Director Nia DaCosta on the power of Hedda

0:00From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's the treatment.

0:12It's The Treatment, which you can also go to kcrw.com slash the treatment. My guest, Nia DaCosta, makes films about women and their proximity to power. We can see that and how women react to that and how they're treated because of that proximity to power. It goes from her, I think, her first studio film to her current film, Hedda, which reunites her with Tessa Thompson and her cinematographer, Sean Barber. First of all, it's great to have you here. Thanks for doing this. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited. We'll fix that. But it's interesting because they really are about, especially in Hedda, it's literally about the proximity to power.

0:47Because it's a play about power. And it's interesting. You don't start with the gun. No, no, no. No. Well, I mean, it's about power, but it's also about agency. Which is proximity to power. Yeah, for sure. And how can you, in your own inner sense of power and authority, can you own your own authority? I think that's something that Hedda struggles to do, which is part of why she suffers, her self-limiting sort of behavior. But yeah, no, I don't start with a gun and I don't end with a gun. You can't see that, any production of it, not think about Chekhov's gun. Yeah, yeah. You can't take it out of it.

1:20It's not absent, but we feel the presence of it before we see it, which is what I want to ask you about, because it's produced literally in any production of the play. But here's something we feel just because there's so many people who circle her, talk about the way she uses power and the power that she thinks she has versus the power she has. It's also got a real jazz age feel to it. I mean and the first big song it's also quite if that's not a metaphor for the production itself I don't know what is with Chekhov's gun of it all we what am I saying we I guess I wrote it is this the royal week since you were in the UK I just default to we when I talk about the film because so many people work on it but the script was just me and you know and Ibsen's original text but I knew I wanted to still have the you know you see the gun and it goes off in Act 3, you know, sort of thing, but in a different way.

2:16So, you know, there's some fun stuff in there. Even if you've seen the play, you'll be like, oh, that's not in the play. Like a lot of the things in the movie, actually. But yeah, It's So So Quiet was another moment of me going, yeah, this needs to be all of this chaos that this woman hides inside of her needs to be externalized in a way. And that's the party. I mean, that's, I'm sorry, I laughed out loud. This is the first quote. Oh, she's not going to do that. because also it's playful in a way I've not seen many productions of how to be playful before. And because you can't not be if it's kind of a romantic triangle or in this case, a romantic city.

2:55Yeah. Like multiple triangles touching each other, diamonds, you know, who knows? A lot of shapes. Literally and figuratively a lot of facets in this. But I just thought doing that was a real stroke of wit. and there's also a lot of fun with the way that the floor toms and the tom-toms are playing throughout and they reverberate through the rooms i mean you actually are using the sound of drums in rooms rather than just have soundtrack drums which i thought was interesting too so there's a constant sort of heartbeat yes in the movie isn't there yeah absolutely that was something i talked to hilda guth daughter about you're a composer yeah you're oscar-winning composer yeah my oscar-winning composer who's like the most delightful woman ever, incredibly talented.

3:32And also similar to my collaboration with Sean, I kind of approach it with like, what if, question mark, question mark, you know, what if we use breath as percussion or as punctuation? What if we, you know, had a more percussive score than like a classical string score? Because it's a period piece and I wanted to not fall into any tropes around period pieces. And I also wanted to make sure that the score was super idiosyncratic in the way that I related to Hedda and it was very much about her internal life. And that's how we get the sounds. And Hilda's so intelligent and sort of brilliant that she knew exactly how those sounds need to be recorded, how they need to live in the world.

4:08She came to set and for the voices recorded the crew on set. It was amazing. Your film is not presentational, but the people in it are presentational, which is really interesting because it's all about effect and how people show up and putting Hedda in red. Again, there's so many things that make me laugh about this. I'm so glad. It's a funny movie. It's embracing what's funny about it rather than trying to treat it way too seriously. Because sometimes you can see a production of it and it leads with intent. You want to make that intent subtextual rather than text. Yeah, I sort of like flipped the, in a way, because when I watched it, I remember like, I want to make all this sexual subtext text.

4:49But then all of this sort of... Fighting for power is subtextual. Exactly. I wanted it to just exist on a lot of different layers, which is part of the reason why I made Loveborg a woman is because I was like— See, that fascinating when you did that, and you changed her name. You kept that name because the first name of Loveborg is kind of gender neutral. I alert, yeah. You don't really know what it's about if you're not Norwegian, yeah. Because that character in the play is the most feminine—actually more feminine than that. Oh, I guess from an emotional standpoint, yeah. Because the character is constantly feeling where they stand.

