If “The Handmaid’s Tale” is area we’re going, “Alias Grace” is area we came from.
So says Sarah Polley, the biographer and ambassador abaft the new Netflix adjustment of Margaret Atwood’s 1996 novel. The assignment of absolute fiction revolves about the titular Grace Marks, a 19th-century assistant accused of atrociously murdering the adept of her domiciliary and his mistress, a adolescent housekeeper, with the advice of a stablehand. The real-life abomination rocked Upper Canada in 1843, casting the Victorian association into a blue balloon that amounted to a activity book for Marks and a blind for her accomplice. After 30 years in prison, Grace was eventually pardoned, but her absolution was a bald alleviation award-winning afterwards decades of active as a belled woman.
“Murderess is a able chat to accept absorbed to you,” Marks says in Atwood’s book. “It has a aroma to it, that chat ― musky and oppressive, like asleep flowers in a vase. Sometimes at night I buzz it over to myself: Murderess, murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta brim beyond the floor.”
Polley brought the admired Atwoodian annual to activity with the advice of acclaimed “American Psycho” administrator Mary Harron. Together, they created a six-episode miniseries that places Marks, expertly played by Sarah Gadon, as its centermost of gravity. She at times appears powerless, the artefact of abjection and carelessness afflicted into an cruel activity of servitude, and at added times as a absent-minded and advised enigma, apprenticed by an centralized force we’ve yet to understand. Is she a barbarous killer, or a disproportionately abominable castaway?
Both Atwood and the Polley-Harron adjustment aggregation shy abroad from answering that question. Instead, the new Netflix alternation is at its best aback it sinks into the celebrated capacity that complicate Marks’ narrative. In the show’s anxiously crafted world, an answer of absolute 19th-century horrors, lower-class women are relegated to animal prey, casting as the connected targets of exceptionable advances and the adverse recipients of adulterated abortions. Indeed, if “Handmaid’s Tale” is the fundamentalist dystopia of our future, “Alias Grace” makes it its mission to acrylic a ablaze annual of the disregarded history that would accomplish Gilead possible.
We batten to Harron advanced of the show’s premiere on Nov. 3. and she echoed Polley’s alarming alongside amid both amazing Atwood adaptations, and explained what it was like bringing the adventure of Grace Marks to life.
What initially drew you to the adjustment of Alias Grace?
Well, I hadn’t apprehend the novel. I knew annihilation about the adventure activity in, I had no preconceptions about it. But it’s such a absurd plot. You get absolutely fatigued into this world. I’ve consistently admired ambiguity and mystery, and additionally a changeable appearance who suffers a lot but isn’t conventionally, like, “Oh, poor Grace.” She’s absolute complicated. Is she good? Is she bad? Accept the things she’s suffered angry her into a murderer? All of these things. I was absolute fatigued into the apple appropriate away.
Were you a Margaret Atwood fan afore this?
Yeah, I’m Canadian, so of course. I was additionally at university in the ’70s aback her aboriginal novels started advancing out. Or, at least, that’s aback I started advertent them. She had a big appulse on feminism at the point ― of that generation. I was absolute afflicted by the belief that she was telling. But I hadn’t apprehend her best contempo stuff. So it was a absolute revelation. [Alias Grace] is absolutely my admired Margaret Atwood atypical now.
The atypical is based on a absolute abomination that happened in Canada in the 1840s. Were you acquainted of the adventure of Grace Marks at all?
I apprehend a brace reviews of [Atwood’s] book aback it came out, but I had never heard of [Marks]. It was absolute mysterious. I’ve done a lot of aeon ball ― my aboriginal blur [“I Shot Andy Warhol”] was the 1960s, “Bettie Page” was the 1950s, “American Psycho” was the 1980s. I advised abstract at university ― I’m appealing steeped in the Victorian atypical ― so I consistently capital to do a aeon ball like this. This is a absolute absorbing booty on a 19th-century story.
The adventure revolves about conceivably one of the best ambiguous characters Margaret Atwood anytime wrote. If you could accord your own appearance description of Grace Marks, what would it be?
This is important: She’s a adolescent girl, Protestant, from Northern Ireland. She’s absolute competent and able and bright. She’s the array of actuality who could accept run a corporation, but she’s built-in into a apple of absurd abjection and oppression, and she suffers greatly. She’s absolutely puritanical, like a lot of Northern Irish Protestants. I can say that, because my family’s from there. She has adulation in her heart, but the catechism is: With all her sufferings, did they accomplish her a bigger actuality or a worse person? With all the abhorrent things that she has had to go through, which way did they about-face her in the end? I had this chat with Margaret Atwood. Bodies anticipate that adversity makes you noble, but not always. Sometimes, a lot of adversity can about-face you. It can accomplish you avenging and murderess. You don’t know.
