Actress Roundtable: Michelle Yeoh, Danielle Deadwyler, & More

Distinguished actresses Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All at Once), Danielle Deadwyler (Till), Jennifer Lawrence (Causeway), Michelle Williams (The Fabelmans), Claire Foy (Women Talking), and Emma Corrin (Lady Chatterley's Lover) and join The Hollywood Reporter (THR) for their “Actress Roundtable” interview segment. Together with moderator Rebecca Keagan from THR, the actresses discuss their relationships with the directors of their latest films, how they prep for a role, the boundaries they set for themselves, and how they are put in a box based on their age, gender, and ethnicity.

“For me, it was most difficult when you get a script and, a lot of times, it’s not written for a woman like me. If the director is kind enough to take a meeting with you, that’s the time when you should think, ‘Should I voice this,’ or ‘Maybe you should give me this role which I think is more suited for me.’”

Keagan starts the conversation by asking each guest actress how far they are willing to go for a role they want. Lawrence begins recounting her audition for the lead in Winter’s Bone. Initially, she was turned down but continued to pursue the role going so far as to fly to New York City where casting reopened. Yeoh commends Jennifer’s perseverance and sees the situation as an actress showing passion for a role. In Yeoh’s opinion, directors would succeed more with such an actress since she would be committed.

Yeoh recalls the filming of Sunshine in 2007 with director Danny Boyle. When she first received the script, it was for a man as the lead with nationalities featuring mostly American and Russians. Upon meeting with Yeoh, after she read the script, Boyle offered to change the dynamics of the film for her. Instead, Yeoh suggested Boyle set up the fictional team in Sunshine as a multi-cultural group to emphasize a more united world effort to save the Earth. To agree to such a change, in Yeoh’s opinion, shows how confident and focused Boyle was on his vision for the movie. It all came down to Yeoh asking herself if she would take a bold step forward toward her expectations.

Williams believes it is fulfilling to live in a passionate state of wanting something. She reasons this state fills an individual with a desire to the point where they go outside of their comfort zone and make themselves vulnerable to change. It is a generative mindset that could take someone to the next big thing in their life. Corrin sees going for a role result from learning from past attempts. When Corrin is in meetings to discuss the script in depth, there’s always something she gets passionate about. She believes that even if an actor or actress doesn’t get the role, it’s good to remind oneself there are things to take from the experience itself.

Moving to a more direct line of questioning, Keagan asks Deadwyler what auditioning for Till was like and if the rumors of her including her son in the session are true. Deadwyler confirms she did so and mentions that she often brings her son into films and auditions. She remarks how the scene Keagan brought up was lighthearted compared to the two follow-up audition scenes. Both were impassioned speeches—one from a courtroom, the other during a rally. Deadwyler states she has always auditioned for everything and credits her intuitive spirit with driving her to go beyond expectations. The last two scenes were viewed as particularly difficult for Deadwyler. While trying to negotiate her thoughts, she also needed to read the intense, anxiety-filled dialogue. Deadwyler took a slow approach to her auditions for Till. When she finished and received an offer, she relinquished her anxiety because while it helped put her in the mindset of her character, it was too much to deal with in her daily life.

“I feel you in wanting to be more tactile, though, digitizing something takes away a certain kind of intimacy. The book is like how information feels and you know where that information is deriving from, and you can connect the dots.”

Keagan then discusses the gossip she heard about how director Sarah Polley originally envisioned Foy as having a different role in Women Talking. Foy claims it was more along the lines of Polley meeting every performer in the film and asking them which character they felt an affinity with. She felt Polley was trying to build a group of actresses with a sense of community—desiring to work well together and exploring their comrade dynamic. Foy loved how Polley made the emotional weather in the room with a feeling of acceptance. Everyone was allowed to yell, get angry, and be emotional without anything taken personally. Foy found this environment to be a refreshful change to how such tendencies are normally squashed out.

