Actor Ellen Page has been trying to get this adaptation of Jean Hegland’s novel INTO THE FOREST made for quite some time (she’s a producer on the film as well), and she was finally able to make it happen thanks to a resilient screenplay by Patricia Rozema (the MANSFIELD PARK helmer who also directed this film). The slightly sci-fi story involves a massive (perhaps even nationwide) power outage that forces two sisters (Page and Evan Rachel Wood) to learn to survive on their own in their isolated home in the woods of Northern California. As you might expect, danger comes both from the natural and human world, and the young women must fight both to stay alive. But they also have to battle crushing loneliness and keep from falling apart from within.
Considering the only other time I ever had the please of speaking to Page was for her breakthrough role in JUNO (although she’d made the great HARD CANDY and X-MEN: THE LAST STAND before that movie), it’s clear almost immediately that the Canadian-born actor is a very different person than she was then (she was 19 when she made JUNO; she’ll be 30 next year). And with FOREST and last year’s FREEHELD, she’s moving into production as well.
Wood, like Page, has been acting since she was a kid, with film roles in PRACTICAL MAGIC, S1M0NE, and the controversial THIRTEEN, as well as television series work in “Once and Again” and “Profiler.” She’s been acting steadily ever since in films like THE MISSING, THE UPSIDE OF ANGER, ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, THE WRESTLER, WHATEVER WORKS, THE IDES OF MARCH, and HBO’s fantastic mini-series MILDRED PIERCE, as well as stints on “True Blood” and “Doll & Em.” She’ll next be seen back on HBO in the long-awaited series “Westworld.” I had a chance to chat with the two INTO THE FOREST stars recently via phone to discuss the themes of the film, as well as the challenges and gifts the work brought them. Please enjoy my talk with Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood…
Ellen Page: Hello?
Capone: Hello. How are you?
EP: Good, how about you?
Capone: Good. I love that in this film that every time the story attempts to assign the sisters some male savior in their world, like a father or boyfriend, that that person is then taken out of the equation one way or another, as if the story is trying to say “No, these two have to do this on their own.” Does that feel like a fair statement?
Evan Rachel Wood: [laughs] Yeah, but it’s not because I have a problem with men or want them out of the picture, but because I think it is something that’s planted in our heads very early on, that some people have a hard time breaking free of, this idea that you have to be dependent on somebody else to take care of you, especially if you’re a woman, needing a man to be strong and doing the “manly” thing. But that is what I like about this. It’s such a human story. I think all the themes in it are very universal, and these roles could really be, aside from the obvious reasons why they couldn’t, interchangeable with young men, because we’re surviving the way you normally see in male-driven films and getting opportunities to do things we don’t normally give women credit for being able to handle or do.
But I think that’s also the journey that these girls go on. I think at the beginning of the film, they aren’t confident in their abilities, and then by the end, through this intense loss and trauma, comes this amazing rebirth and this rediscovery of oneself and your primal self and what really matters when these luxuries and things that aren’t necessarily necessary are taken away. I thought there was something really, really beautiful about that.
And I like that because there’s two women, you see this incredible strength but you also see this intense vulnerability, and they have moments where they break and where they don't know if they can go on. That brings them even closer. I think those are the things that are sometimes missing from the more male-driven films, because in the same way we don’t let women be strong on camera, I think we also don't allow men to be weak, and I think it does both sexes a disservice, honestly.
Capone: So Ellen, you’re also a producer on the film. How long have you been involved with this story, and what do you remember about it initially when you read the book that hooked you in?
EP: I feel like I first read the book when I was 22, so it’s been awhile. I think the book, well, I devoured it. It’s beautifully written, it’s poetic, it’s moving, it’s thrilling. I think it was talking about a lot of things that I’m just interested in as a person. Particularly at that time in terms of society’s relationship to our environment, and our own, and the consequences of our way of life, to be honest, and our sort of disconnect form our environment. And I love post-apocalyptic movies. I love that genre, and I love this because it felt so intimate. It did feel grounded. It felt really real. Then it was told through this relationship between these sisters. It just seemed like it could make a beautiful film.
Capone: You said it was post apocalyptic, and it is. I can't remember the last time I saw a story like this where the apocalypse slowly creeps up on us. It’s not like there’s a cataclysmic event that just wipes out everybody in one day or one week. This is something that’s going to take a while to thin the herd.
EP: Yeah. I think for me I like it because we actually don't really know what’s happened. And we don’t really know what’s happening on the East Coast. Who knows? We don’t know what’s happening in Europe. We’re in this isolated space and we’re not receiving the information that we’re used to, and we keep expecting it to come back like everything will go back to normal. In this case, it doesn’t. Things don't go back to normal, and these women are forced to let go and grieve a lot of their expectations of what their future is going to be and learn how to survive together in their new reality.
Capone: During the course of the time that we get to spend with them, both characters go through different versions of coming of age, and they both have to transition from being self absorbed to being self reliant, and they both find ways of finding that piece of themselves that can push them towards being an adult survivor. But tell me about that journey for the girls.
EP: Yeah, yeah. I think I like Nell’s arc because she’s definitely self involved at the beginning. She’s just disappointed because she can’t study. All she wants is to be able to go see the boy she likes. All understandable things that are important to us—education, music, dance, what have you. But this obviously forces a need that she has to go on this journey to essentially be able to completely take care of herself, and at a certain point has to take care of her sister, and that was something that was enjoyable to explore.
