In 2021, Michaela Coel gave an acceptance speech at the Emmy Awards that I think about almost daily. In it, Coel said, “In a world that entices us to browse through the lives of others to help us better determine how we feel about ourselves, and to, in turn, feel the need to be constantly visible, for visibility these days seems to somehow equate to success. Do not be afraid to disappear, from it, from us, for a while, and see what comes to you in the silence.” I think about this speech a lot not just because I am a writer, and that’s who Coel was speaking to specifically, but because it says a lot about fame and creativity. Mother Mary, the A24 gothic pop opera in which Coel stars alongside Anne Hathaway, is mostly about who gets the credit for creative genius, but it’s also about what happens when you are constantly visible and when that visibility eats away at the truest parts of you, rendering you unable to differentiate performance from reality. It’s about deafening silence battling against screaming crowds, the inner quiet that refuses to acquiesce to loud adoration. The film is also a ghost story and a love story, despite what its tagline suggests.
Hathaway plays the titular character, Mother Mary, a pop star who seeks out her ex-best friend (and maybe lover?) Sam (Coel), her former costume designer and the woman responsible for turning the singer into a global icon with a distinct look. Performing music written and produced by Charli xcx, Jack Antonoff, and FKA twigs, Hathaway is transcendent. Onstage, she’s ethereal, yet commanding and powerful. She’s giving Lady Gaga meets Florence Welsh, even though director David Lowery credits Taylor Swift as a major inspiration (Hathaway herself name checks Beyoncé’s Homecoming in our interview). Offstage, a haunted Mother Mary retreats to Sam’s barn, a makeshift wardrobe workshop, and begs her to make sense of the physical and emotional descent she’s on. As the thoughtful, scorned genius costume designer Sam, Coel is riveting.
The movie is essentially a two-hander, unfolding like a play. Sam delivers long, righteous monologues that justify her indignation towards her former creative partner. Mother Mary did Sam dirty and she hasn’t forgotten. The movie is also about a white pop star denying credit owed to a Black woman behind-the-scenes, a tale Hollywood knows well. It’s implied that Sam is doing fine now, finding success on her own, but she’s more recluse than Mary. She saw what came to her in the silence. Mother Mary is trying to do the same. As they battle their metaphorical and literal demons, and each other, the result is an exhilarating face-off between two of the greatest living actresses of their generation. At times, the film doesn’t meet the bar set by its stellar performances, but when it does, Mother Mary is triumphant.
As they battle their metaphorical and literal demons, and each other, the result is an exhilarating face-off between two of the greatest living actresses of their generation.
kathleen newman-bremang
When I sat down with Coel and Hathaway earlier this month in New York City, they exuded the same awe for each other that their characters do onscreen, without the sordid past and resentment. They are both as thoughtful and attentive as their personas suggest, and more playful and energetic than you may expect from two women promoting two movies at once (Coal has The Christophers and Mother Mary, while Hathaway is also on a marathon press run for The Devil Wears Prada 2). From Mother Mary’s all-female cast to the glaring racial dynamic between their characters, we get into it all. Plus, of course, I had to ask about Coel’s now seminal Emmys speech.
There is not a man in sight in this film, and we love to see it! So talk about this all-female cast. Onscreen, the world is entirely shaped by women. Why was that so important for this film and how did it impact the set?
Michaela Coel: Well, there were some men, eventually. The dancers.
Anne Hathaway: Yes, exactly.
MC: But only the women speak.
Important distinction!
AH: I didn’t notice that for some time. So I don’t know how important it was necessarily, because it wasn’t insisted upon. That wasn’t like there was a group meeting where we were like, “only women speak in the movie!” I don’t know how to describe it. I’ve had this feeling once in a film before, where I go, Oh, this is what it’s like to be a guy, because we have the majority position on this one. The word that came to mind was natural. It was fun. It was inclusive. Whenever there would be these big scenes that involved the entire cast, we would always meet up a couple days before at my house and just eat food and talk, and it was just lovely energy, lovely people.
MC: I wonder for David [Lowery], it may have been deliberate, and I wonder whether you notice that it’s all women when you’re a man, I don’t think any of us realized that we were in a film with just women, but I’m wondering whether, if you’re a man, you immediately notice that this film is full of women.
I think a pop star would rather die than be caught stealing from someone else. So I tried to respect that.
anne hathaway on mother mary’s influences
You know what, I didn’t notice until I heard David speak about it after a screening of the film and I thought, That is rare. OK so a lot of this movie is about credit, and who gets credit. I want to give you the chance to give each other credit, or some recognition that you feel like the other needs more of.
MC: There’s this scene in the film in which you’ve seen Anne has to do this dance in a barn. When an actress or an actor comes to play a pop star, there are a million ways to play a pop star, and there’s a version of that which requires no stretching. Anybody can be a pop star, really, but Anne chose to learn and stretch and bend and break herself as an artist to put together Mother Mary. The strength that she had — to learn the choreography, the splits, the carrying her own body weight and putting her legs up in the air — is something she didn’t have to do. She chose to do that. And as the person who’s often quite lazy [laughs], I had to learn to be a fashion designer. I think I spent a day in Germany in some artillery with Schiaparelli, with our costume designer, and then I was done.