Back to the more generalized line of questions, Keagan asks the actresses about the first thing they do after receiving a role and sinking their teeth into it. Williams reveals she has an iPad she puts everything she knows about female characters she has played. According to Williams, these characters tend to be women in real life. Williams recalls that the first “real-life” woman she played was Marilyn Monroe in the 2011 film My Week with Marilyn. Every day, Williams would arrive on set carrying a large bag containing books detailing everything written about Marilyn Monroe. This habit continued until a friend approached her and offered to compress the information and compile it all on an iPad for easy access. Deadwyler understands the utility of Williams digitizing information about her roles but feels that doing so takes away some of the intimacy of learning. To this, both Foy and Corrin agree.

Following Deadwyler’s reasoning, Keagan asks the actresses if this is the same in terms of wanting something tactile regarding their costumes or props. She’s also curious about what the actresses feel when they can physically touch something involving their character. Lawrence agrees that physicality helps, but it depends on the role. The essence of Joy from her film Joy (2015) could be found in the costume. Everything about the outfit spoke to Lawrence—from the pushed-up sleeves alone, Lawrence could sense the motherly and busy emotions from Joy. Lawrence claims her role as Joy was where she felt most affected by the costume. Deadwyler agrees with Lawrence, stating she could feel the conflicting personalities of Mimi in Till through the costume alone. She believed Mimi was a woman of an era—esoterically different from Deadwyler. In her opinion, Deadwyler felt the costume pulled her through a tightrope experience portraying Mimi in addition to painting a picture of the societal and cultural rigor of the depicted period.  

“You had to be fractured to think like this, work like that, and it [Everything Everywhere All at Once] was completely out of my comfort zone. I was doing a lot of things that I normally have not done, but I was also thinking how, maybe, I’ve spent the last 40 years of my career rehearsing for this role.”

When going into Everything Everywhere All at Once, Yeoh conducted a significant amount of prep work due to the constant shift of character portrayals making it difficult for her to be grounded in the continuity of the story. Typically, when Yeoh is in an action movie, she realizes she will be more likely cast in a role centered around control like a mentor or teacher. Evelyn from Everything Everywhere All at Once changed that. This character is clueless, fails in many things, and is vulnerable. However, Yeoh finds these characteristics of Evelyn to be a wonderful change of pace, especially with how Yeoh relates to Evelyn’s drive to never give up and do everything possible to stay on track.

Yeoh recalls the advice directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert gave her for a particular scene she kept throughout the rest of filming. The scene follows Evelyn entering a universe as a Kung Fu master and returning with that knowledge to fight Jamie Lee Curtis’s character Deirdre Beaubeirdra. After the first attempt at shooting the scene, both directors approached Yeoh and advised her to portray Evelyn performing the stunts, but with an expression of not knowing what she is doing. That talk was an epiphany for Yeoh—Evelyn needed to have a look of wonder and disbelief at these new skills.

For Yeoh, one of the greatest things about shooting Everything Everywhere All at Once was witnessing everyone on set giving beyond their one hundred percent. She felt the film’s scenes of sudden physical comedy, action, horror, and frequent jumping in and out of each of these genres were only possible due to the unity and drive on set. There was never a feeling of something being beyond or below the capability of the actors, actresses, and crew.

Looking at her fellow guests, Yeoh states how envious she feels of their youth enabling them opportunities to attempt different roles. Actresses her age and ethnicity, in Yeoh’s opinion, only get to experience that feeling once in the remainder of their career. Yeoh believes Crazy Rich Asians (2018) was a film that gave the Asian community a boost in recognition within the entertainment industry. To this day, Yeoh is thankful for actresses like Joan Chen and Lucy Liu who fought for Asians to have a place, thereby becoming their heroes. Unfortunately, as she grows older, Yeoh sees her box of opportunities shrinking. She believes part of this is due to newer generations of movie-goers not being aware of Yeoh since most of her iconic roles were filmed twenty or more years ago. She is not bitter about it; on the contrary, Yeoh feels her films and those from similar artists like her paved the way for greenlighting groundbreaking films like Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. That film gave audiences the first mainstream Asian superhero and further boosted the Asian community.

“So much of what we do has to do with observing people, and I felt like I couldn’t really observe anyone because everybody was observing me.”