Capone: I think the scene that really hit me was the one that you two were fighting about using gas for something that one of you deems unnecessarily. I know in a film like this people are always looking for the metaphor, but one of them that jumped out at me is that’s kind of America’s relationship with fossil fuels right now: “I need it and therefore I should have it and screw everything else.”
ERW: Yeah, you could, you could. It’s open to interpretation, but sure. And also how we think there’s just endless, endless supplies and they’re just going to last forever, which is just not the case. People are convinced they need it because they don't have any other options. Yeah, it is a nice reminder that there’s not a Niagara falls of gas. It’s a limited resource, and I think we all know the gas argument here. [laughs] No need to beat a dead horse.
Capone: Ellen, the scene where you two say goodbye to each other is in the middle of the film, which is really weird because I got really emotional in that scene, and I thought “Wait a minute, that’s supposed to be at the end of the film.” And you drop it right in the middle of the film. Was that a particularly tough scene to shoot?
EP: Yes! That scene broke my heart. We’re close and we became close from the point that I asked Evan to do it, and thankfully she said yes, to getting to actually make it. It was a year. Sometimes independent movies take time to come together. We’ve spent so much time together and become very close, so shooting a lot of these scenes had this depth to it that was incredibly valuable in terms of playing sisters and making this movie and how much more powerful those moments could be.
EVW: And anytime I see Ellen cry like that is just awful [laughs]. I couldn’t stand it. And she did it for every take. I was just so blown away with her that day, because my character’s more “I have to be the strong one and keep it together, and when you turn your back I’m going to break.” So I had to keep this brave face while these tears are streaming down her face. It was a really hard scene to do. Good-byes are the hardest thing for me in general and the things I hate most about life, even though there’s something beautiful about them, it’s still just the hardest, so that scene really killed me.
Capone: Were you able to shoot this even remotely chronologically, because it seemed like that would have really helped.
ERW: Ish.
EP: Ish, yeah, because it’s mostly in that house, but it changes in terms of schedules and when people can be there. So yeah, ish I would say.
Capone: One of the things I loved is how the house is slowly crumbling around them as the film goes on, and I thought that would be a lot easier to do if they could shoot those scenes in order.
EP: Yeah, a lot of those parts were towards the end.
Capone: We barely even touched on Patricia who I think she’s done some incredible work over the years. How did she get involved, and what did she add to the whole process?
EP: Well, like you, I’m a big fan of how much versatility she’s had in terms of genre, whether it’s MANSFIELD PARK, or she’s shooting KIT KITTEREDGE, or her older Canadian films, and her as a writer. And I knew Patricia. We actually originally met about a different project and had a connection and were friendly with one another, and I just thought she’d be prefect for this. When I first read the script, after having the book for so long, I was just totally blown away.
ERW: It was a hard book to adapt.
EP: Totally. Pretty much the first 100 pages of that book are absolutely beautiful and stunning, but a lot about the build up. A lot about their mother. I don’t want to speak for Patricia, but I am amazed at her ability to take that book and write what she did.
ERW: Especially because a lot of it was inner monologue and fine details and subtleties. She managed to keep so many of those small thing that made the book so special while keeping up the pace and making it this very engaging film. It’s a hard balance to find, and I think she did it really well.
Capone: Just from an acting standpoint, in creating these characters, did you two assign certain traits that you would share, certain things about your characters that would be similar, or maybe similar to the father character?
ERW: I think a lot of those things were the little things, and Ellen and I were lucky to have a year to hang out and really get to know each other before filming actually started. I came on a year before shooting, so by the time we got on set, we had inside jokes, we’d laughed together, we’d cried together, we’d gone through changes together. So there was a familiarity there and a comfortability that you just can’t fake, which is why we made a point of hanging out and then through that, we realized we did in fact like each other and liked hanging out. In the end, I was just completely in love with Ellen and still am. I still think of her as a kind of sister.
Capone: Did making this film change your outlook on the world around us and how we live or how we should live or how we don’t live?
ERW: It made me want to sign my son up for survival class and to learn survival skill, for sure. I was like, “You know, come to think of it, learning how to do this stuff may be not such a bad idea.” We know how to build a fire, forage for food, make a shelter, grow your own food, certain things, filter your own water if you have it. Certain things I don’t know how to do. But it made me want to be a little more wary of setting that up now for him, because who knows what generation that’s going to come in handy for. Eventually, we will run out of certain resources and we’re going to have to figure it out.
EP: Yeah, I think at the time I read this book, I was thinking about a lot of these things. It’s hard to know what to say. We do live in a society that’s disconnected from the environment in pretty much every aspect of our lives, mine included, and it can be little scary in terms of the consequences of that, and we’re seeing the effects of it.
Capone: You guys got down and dirty in this movie. I love that this seemed like a very physical experience for you, as well as an acting experience. You’re using your bodies and your minds here. Did you enjoy that aspect of it?
ERW: I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the opportunity. It’s so rare that you’re given a chance to play a character that doesn’t have anybody coming in to rescue them; it’s in their hands. And I loved the dancing, I loved lugging that giant generator up that hill. I felt stronger after having done the film, having to chop the wood. A lot of it was physically demanding, especially for Ellen I think who maybe had more physical stuff to do than me. Yeah, I felt like I hadn’t really seen a dynamic like this with two women since films like THELMA AND LOUISE, where it is a story about survival and seeing a side of two women that only comes out in the most dire situations, and how they come together and are changed by the end and made stronger with a deeper sense of self. That’s what excited me about it.
Capone: Both of you, thank you so much for talking, and best of luck with this.