AH: I don’t think lazy is the right word, considering you just told me what you’re doing on your new show, and you biked to work every single day. I’m just gonna gently push back on that one. [laughs]. Where to begin with Michaela Coel? You could focus on the intellect, you could focus on the talent, you could focus on the bravery, you could focus on the vision. You could focus on the poetry. You could focus on the majesty. I’m just going to keep it superficial and say you’re drop dead gorgeous. The face card is another level.
MC: Thank you.
Anne, I know there were a lot of real-life influences for Mother Mary, like Taylor Swift, Beyonce and St Vincent. How did you find your version of her without simply imitating those icons?
AH: Those artists loom so large in our culture. They certainly do for me. So I was very aware that there was no possible way to steal because we all know them so well. I actually tried not to be influenced by them. What I tried to do was study them in order to know the space that they occupied so completely that I would know where there was negative space still to be claimed. And that was so much of what informed Mother Mary were the choices that other people hadn’t made that felt authentic to our film, where I really got inspired by all of these women were in their tour documentaries, and watching them in their raw state, build these shows that wind up becoming these incredible cultural experiences.
I watched Homecoming so many times, and watching Beyoncé go from being postpartum to doing that show for two hours for two weekends. And then she changed the show up every weekend. The costumes were totally different. It’s another level. And so I think I just tried to honor that wild drive that pop stars have. In terms of the specifics of Mother Mary versus the specifics of them, I think a pop star would rather die than be caught stealing from someone else. So I tried to respect that.
There is something very potent about being a dark-skinned woman in this film who lives in a dark barn where she is barely seen.
michaela coel on playing sam
There’s so much between these characters that isn’t said but felt. And the racial dynamic is there – a Black woman helps shape the vision of a white global icon and doesn’t get the credit she deserves. How did you both interpret and navigate that racial dynamic between Mother Mary and Sam?
MC: We didn’t really have those conversations, but they were never had with anybody but me and my journal and Tasha Smith, who I worked with a little bit in preparation for this. It was kind of interesting. I didn’t consciously see or feel that, but it naturally moved through me when I think about the playlist that I made. It’s a lot of Black American singers from the 60s, 70s and 80s, and I would listen to their music every day. Esther Marrow, Dion Warwick, Chaka Khan, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Peabo Bryson. When I look at a lot of those artists and a lot of the music of that time, it has been appropriated and sucked in by the pop machine or by the R&B machine, but just with people that look completely different, there is something very strong about that. There is something very potent about being a dark-skinned woman in this film who lives in a dark barn where she is barely seen. And I think those things will resonate to particular kinds of people, and for them, they receive a different layer to the story. And that’s the great thing about both David Lowry’s casting and his writing; everybody’s going to take something very different from their experience watching it.
Michaela, before I go I have to thank you for your work. Thank you for Chewing Gum. Thank you for I May Destroy You. And thank you for your 2021 Emmys speech which I think about all the time. You said “Visibility these days seems to somehow equate to success. Do not be afraid to disappear for a while … and see what comes to you in the silence.” I would love to know what that means to you now. And for both of you, how important it is to disappear for a while and see what comes to you in the silence.
MC: It’s my favorite thing. I literally look at the map and I go, Where can I go now? Where nobody knows who I am. I’m gonna go there by myself, like Northern Michigan and Jacksonville. That’s where I was the day before I came here, just on the porch with my friend, who’s 79 now, chilling. That’s me disappearing. And it’s not just to create it’s to re-humanize myself, because this is all an amazing game that we have the privilege and knowledge to create and get immersed in. And then I love to just go 10 toes down, see my cousins, see my friends from secondary school, high school, that’s why I need to disappear into those places. And then somehow art finds me along the way. And then I get to come back into the world and give people what I found in the cave, and that’s so nice. It’s like bringing a rare diamond to the world.
I do have a lot of movies coming out, so it’s time to hibernate.
anne hathaway
AH: That’s beautiful. For me, I have to temper that instinct with the fact that I’ve been a recognizable person since I was a teenager. So being able to disappear is not always something that’s available to me.
MC: Come to Ghana. I’ll find you some spots.
AH: I’d love to. I told you I want to come! I tend to try to take little dips [out] in rather than these big dips. So I’ll try to find places that I love and that feed me at odd times when they’re sort of not very populated, or they kind of feel abandoned. And that is really, really important, because I try to offer my soul when I act, and if my soul is not fed. I’m not quite sure what I’m offering. And it matters so much to me that to just recognize that my life, which is very far from where it began, I can’t really think about it as mine. You know, it’s the result of the support that I’ve received for decades from so many people, and it matters so much to me that if I ask you to invest your time and your money that you work so hard for, if I ask you to invest that in me, I have to give you something amazing in return. And so I just kind of try to focus on that balance, because I do feel like I’m also fed by the work, and I do want to improve as an actor, and the only way to do that is, is by doing it. That being said, I do have a lot of movies coming out, so it’s time to hibernate, for sure. Time to go to Ghana [laughs].
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Mother Mary is in theaters now.
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