Keagan segways into the next question, focusing on Yeoh’s talk of roles becoming limited to her. She believes many can relate to being put in a box and asks the guests if they feel like they are in one now and wish to get out. Foy believes such a scenario is inevitable as the action is convenient for people of power and position. She states to experience this when she started acting on TV. Foy frequently experienced situations like, “You’ve done that, so we’ll give you this,” and was given identical roles. This went against her beliefs as an actress, claiming how attempting things she hasn’t done before navigated her career. Doing something that stretches previous roles won’t give actors or actresses what they need to hone their craft. Foy states the job of an actor and actress is proof that the idea of being put in a box isn’t always the case.

Moderator Keagan asks about how Lawrence has stated in past interviews feeling like her choices have been hijacked by other people and now wants to take back the reins. In response, Lawrence explains how her time in a big agency made her feel like she had given away her agency. She believes that to be her fault due to her fandom. When watching something new or favored, Lawrence frequently has ideas of working with directors and filmmakers that entertained her. Unfortunately, her fandom created a sense of separation, leading to her not reaching out often. Lawrence also thought she was losing touch with the world through working on many projects.

Corrin emphasizes with Lawrence, claiming she also tries to make her own decisions while being bombarded with opinions about what others think she should do. Corrin believes this often happens to individuals who come into success quickly with little experience and time spent in the industry. Usually, it occurs at a young age when performers have not yet found their voice in terms of what they want to do and knowing what is best for themselves. This situation is especially difficult for women, people of color, and non-binary individuals.

Deadwyler chimes in by recounting a time on set when numerous things were asked of her despite expressing her disinterest to be a part of everything. In situations like this, Deadwyler always keeps this question in mind: “How many times does a woman of color have to ask for something to go the way I need it to go?” She believes that when people are pushed to a certain degree, they must go hard in their stance and beliefs. Deadwyler laments how it seems women and non-binaries do that often. Actors should be able to articulate their need without being pushed into a corner. Realizing this allowed Deadwyler to no longer feel the need to go across the line. If she isn’t listened to the second or third time, Deadwyler reaches her limit and takes matters into her own hands.

“When your body and your mind are pushed to a certain degree and you understand your limit, you will resist.”

Foy agrees with Deadwyler and quotes Oprah Winfrey with the statement, “Hear the no.” Foy believes some people are incapable of hearing the word “no” and it’s okay to ask those people why they aren’t hearing it. She sees the situation as a case of someone projecting onto others. Foy reveals how that in the beginning of her career, she felt like she had to give over a lot of her life for her profession. Nowadays, she has started to think of her career as not needing to do anyone any favors—Foy is employed to do a project, she’s paid, she’s present, and she’s committed.

Foy discusses how some people believe that because the entertainment industry is creative, there is an idea that it doesn’t have to be professional. She is against this mindset and is a firm believer that acting and performing should always be professional. That said, there are boundaries, and they must be respected. It’s okay if the day is running long, but individuals need to state how they have a life outside the industry. Foy argues that the system of a production project can and should adjust accordingly. Asking for your beliefs and limits be recognized isn’t being confrontational—there is a difference between a diva and prioritizing what’s important in your life.

Keagan, curious about the relationships each of the guest actresses have with their directors, asks how they figure out the dynamic between themselves and the director. How much is it about limits versus creativity? Lawrence maintains the difficulty of doing so because while on a shoot, it’s stressful to everyone and interferes with a performer’s association with the director and crew. She believes the relationship between an actor and director should be purely creative, but Lawrence also understands how frightening it can be to think about not getting along with the person in charge.

Williams points out how she often thinks about how actors and actresses are made to feel like children and not receive all the related information. She believes such knowledge is kept away from actors because directors and individuals positioned high within the industry are unable to trust actors. Williams figures they are worried actors might do something with the information but analyzes how contrary such practices are. Thankfully, Williams is seeing such interactions occurring less frequently. The last few years, in her opinion, have gradually shifted this counterproductive mindset. There’s more material flowing because there’s more of it flowing between all levels.

