Phyllida Lloyd is known for her award-winning work in theater, opera, and film. In 2008, she directed the film version of “Mamma Mia,” which went on to make over $600 million worldwide. Lloyd also directed “The Iron Lady” in 2011, which grossed over $100 million at the box office and achieved a Best Actress Oscar for its star Meryl Streep at the 84th Academy Awards. Her theater, opera, and musical work include “The Handmaid’s Tale” for the Royal Danish Opera and ENO, the award-winning film of “Gloriana” for BBC2, and “Mary Stuart” for the Donmar Warehouse and St. Ann’s Warehouse, which won a 2006 South Bank Show Theatre award.
“Herself” will premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival on January 24.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
PL: A “meitheal” is an Irish word for a coming together of neighbors to help a member of a community with a task. Sandra is a mother who has lost her home and her community, and has no one to turn to. When she is offered the chance to rebuild her life, one person must be kept out of the picture. Can she keep herself and her children safe?
W&H: What drew you to this story?
PL: We are all implicated in it, and it should move us to want to make change and see how it could occur. I love the story’s message, which is so obvious, but no one is doing anything — yet!
I wanted to tell the story, but only with Clare Dunne, the writer, in the leading role. It was the chance to make something where you couldn’t see the gap between actor and screenplay. You aren’t seeing acting. You are in the presence of something — a tearing off of skins.
W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?
PL: “Were those people actors?”
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
PL: We had to build a house! Which meant leaving the location every time we had to advance the construction of it. In a five-week shoot, this was logistically insane and expensive in time. But every time the cast and crew returned to it, they came round the corner and all went “wow!”
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.
PL: Screen Ireland, BBC Films, and the British Film Institute are all publicly funded bodies, so taxpayers in the UK and Ireland paid for it. The producers had long and deep relationships with the extraordinary women running these bodies, and their support during the development was crucial.
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
PL: I was sent away to an arts-obsessed boarding school when I was 11, and every Sunday night a man smoking a pipe would come and project black and white movies to the whole school of 120 of us. We saw all kinds of very male stories like “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “Battleship Potemkin.” I can still hear the film whirring through the sprocket and the sobbing of all 120 of us at the end of many weepies.
For many years, I was obsessed with stills photography and making plays for the theater, and I didn’t make my first feature till I was 50. It’s been a bit upside down in that I started with a big budget and have been working to get down to a smaller budget, which I think suits me. Though throughout my theater career, I was always abreast of Hollywood action — my passions were in French, Italian, German, and latterly Russian cinema.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
PL: The worst advice: “If you haven’t made a feature film by the time you are 40 you never will.”
The best advice: “Don’t worry if you haven’t solved everything. The solution will come, but maybe not till the last inch.”
W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?
PL: Never say no to the chance to travel.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
PL: Margarethe Von Trotta’s “The German Sisters” made a massive impression on me when I’d just begun working in TV in 1981. I can’t remember the details of how I received its personal and political narrative, but I’ve never forgotten the vivid sense of being put into other women’s shoes. Of the searing burden of inheritance of the Holocaust that we in the UK seemed to have floated over, as if it had nothing to do with us.
W&H: What differences have you noticed in the industry since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?
PL: On the one hand, everyone is now hyper-aware of the power relationships in all workplaces and has an eye out for bullying and exploitation, but on the other hand, women are still struggling to get their voices heard and their films made. When I made my first film at Pinewood Studios in 2007, I walked onto the set on day one and hundreds of men were saluting each other and saying things like “morning sir” and “morning governor.” When they saw me, they just didn’t know what words to use. Last year I made a film and that didn’t happen — partly because I chose to work with people for whom that was not the culture, but also because it had gone out of fashion.
But I’m still shocked by how little complaint there seems to be that most stories on screen, or the ones that receive enough backing to dominate the foreground, are about men. I honestly think men still don’t notice if we aren’t there, or comprehend how damaging to our children it is to show women in certain objectified or “bimbo” lights.
