to me, it's everything Reid told me about that woman. And whether it's Miriam or the Miriam in on the book, right? What I cared about is that meant Miriam that I read that Miriam that Reid had in mind, and that left me a huge space of freedom in order to go wherever Reid wanted me to go with the emotion in order to give her justice, right? Boyd, you mentioned a couple times, washing dishes that made me think about not that clean. But you know what, that you're thinking about this, you're thinking about the script and that at a moment, whenever you might be doing something else, you'll have a breakthrough. But then it did make me think about when you're washing dishes. And that, you know, the whole movie is just like building towards this connection. And I'm just curious, like what it was like to finally get there and to finally, you know, be across from each other? Because you don't really interact in the first part of the film. You're in the same space, but you don't interact. So yeah. And it's if you shot in an order kind of we did that day, I think that when we meet at the house, that was like the morning and then yeah, we did that whole sequence in order. Yeah. Yeah. Like say a morning and then lunch and then you we shot the kitchen outside and the last part of the day. And the leaving. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's really interesting. You know what? Because. I mean, you don't you don't just like go around day and night kind of like saying, oh, what am I going to do or how am I going to do it on the day? And we knew each other like as human beings, right? Because we just said hi to each other. We were very civilized people. So but on that day, it was very hard to switch from me to Miriam, then him for me, him to Lou. But I knew I had I had to do it. So suddenly, you know, like if I would hear myself, I'll go just like, you know, hug Boyd, basically. Right. But hey, I'm Miriam and I cannot hug Lou. Right. So all these kind of things really that are very part of our job, as everybody knows here in this room, they're just incredibly nourishing to whatever you do, because like it's all about connection. And if they're not, they're not in on camera when you go action, you know, all these things that you live beyond and all these feelings, suddenly they just become like the food, basically the spiritual food of what you build in front of the camera. And it's very interesting, because really, I was a little bit shivery that day, you know, because it's a huge day, it's an emotional day. But funny enough, I thought I will get out of there, because often when I do scenes that are very emotional, I'm tired at the end of the day, I went out of there full of joy. And that that joy is really like more of a spiritual joy. It's like, I served that day, I served, I served her, I served her story, we served all of us, right, everybody in the room. It was really incredible energy that day. Whatever it was there that was there that just helped us go through the day. It was really incredibly fulfilling. Boy, did you feel similarly? Or did you feel sort of, it almost feels like Lou has this, like, weight lifted off of him in that day. It feels very palpable. Yeah, yeah, I think that's kind of a two thing question, which, you know, I think for the character Lou, he's, you know, I know, you know, he's, he's just like, there's a beacon out there. And he's like magnetized to it. And he's finding Miriam because he doesn't know, but that will, that will, you know, be some sort of repair for him. And as an actor, yeah, it's something that I love about putting and putting a performance together and driving to the day that it's going to happen. It's almost, as you were talking about that, I was like, it's kind of like a birthday where you know, something's going to happen, but you're going to get this gift that are emotions. And you know, there's good ones and there's and there's like, you know, really jarring ones. We had, yeah, what you said was really nice is because we, we just, I knew you, you know, and I had this thing where I didn't want to meet him until we shot and all that stuff. And then I bump into you the first day, and we have coffee. And I get to know Jordan. And I know that you have these two daughters and beautiful family. And it's really like you're just interfacing like, I know you and it was this slow progression of knowing what was taken away from you. And so when that actually happened, it was a relief in a way. And yeah, it was a very special day for me. Well, it's a very special movie. And this has been a great conversation. Thank you both for sharing with us. And thank you all for being with here.