5:23we always know unlike everybody else in it that character is the weather vane and the most susceptible to whoever they're talking to at that moment which is what's really interesting about that movie we see her color change in the room wherever she's with yeah that's really that's a really great way of looking at eilert and eileen and i think part of the reason why i wanted eileen there are two big reasons one was in the play like the men can feel very annoying frankly you know Like, George is like, oh, what's happening? Whoa, Hedda. And then Isla, it's like, I'm such a genius and help. You know, and you're just like, guys, get it together.

5:57Well, he really is the Chekhov's gun, because as soon as you hear him say, well, I'm not drinking anymore, it's like, oh, oh, oh, oh. How long? When's that first drink going to come? Why do you go to Hedda's house and say you're not going to drink? You know that woman's going to make you drink, you know? But I just felt like that character makes more sense as a woman in the context of how I'm trying to work with the themes of like a woman trying to find a path to agency. Hedda chooses a path, which is manipulation. Thea chooses a path, which is sort of attached to this other man, at least in the play, but in the movie attached to this woman, Eileen, and her genius and realizing her own genius as well.

6:30And then Eileen chooses, I'm going to be so brilliant. Excuse me. that I have to be, I will transcend my gender and my sexuality to a certain degree, which, of course, if you're a woman or a person of color, you know you can't transcend those things with anything. And the pain of that is what drives her to depression and to drink. And that's sort of the thesis in my film. It's the treatment. My guest was giving my producer slash editor a little something to do today, is Nia Takasta. Her new film as writer and director is Hedda, an adaptation of Hedda Gambler. I was thinking back to what you did with Candyman, There's a lot of the same way you use interiors to tell us what people are feeling.

7:06Because in this way, this is as much a horror movie as Candyman is kind of a comedy. Your version of comedy. Because it's just like, I can't believe how tense this is. You kind of laugh because it's so tense. Because those rooms say so much. And that's something that I've come to associate with you. And that you use rooms to tell us who these people are. I love that you're picking up on that. Yeah. I mean, I think it's so important. And I mean, in a more macro sense, like I really find environment to be incredibly important. And I generally love to show like a beautiful place in which horrible things happen or horrifying things happen.

7:39But especially in a film like Hedda, these rooms are her gilded cage. But they each are a different space. So like all the scenes in the bedroom are like the most intimate scenes. The scenes where people are the most emotionally honest. And then you have the scenes in the library, which is really George's space. and you see even, that's where Hedda is the most like in her place or at least pretending to be. And then it breaks out into the lake, into the maze and then each place has a purpose. This sense of sort of mirrors exists in your first film. It happens here too. There's this mirroring effect of, certainly for Lubberg, but also for Hedda, whomever she's with, she's kind of mirrors the emotional temperature that person is bringing to her, which is why to me that last scene, And Nicholas Pank was incredible in this, by the way.

8:27It's great to see somebody give him a chance to act because we can just sort of feel his presence so often and he doesn't get a chance to come through. And he really does here. It's a perfect role for him because just because he's trying to pretend to be one thing, but he's really something else. That idea of mirroring happens a lot for you. I'm just fascinated by people and their foils and their masks. And I think Hedda in particular is a character who is always reflecting back to people what she thinks they want to see. And even in that scene with Brack at the end, she's still doing it. She's still trying to be that thing and it doesn't work.

9:04And I think even with Thea and Eileen, like their relationship, they're both trying to project something to the other person that they think they want to see. Because they're both trying to make this thing work for each other. And I think Hedda's someone who wants to smash all the mirrors, you know, at the end of the day. I think she's someone who wants everyone's animal to come out. And that's what she's sort of doing the entire film. I guess I thought about that, too, just because that opening of the play Hedda Gabbler is such an acting showpiece. I mean, it's all about the way those characters talking about her is staged.

9:36And if it's not staged, if it's just people sort of like doing an effect or soliloquies about her and almost prose poems about her, that you're kind of thinking, is she in the play? Yeah, yeah. Because people, there's so much description about her at a certain point. And this is really interesting just to start by showing her. And in both cases, having her be in the center of the frame, almost as if these are Renaissance paintings. I mean, paintings of the 19th century, in fact. She's lighted in both these beginning and end pieces, shots, as if these are period paintings. Like portraits, yeah.

10:12Yeah. Yeah, Sean and I were really, Sean brought up my DP and I, And we were really influenced by, we tried not to use any other films as reference, just because I think it's too easy to, again, fall into the trap of repeating the period thing. But we looked at a lot of paintings and photography and Hammershoy was a big one for us. Okay, sure. Yeah. But actually, you know, I just watched Barry Lyndon again, which is one of my favorite films and probably my favorite Kubrick film. And I hadn't seen it in about 10 years, like before I started directing films. And I was like, oh, wow, this film has been incredibly influential to me.

