Exclusive: Katherine Waterson On Her LGBTQ Drama ‘The World To Come’
Currently playing from Bleecker Street is the romantic period drama, The World To Come, starring Katherine Waterston (Inherent Vice, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), Emmy-nominated ‘Vanessa Kirby (The Crown, Mission: Impossible - Fallout) Christopher Abbott, and Oscar winner Casey Affleck (Manchester By The Sea)
In this powerful 19th century romance set in the American Northeast, Abigail (Katherine Waterston), a farmer's wife, and her new neighbor Tallie (Vanessa Kirby) find themselves irrevocably drawn to each other. A grieving Abigail tends to her withdrawn husband Dyer (Casey Affleck) as free-spirit Tallie bristles at the jealous control of her husband Finney (Christopher Abbott), when together their intimacy begins to fill a void in each other's lives they never knew existed. Directed by Mona Fastvold and scripted by Jim Shepard and Ron Hansen, THE WORLD TO COME explores how isolation is overcome by the intensity of human connection.
For Waterson, who’s best known for her performances in Hollywood films such as Inherent Vice, Steve Jobs, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and its 2018 sequel Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, as well as Alien: Covenant, this was as independent as one can get. In speaking with BlackFilmandTV.com, Waterson goes over her attraction to the project and working with Mona Fastvold in defining the character on-screen.
What was the thing that attracted you to take on this project?
Katherine Waterson: The first pages of the scripts, I was so blown away by the first page of the script. I was halfway down the page, I knew I would do it. Actors read a lot of scripts. The good ones, they do just inevitably, really stick out like a sore thumb. What really stuck out on the first page was just how carefully it had been constructed, and how efficiently the characters and then the whole environment, the whole world of this piece were put together. There was a line on the first page. It was just a description of Abigail where she was described as an asset to Dyer, her husband. I thought, "Oh, God, I've never really thought about that word." That's a very interesting word. When you think about marriage, it has a lot of positive and negative connotations. To be an asset, it sort of sounds like property, but it also could be a really positive thing, like, someone's relying on you or depending on you. You’re something that the other person values, but you're also a tool that they can use, when they need to, and discard when they don't. Right away, I thought, "Oh, god, there's some interesting ideas here." I didn't even know where the story was going. When I saw where it was going. I was in.
How was working with Mona is establishing this character and then also showing the different emotions when she’s by herself?
Katherine Waterson: Yeah, it's very different from any other job I've done. I had voiceover that I was responsible for that was so rich and lyrical and fluid, and demonstrative. I had this person to play who was quite reserved, a little bit unsure of how to express herself. In the voiceover that she described as always, having been like a pot bound route all turned in on ourselves. So how do you square this, this person who internally is full of life and externally is a bit quite reserved, and not always showing everything that she's feeling? I really did rely on Mona, in terms of my performance. Just to try to walk the line between being so reserved, that the audience won't give a shit and they'll just be like, too boring for words. So reserved that they don't get anything from her. And then on the other hand, trying to avoid being too expressive. By being too expressive, sort of ruining the voiceover because if we understand everything she's thinking in the scenes, then why the hell do we need the voiceover? It was a fine line to walk, and it's quite difficult for a person to know exactly how much they're giving away when they're on camera. You do have to trust the director there. They pull it back a little bit, or actually you can give a little bit more of yourself here.
One of the other things that was difficult about it is when when you work with great actors as I was doing in this film, they give you so much and you want to reward them and you want to give it back. When you're playing someone who doesn't quite know how to give it back, sometimes I felt a little guilty like I was being rude to these amazing performers who are giving me so much. That tension of wanting to give them something, but not being able to felt really right for the character. She’s not having a fun time being reserved. She's desperate to share herself, but she just doesn't quite know how. It was difficult, but it actually really helped me.
Can you talk about working with Casey and Vanessa and establishing a chemistry with each of them and their characters?
Katherine Waterson: I love my job so much. When you frame a question like that, it just makes me realize how much I love my job, because I can't think of anything in my life. That's more exciting than playing interesting scenes with really good actors like it. I think that when people talk about chemistry, what they're talking about is the electricity that they feel in the space. It’s the space between the two performers. It's that energy between them. That energy is ignited by not knowing. You're on a surfboard together, and you’re riding this wave together, but you don't really know where it's going, but you're on it together, on this wave, and it's going to take you where it takes you. There's nothing in the world more exciting than that to me. So I really got that with both of them. It's funny to think that a scene with a husband, whether it's like failing to communicate well, and how that could be perceived as an exciting theme. But it really is, because if you’re striving to connect with somebody, but you're failing to and then you try again, but it doesn't work. You're really playing off each other in that way. It's really fun. Its opposite is when you try to play with someone and they're just dead behind the eyes, and you can’t take off together.
It's no fun. I did this interview last week with people from different films. That’s always so much fun because you learn so much from talking to people you've never worked with before about how they like to work and everything. I was with Demián Bichir and Daniel Kaluuya. Daniel said something about working with Lakeith Stanfield, who he's worked with a couple times. He had this great line about it that I think is so true about all the actors I've ever really loved working with, and certainly true about Casey and, and Vanessa. What made this sound so much fun to do, which is just that they give a fuck. When you work with other people who are obsessed with their jobs and want to work really hard and are happy, like on this film; which was a micro budget. We had no time to rehearse. We rehearsed on Sunday mornings. You can only do that with people who care and are obsessed and that like as nerdy as you are. I can't believe I get to work with these people.