Yes, that’s absolutely one of the arresting aspects of the way Atwood wrote the character. You don’t necessarily apperceive if Grace is the advocate or the adversary of the story. And that doesn’t absolutely assume to be the point. There’s not a accomplished lot of chastity to it; it’s artlessly an absorbing appearance exploration.
Yes. It’s a real-life story. Although there’s not a lot accepted about Grace, there are assertive absolute annal and interviews with bodies at the time about what happened during those murders. I adulation real-life stories, because the behaviors are consistently so contradictory. It’s like ... why? Why didn’t you acquaint anyone? Why, aback the boner answered the door, didn’t you acquaint him that [James] McDermott was activity to annihilate someone? You know? It’s funny, aback Sarah Gadon and I were activity through the calligraphy and authoritative addendum on the appearance together, we were like, “Grace, what were you thinking?” You anticipate you apperceive her, Grace. You anticipate you accept a band on her, but again there is some allotment of the adventure that puts that out of whack. As with Simon [Jordan] during the drama. Simon is consistently actuality angry about and addled by her, and banging his arch adjoin the wall, because you can never absolutely get a handle on who she is.
During a TIFF masterclass this year, you told audiences that the key to eliciting a standout achievement from your actors is “entirely casting.” What was the activity like casting Sarah Gadon in the role of Grace? How did you apperceive she was the one?
I had formed with her before, six or seven years ago, on a cine alleged “The Moth Diaries,” in which she was amphitheatre 16 [years old], actually. I’d apparent hundreds of bodies for the role I casting her in, and she absolutely recorded an audience for me on her computer, because she was filming overseas. As anon as I saw her, I thought, this babe is remarkable. Aback you accommodated her, she’s array of an old soul, a absolute absorbing person. And animate with her, she’s absolute subtle. She does what I absolutely like in actors, she does a lot of layers. She makes adjustments absolute quickly. Alike as a adolescent extra who hadn’t done that abounding movies, she could accomplish these absurd attenuate changes and betoken a lot activity on beneath the surface. And also, with Grace, you appetite addition who is absolute beautiful, but who has a abstruseness to them, which she has affectionate of effortlessly. You could absolutely aloof watch her face for a continued time. And with Edward [Holcroft], too. You know, there are these continued scenes area they are aloof sitting in a allowance talking. You appetite to be able to amble on their faces.
What affectionate of analysis did you do afore filming ― in agreement of annual up on the era and real-life crime?
Margaret Atwood had recommended some books. She gave Sarah Polley a array of book list, and I apprehend one in authentic ― a 19th-century woman’s annual of traveling through Canada. That was absolutely absorbing on the activity of assistant girls as animal prey. It’s consistently absorbing to apprehend abreast accounts that accord the attitudes of the time. Margaret Atwood had done so abundant analysis into language. Usually I’m absolute agitated by aeon inaccuracies and chat anachronisms, but Margaret Atwood has done all the work. She is absolute authentic, not aloof in how bodies talked, but how they anticipation and behaved. You know, women anticipation in absolute altered means [in the 1800s]. Grace saw her activity absolute abnormally than a woman today sees her life, or sees sexuality, religion, everything.
But in agreement of the affectionate of analysis I had to do, that was added with the assembly artist about accepting the absolute capacity of the apple right. And for Sarah Gadon, she had to apprentice how to do all this housework! She had to apprentice how to sew and quilt. I didn’t appetite her faking, and she didn’t appetite to either. She’s adornment throughout so abounding of those conversations, so she had to be so acceptable at it she could do it after looking. And it has to be absolutely natural. She spent weeks and months learning. Domestic activity is a accomplished adventure in that.
Watching [Gadon] as Grace, you can absolutely see calluses on her hands.
Right! I was with the architecture administration and I was like, “You accept to roughen her hands.” She has admirable hands, you know. So she did some of it herself, and again we had the architecture aggregation roughen them up, too.
You spent time at Ontario’s Kingston Penitentiary, area the absolute Grace Marks absolutely spent time during her lifetime. What was it like filming there?
That was addition absorbing thing. Aback I apprehend the script, the way that they were written, the corpuscle was a abundant bigger cell. But aback we went on our area advance to Kingston Penitentiary, and additionally to penitentiary’s museum, we saw a reproduction of a bastille corpuscle from the 19th century. It was about a 5-foot coffin, the admeasurement of a distinct bed. And that’s area bodies would absorb bisected their lives. I was absolute taken by this, by this abstraction that [Grace] was active animate for all these years ― all of the prisoners were. So I had to actuate everybody, because it fabricated it abundant added difficult to shoot, to accomplish the corpuscle smaller. She could still angle up, because we fabricated it a bottom wider. I knew it would be adamantine to shoot, because we couldn’t get the camera axial the room, but the assembly artist agreed with me ― this is important and we charge to accomplish it real.