Foy reveals how these instances didn’t occur on the set of Women Talking due to director Sarah Polley. Foy discloses how Polley prioritized the experience of filmmaking as opposed to the outcome of what the film was going to be. She reasons this decision was likely influenced by Polley’s past experiences as an actress. The moments on set were good and fulfilling—the crew was happy, and everyone’s fed and well-rested. Foy recalls when her daughter got sick at the end of filming Women Talking, Polley was the first to push Foy away to see her daughter. Never has Foy seen a director do that for her.

“What we do is have very fixed times, and I think that’s very important. Then you understand you have this time; I have to use it to the best of my ability.”

Deadwyler believes the relationship between an actor/actress and their director is built on trust. Yeoh agrees with Deadwyler and Foy, describing how she felt about directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert while working on Everything Everywhere All at Once. She trusted their skills and creativity, believing the directors capable of creating this film. On top of being an indie film, Yeoh reveals that everything was shot in 37 days over six weeks. Despite the tight schedule, everyone worked hard every day while also conscious of the futility of pushing the team to exhaustion.

Yeoh discloses that the two directors always took the first 15 minutes of every morning to bring everybody on set from every department to do warm-up sessions. Kwan and Scheinert put this exercise in place as a bonding event comprised of many different activities to promote giving out appreciation and stirring gup motivation. Going back to the discussion of setting boundaries, briefly, Yeoh believes if an actor or actress wanted to set ground rules, he or she must work hard to be able to set them. Yeoh ultimately views her experience on set of Everything, Everywhere All at Once as fruitful because she felt her time was not wasted—it was there alongside good energy and form.

Keagan then touches on a topic that has been debated for decades. She asks the guest actresses their opinion about how acting, in terms of awards, is divided by gender. Foy believes the concept of awarding best in acting is already skewed, let alone divided by gender. Corrin thinks the world is gradually heading toward representation across the board, but there needs to be a change in order to enable non-binary individuals to feel seen. She reasons roles for non-binary people should be focused on beforehand because even though there are more nowadays, there are not enough non-binary performances to be realistically considered for award categories.

“You have to travel through this state, but this state can’t do it so you got to go to this state…All of those stories have to be events so that people understand how stupid it is to try to hinder women’s choice.”

Another hot-button topic Keagan brings to the discussion is how abortion is portrayed on screen. She explains that in TV and movies, abortion tends to look very different from how it looks in reality. She asks the actresses if they have any thoughts on whether or not there’s a responsibility for television and films to adjust to depict abortion more accurately. Keagan feels this subject is important today given the changes in the United States in the past year. Corrin is the first to verbalize her thoughts, stating how she believes the film Never Rarely, Sometimes Always (2020) is the best in the industry to portray the real-life concept and situation of abortion. She argues that the film effectively captures the mundanity and bureaucracy of getting an abortion. None of it is romanticized or glorified, and nothing altered to work on screen—it was very honest.   

Deadwyler strongly believes the topic of abortion is more critical now than ever. She discusses how each U.S. state has a different dynamic for the procedure where the bureaucracy is out of control. Deadwyler has heard numerous stories from friends and outside sources about people needing to drive hundreds of miles across state borders just for the operation. She feels these stories need to be recorded and brought to the public so that people can understand “how stupid it is to try and hinder women’s choice.”

Lawrence chimes in, quoting facts about Georgia having counties without OB-GYNs. She laments how many people in the U.S. must travel state lines to get a simple Pap smear. Lawrence sees these changes as an attack on a women’s femininity. Returning the discussion about Hollywood portrayals of abortion, Lawrence claims the procedure is often depicted as an act of killing babies. This imagery is not helpful to the cause. Lawrence agrees with Corrin, stating that portrayals should be a picture of what someone is going through when people are in a medical situation brought on by sex. This, in Lawrence’s opinion, is a more crucial part of the story that’s helpful for women everywhere who need voters to understand that abortion is healthcare. 