10:52Even when I was looking at 28, I was like, oh, wow, like this movie really has influenced the way I look at, I think about space and scenery and rooms to a certain degree. and also just having the bravery to hold on a wide or to do a moving master or to let the actors act and really take up the frame. And so that opening, which, you know, you're on her back. She's far away. The next couple scenes, you're not with her on her face until the end of this sort of sequence. Another inspiration for me is the Chaucer's Tale. The Canterbury Tales? Sorry, Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. Thank you so much. And there's one, one of them, he talks about this person getting closer and closer and the way he describes them, you get more and more detail.

11:34And this way into a character, I was like, I want to do that with Hedda, where you're getting closer and closer to her and everything around her is what's telling you about her, and then we get her face. Well, that's certainly a lot to digest. We're going to take a break. The treatment, my guest, is the director and writer of Hedda, which will be in theaters. We'll see you there. Nia Tocasta, there's more to come to stay with us.

11:58No more swearing, it's the treatment. My guest is the writer and director of Hedda, which stars, reunites her with Tessa Thompson and also her cinematographer, Sean Bobbitt. You can also see the show at KCRW.com slash The Treatment. When you said Canterbury Tales, I was thinking because they're also filmed, they're a famous Italian version. It's also, too, about there's a kind of sense in this, as in Canterbury Tales, of almost like Scheherazade, where she is telling these sort of stories kind of to save her own life. Yeah. In that way. Or to basically to build her own life. And I thought that was really interesting because I don't want to say singing for a supper, but there is something about this particular iteration of this.

12:42And she doesn't show a lot of this to anybody. For somebody to go through so much and to play so many emotions and still to be a mystery is a really hard thing to pull off. Tessa did an amazing job. I mean, every time I watch the movie, I'm like, oh, man, she's really good. But that's the thing with Hedda. Hedda, I knew that people have theorized, like, what's wrong with her? What's her mental illness? What's, you know, what's her deal? And, you know, as if, like, having a mental illness can explain away what she does, you know. And I think the thing that's wonderful about her is that she is unknowable, even to herself.

13:16We've all had moments where we've done something or said something before we thought. And then we're like, wait, why do we do that? Why do I feel this way? Why is this happening? And she's such an extreme version of that because it's malignant quite often and violent. and for most of us those actions those moments are not malignant or violent and they're just sort of they're emotional and i think i really wanted to preserve that i want people to have their theories but i don't want everyone to be like oh it's because of xyz and this and then also that and that's why it just feels as much like a horror movie as it does a comedy just because as it goes on there's so many we see what's at stake for people and the thing you do too with the dialogue is you take away people saying why they're there when everybody shows up at this place, they're telling us why they're there, which of course you have to do in a play.

13:57It's interesting that you saw that you could use the language of film to tell this story and to also make us lean in a little bit closer because these things aren't being said. And it's funny too, because all these assessments of Hedda, half of which people are saying in front of her is if she wasn't there, which still tells us that she's a person who's a woman. And by virtue of that and being a woman of color, not taken seriously so we can treat her like this case for study. I mean, I think what you do subtextually with this is really so compelling. Thank you so much. She's just so dimensional.

14:32Like, she's so dimensional and she's so complicated. But also, I found her very straightforward in ways. I think there's an urge, especially now, because I think there's a push because there's so much out there. Like, everyone has to understand everything. You have to make sure the audience connects. You have to make sure the audience is going out. We need to know exactly why X went to Z and A went to B. But you don't do that in any of your movies. I mean, maybe Marvel's a little bit, but I can't say in any of the movies you've done, you've explained. Well, because I think audience is so smart because we have our own, I think the whole point of film and art and storytelling is like for us to connect our emotional tether to the character's emotional tether.

15:07And the best way, in my opinion, to do that is to watch someone act. And then for you to go, oh, I can see why I would act that way. As opposed to saying, this is why that character did that. To like such a sort of 100 % understanding degree, It's better if you have the audience connecting the dots themselves and disagreeing about it. Like, I love leaving a movie and my friends and I start debating. Oh, no, that happened because of this. Well, no, because I'm not seeing this happen. Oh, well, maybe, maybe that, you know, like that to me is so important in film and TV. I think it's like vital, actually.

15:38And also I try to, some things obviously you explain, but then a lot of it too, you just want people to be complicated the way that we're complicated, the way that you yourself are unknowable to yourself in ways. I want to have that feeling as well. Here's something I want to ask you about, because you've had three of your films are pieces that people will come into with expectations. Candy Man people know, I mean, especially a person of color. It's one of the few flares of respectability that we get in films in the 90s. And it was all couched in genre. And with the Marvels, people come with expectations of what that's going to be and what a comic book movie does and what a Marvel movie does.