The added affair that came out from that museum, which wasn’t absolutely in the aboriginal calligraphy or the book, was this affair alleged “the box,” area they’d put prisoners axial this cocked coffin. There’s this amphitheatre with Grace area you see her face in a little aperture in the copse and she’s screaming. We aloof saw that box, and I asked Sarah [Polley] to address that in. It’s horrifying. It’s medieval. I mean, the rules ... you get aerated for attractive or whispering or if you beam or smile. It was barbaric, and we capital to appearance that for real.
Was that difficult for Sarah Gadon to perform? Did the authentic ambience accompany a altered affectionate of force to the script?
I anticipation it did. It was boxy on her. I stepped axial that box to see what it was like and I was like, oh my God, let me out. I wouldn’t force an extra to do it, but I anticipate best actresses who are demography it actively appetite to go there and acquaintance some of this.
One of my admired curve from the 1996 NYT analysis of “Alias Grace” reads: “There’s annihilation like the comedy of changeable abomination brought to amends to animate the ancient, tired, allegedly amaranthine agitation over whether women are by attributes angelic or demonic.” This is acutely a axial affair in Atwood’s book. How did you and Sarah Polley go about bringing this “debate” to ablaze in your adaptation?
Sarah Polley has a absolutely abundant adduce about this, about women befitting so abundant and amphitheatre to added people’s expectations of them. Of women amphitheatre altered roles and amphitheatre altered bodies in altered circumstances. That’s what she’s apropos to in those aboriginal few words of the script, aback [Grace] says, “People anticipate I’m a changeable demon. Bodies anticipate I’m a poor innocent victim. Bodies anticipate I’m this and that.” What is the capital woman? Victorian women, especially, accept all these images put on them.
I additionally admired the abstraction that one woman can be apparent and get to portray a appearance in such altered ways, after you alive which is the absolute one. That accustomed a abundant added complicated changeable character. One of the things I adulation about Margaret Atwood is that she’s never like, “Men are bad and women are good.” She’s autograph about acrid amusing pressures and injustices that don’t consistently accompany out the best in people. Like the accord amid Grace and Nancy [Montgomery], who are both absolutely victims of society, both banal girls, one of whom is abundant and has managed to barb a little cachet for herself. I anticipate Margaret Atwood has this appearance of women that they can become like rats in a cage ― they can about-face on anniversary other, because there’s so little assurance for them. That was absolute truthful, about how boxy amusing settings can accompany out competitiveness and rivalries. You would like to anticipate that women are consistently [supportive], but …
Netflix
What was it like accepting Margaret Atwood on set? And administering her in a adornment role?
Oh, it was fun. I didn’t accept to do too abundant directing. There was a lot of agitation because the calendar had gone wrong. It was like the additional day of shooting, and she was cat-and-mouse about in a abundant apparel in 90 amount calefaction for hours and hours. We were like, “Ahhhh.” But she was absolute acceptable about it. And I anticipate she was absolute amused, because on her bivouac it said, “Difficult Woman.” That was her name in the [episode].
How much, if at all, did she appearance the adaptation?
I don’t know, I’m not buried to that. Sarah showed her a lot of the drafts at every stage, I think. I anticipate [Atwood’s] appealing easily off, but Sarah Polley was afraid that it be absolute faithful, so she ran a lot of it by her.
Obviously the accomplished appearance is advancing out in the deathwatch of “Handmaid’s Tale” Season 1. If it’s accessible for there to be added fandom about Margaret Atwood, now seems to be the time. Abounding admirers saw “Handmaid’s Tale” as an candidly feminist appearance that aggressive a lot of activism. Did you anticipate “Alias Grace” as an candidly feminist show?
It’s feminist in the faculty that it’s presenting a alone and important allotment of changeable history, which is the lives of changeable agents in a astute way. The adventure of Mary Whitney happened to tens of bags of girls. Hundreds of bags of girls got pregnant, were raped or were absorbed and abandoned, were animal fodder for aloof men. And that’s a absolutely alone allotment of history, you know, of what these girls’ lives were like.
Sarah Polley said that “Alias Grace” is area we appear from, and “Handmaid’s Tale” is area we ability go. It’s important politically to apperceive area you appear from in an authentic way. The aforementioned affair is accident with how we attending at bullwork or the Confederacy and the Civil War. It’s important for us to dig aback and say, “We accept assertive versions of the past, but are there added versions we charge to be acquainted of?” In this case, there’s a somewhat arcadian appearance of the country house, and the blessed agents who adulation their masters and the masters who affliction for their servants. Is this true? No! Those agents were awfully exploited. Abnormally the adolescent women, who were animal casualty to all the adolescent men. They’d get pregnant, and that was the end of them. What was it like to get an aborticide aback then? Well, we’ll appearance you. It’s not alike that continued ago, and that’s what our society’s developed out of. We charge to admonish ourselves of that. I bethink aback I was active in London there was this abstraction of abiding to Victorian values. Well, those are Victorian values: adolescent activity and adolescent women actuality befuddled out into the streets. That’s our history.
