Of course, I have to ask about Diego and Sienna because their chemistry is so good, and you guys didn’t have a lot of time to shoot. How was it working with them and helping them build that chemistry?
The first thing is, in advance of even getting to be with them physically, I sent them backstories, playlists, etc. I sent Diego such a big backstory. He said, “Tara, this reads like a Polish novel.” They’ve known each other a long time. They share an agent. You know that feeling where you’re like, “Oh, I’ve known you since I first got to L.A.” It’s someone who you just trust who knows you. Then we had a week of rehearsal and we were able to have this time, not just to work through the nuances and turns of the script, which were very challenging, but to get very personal and vulnerable about our experiences with grief, love, loss, and otherworldly things. They just were both so available to the work. They’re both so present. They’re fiercely intelligent, quite intimidating. They wanted to elevate it constantly. It was a constant effort between the three of us to make it better and make it the best it could be and be as honest as we could be with it. They came up with a lot of little things together. The couple put their foreheads together, they do it in the bathroom scene, and a couple of other times was their beat. It seems like such a small thing, but they created a physical history for this couple, which was really important.
This script is just insane and I want to know because I’ve been trying to write a screenplay forever, but I’m very judgmental of myself, so that’s a whole other thing…
Believe me. It’s my worst problem when I’m trying to write a script.
“…a constant effort between the three of us to make it better and make it the best…”
Really? Oh my God, that makes me feel so much better. I’m wondering how long did it take you to write the script?
It’s interesting. In a lot of ways, this movie had a lot more gestation downtime than it did proper writing time. I had the idea, maybe like six months after the accident. It was just like the idea in the middle of the night. I knew like A-B-C and that’s how it ends. Then I started kind of whispering it to people to get their take, and people kept gasping at the little pitch. So, I was like “Okay, there’s something here.” Then I think about two months later I did a one-page of what I kind of thought it would be. Then I have a document that’s probably three months after that which was like twelve pages of it. I was working, right? I was doing other stuff, so I’d sort of dive back in. The treatment itself took the longest time. I want to say maybe like three months just to get the treatment. I thought I would share it with people and see if I could get paid to write it, and then I realized the treatment didn’t really make much sense. It needed to be executed. So my husband was shooting a reality TV show in Georgia for five months. I have two little kids. I decided I was going to fly down to Georgia with the kids, get a nanny every morning, and just like write. I basically wrote us into debt. I was paying my nanny almost as much as my husband was getting paid so that I could sit and write, which was a little bit of pressure, so that helps. I had a friend give me a deadline. That really helped me. I knew I had to get this act done. Every week I’d do an act. Act one, then the first half of act two. So I wrote it in four weeks. When I write, I try, I’m not always good at it, but I really try not to look back. So, I will just go…it’s like stretching out the accordion. “Okay, I have this paragraph, so now I know this will be a scene.” I put it into Final Draft and I was like, “Oh, look, I already have 15 pages. That’s good!” Then I sort of accordion out. Honestly, quieting the voices in my head, all those critical voices, is the biggest job, the hardest job. I don’t know how other people manage it. I have literally said out loud in my office, “Everybody, please go away! I have to work!”