16:16and the way women are depicted in that world of superheroes. And people certainly are incredibly possessive about Hedda because you know it. Yes. And you feel, I don't want to say the sense of ownership, but you feel a sense of comfort about these things that you know about these things. Yeah. And there's a big part of you that loves to subvert people's expectations about what these things are supposed to, I'm sorry, forgive me, subvert, upend people's expectations about what they're going to get in these things. Yeah. Well, I'm just a true believer. And I think, one, because, you know, big old nerd growing up, just love, love, like, fandom.

16:51And, like, you know, Sailor Moon was my thing. Oh, shoot. Yeah. But, yeah, I'm a big old nerd. And, like, you know, the MCU was such—I remember where I was, where I was sitting in the theater when I saw Iron Man in 2008 for the first time. Like, I remember where I was when I watched Spider-Man in 2002. Like, these things are super important to me, and I know what that energy is. And like I go to New York Comic Con every year with my friends. And so I know what the energy is. I know what the feeling is of wanting this thing to stay pure and precious. And also I know how exciting it is when you get something new.

17:25And also I know that the thing that existed before is not going anywhere. And what you don't want to do is just create a rehash of it. At least that's not what I want to do. So I felt very comfortable sort of, I don't want to say upending, but like, you know, shifting things because I do it from a place of love and respect and being a fan. It's interesting to go because you can tell by the way the men's shirt collars, who they are. Lindsay Pugh, amazing costume designer. I want all those shirts because we can sort of see Heather's husband has like the long point of somebody's trying to sort of show he's respectable and old school.

18:01and Brax is like, I just had this made. This is a short point so I can show off my tie and my lapels. Also, the way all the women's dresses nip at their waist in different ways. Even the idea of showing a corset at Lumberg is like, it's mind-blowing to me. It's just like, oh, that's who this character is, so why not put that character in a corset to demonstrate that and show that somebody can't breathe? I'm sorry, that's amazing to me. Hedda in particular, we really were like, let's snatch that waist in. Like, she's starving and she's stuck. Like, there's so much boning in her. She's wearing corset.

18:38So much boning in that bodice. So it's like a whale bound that holds the corset again. Yes, exactly. And so it's so important that you see. But at the same time, she's taking up space with the skirt. Yeah, yeah. And then Lovework comes in and she's also like, you know, she's in like this beautiful blue color that doesn't really exist elsewhere in the film in the same way. And then she has like a very, the bodice, the chest is very like, hello, I've arrived. All that tool around her shoulder. It's like there's soft and there's hard and then there's like feminine and then there's masculine, like all happening at once with her, which is like, which is super important.

19:08And then Thea's in this terrible dress that Hedda gives her that doesn't fit. And, you know, but it's still beautiful in its own way. Again, I just thought watching that, it really, it took my breath away. because people talk about, you know, changing gender and changing color and making these things color neutral. You can't make it gender neutral or color neutral because those are areas of definition. And to see her trying to fight to be this thing at this period where you moved it to where modernity is just around the corner. And for 20 years later, she'd be taken seriously. The pattern tag is about to explode.

19:43Yeah. Being trapped in 1890. It's like years before anything's really going to change. but make this feel like, God, if she could just have blasted, if she had just not gone to this party. Yes. Well, this is what's interesting. So when we were shooting, you know, the whole thing is like, will she drink, will she not drink? But we're shooting the scene where that question appears, and I remember talking to a friend of mine who's a recovering alcoholic, and he said, it's not a big event because you've already started reworking your days. Like that bar you used to not pass by because it was tricking you start to walk by the bar.

20:16or your friend that you kind of avoided a bit who keeps asking you to hang out, you know, you start seeing that friend again. And obviously it's different for everyone, but he was like, it's very common for actually the moment it happens to be inevitable because you, something in you has already been rearranging. So for Eileen to go to this house, not just to a party, but with this woman who is probably the most triggering person she could be around. Obviously she has other reasons for being there, but it does say something also about where she is in her life and where on her tether she is for her to go in the end.

20:48We'll say no more except to say, see Hedda. And it would be nice to have you come back and do the show again. This is a great time. Yeah, this is great. Her new film as writer and director is Hedda, an adaptation of Hedda Gampler. My guest, of course, is Nia DeCasa. Thanks again for doing this. Thanks.

21:12Director Nia DaCosta has taken us to the cold plains of North Dakota for her film Little Woods, the streets of Chicago for a reboot of Candyman, and the Marvel Universe for The Marvels. Her newest cinematic journey is Hedda, now in theaters and streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Though you can't catch The Treat here, you can find it still at kcrw.com slash the treat, where director Helena Ryan talks about her Ibsen inspiration. The show is produced and edited by Rebecca Mooney and mixed by Katie Gilchrist. To better days, everyone, I'm still here. It's The Treatment.