That affair seems decidedly accordant in a time aback a admiral wants to “Make America Abundant Again.”
[Laughs] A lot of the time we appetite to acculturate the past, and that can accept a political calendar abaft it. Bodies acculturate the 1950s in America for the aforementioned acumen ― that was a Reagan thing. Let’s acknowledgment the ’50s. Well ... segregation. In agreement of women’s stories, there a lot of belief that haven’t been told and perspectives that haven’t been shown. “Alias Grace” is not necessarily as accessible a alarm to activity [as “Handmaid’s Tale], but that doesn’t beggarly it’s not an important perspective.
You accept a history of showcasing women’s stories. You’ve fabricated films about Valerie Solanas, Bettie Page and Anna Nicole Smith. Are there any added outré women, who ability analogously claiming notions of femininity, that you’d be absorbed in spotlighting in a film?
Right now I’m casting for this Manson girls project. The absorption there is: How do these acutely normal, hippy girls end up accomplishing these abhorrent things? What was their accord to the cult? Why did they accord over their will to this crazy leader? Allotment of the blur is set in the aboriginal ’70s, aback they are in prison, and allotment of the adventure is told from the Manson ranch. Bodies don’t absolutely booty an absorption in the girls aback they acquaint that story. They don’t absolutely appearance how it happened ― how they came to do these things. How could they? How did they? What’s the adventure there? There was this adolescent feminist in her aboriginal 30s who came and gave classes to the Manson girls and wrote a book about them. I’m consistently absorbed in an untold story. And not aloof a aboveboard adventure of a blue-blooded struggle, but attractive at absolutely complicated issues of changeable behavior. Can’t get added complicated than the Manson girls.
Taking it aback a bit, you banned to casting Leonardo DiCaprio in “American Psycho” in allotment because his fan abject at the time consisted of teenagers, and because you’d already broke Christian Bale. What was it like blame aback on flat admiral at the time?
Well, I got fired, so that’s what it was like. [Editor’s Note: Harron was eventually reinstated as administrator of “American Psycho.”] Or you could say I quit, but they accursed me because I didn’t appetite to accommodated with DiCaprio and I didn’t appetite to casting him. I’d already said I would casting Christian, who wasn’t acclaimed at the time. Leo was. I anticipate anybody anticipation I was crazy. There were two things: I anticipation Leo was a abundant amateur but he wasn’t appropriate for it. Christian was appropriate for it. And I would never accomplish a blur if I didn’t anticipate the advance was right. But I additionally knew that if they brought on the better brilliant in the apple for “American Psycho,” they’d absolutely carbon the calligraphy and I would lose ascendancy over the accent of it. I additionally anticipation it was absolutely inappropriate for this amateur with a huge fan abject of adolescent girls to comedy this role. It aloof seemed amiss on so abounding levels. It was an advantage with Christian Bale to accept addition who wasn’t as famous, because bodies didn’t accept a lot of preconceptions. His acclaim didn’t get in the way.
I’m very, absolute specific about casting and I’ve been through abounding casting battles. I don’t anticipate I’ve been with a blur after accepting a casting battle. It’s the one affair that’s make-or-break for me. I absolutely will not do a blur if I don’t anticipate the advance is appropriate for it. No acceptable blur was anytime fabricated if the advance was miscast. Authoritative a blur is adamantine enough. But Netflix was absolute good. They said, “You don’t accept to casting stars.” And I anticipate this will accomplish a brilliant out of Sarah Gadon.
Has it gotten any easier over the advance of your career to advance yourself in that amphitheatre and accept a position of ability in these casting dilemmas?
No, it absolutely hasn’t. And you’d anticipate it would.
Last question: Why isn’t “I Shot Andy Warhol” accessible to beck anywhere?
I aloof saw Christine Vachon, the producer, at the premiere of the Todd Haynes cine [“Wonderstruck”], and she said they’re attractive into accepting the rights back. It’s one of those things, the aggregation that broadcast it went out of business. It break my affection that that blur isn’t available. There are all these abundant actors in it. Lili Taylor. Justin Theroux’s aboriginal film! I would so adulation to see that blur back. So, we’re animate on it.
This account has been edited and abridged for clarity. “Alias Grace” is now alive on Netflix.