Foy goes back to discussing Sarah Polley and how her film Women Talking is about the sexual abuse and rape of children and grown women. Foy believes Polley effectively articulates how these experiences, whether it’s rape or abortion, are fetishized by filmmakers. As a result, they become something considered less important than the actual human being that it’s happening to and neglect the impact of what that trauma does to a person. Foy reasons that if situations of rape and abortion are dealt with more often and brought to the attention of the public, then people would see the humanity of these traumas and better understand the individuals who are experiencing them.

“It was an intentional decision to not show any violence within the film (Till). We all know that violence; we’ve seen that violence. There’s plenty of black and white images that galvanized us of the Civil Rights Movement. It was about the point of view of Mamie, and Mamie wouldn’t know about that.”

Keagan notes how she has witnessed trauma as a theme in the three movies of Lawrence, Deadwyler, and Foy. Each of those films has a character recovering from traumatic experiences, but neither shows the triggering event—the rapes, the beatings, the war injuries, etc. These not being depicted is, in Keagan’s opinion, a counterintuitive decision. She asks the actresses if they discussed this topic with their filmmakers. Deadwyler states she and director Chinonye Chukwu did talk about depicting trauma in Till. She explains how Chukwu had a conversation with the producers three years ago where they decided to not show any violence. Chukwu had told Deadwyler the purpose of Till was to tell the traumatic real-life story through Mamie’s perspective. It was about someone who comes to an understanding of their power to cause change. As such, the character Mamie wouldn’t have been aware of or witnessed the galvanization of Black people in the Civil Rights Movement. There was also a shared desire to not re-traumatize the filmmakers and the audiences.

Lawrence reiterates that war sequences were shot in Causeway, but she felt this was less so for the idea of seeing violence and more for telling the story of PTSD in the present. The film centers on somebody haunted by the past and making leaps in healing. The goal of the film was to emphasize how healing is not linear and leave audiences with the means to connect more with the lead character.

Steering the conversation away from trauma, Keagan asks the actresses if they feel it is easier to get a film with a female director made now than it used to be. Lawrence believes it has become easier, but still difficult to accomplish. As a producer for Causeway, Lawrence found it amusing to meet with the crew and talk about the hours because it felt interesting to be both the lead actor and a lead producer. The schedule made sense, there were no large disputes, and if fights arose, everyone put their heads together to figure out what to do. For Lawrence, it was refreshing to not be around toxic masculinity and to marvel how the film was proof women could lead and create spectacular movies.

Deadwyler starts to talk about Women Talking. She thinks the film has different kind of respect and comfort in dealing with personalities and emotions. Witnessing the female characters talking and having their outbursts or being demure made Deadwyler realize there is space for everybody to exist. She explains how outbursts are portrayed as emotional turmoil that prevents an individual from being themselves, especially for men who exude recoil and fear during their portrayed outbursts. As a result of films like Women Talking, there are more scenes depicting characters being able to articulate their needs after the outburst calms them down. Deadwyler sees this as a powerful theme in Women Talking in the setting of a repressed community wanting to say what’s on their mind.

Before moving on to the next question, Williams wishes to go back to the topic of rape and violence being fetishized in films. She claims to think about this subject often because Williams frequently sees it happening in scripts. Hearing about how the guests’ films were created without depicting those traumas made Williams believe the decision was in fear of not knowing where it goes. She feels she is unable to trust such scenes won’t be fetishized when placed into the wrong person’s hands. In Williams’s opinion, if audiences can concentrate on the women and their experience rather than the trauma, audiences will be moved. Williams herself feels moved hearing about the other guests and their movies.

The roundtable interview ends with Keagan asking light-hearted questions. When asked how they decompress after shooting intense scenes, half of the actresses jokingly claimed to drink various alcoholic drinks, and the other half watch reality TV, explaining that the content allows them to shut off their brains and witness interpersonal interactions between narcissists. The last question Keagan asks the guest actresses is what their desert island movie is—a film they could watch over and over without losing interest. Lawrence is the first to answer, stating that hers is the Bridget Jones film series. For the others, Foy picked When Harry Met Sally, Corrin desired You’ve Got Mail, Deadwyler chose the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Williams and Yeoh both claimed Sound of Music would be their choice.