As Ann Lee’s faithful follower Mary Partington, Thomasin McKenzie took the role of testifying her life as the film’s narrator. The actor, originally from New Zealand, formed a solid bond with director Mona Fastvold to bring Mary to life.
Nadine Whitney speaks with Mona about what went into the part and Thomasin’s commitment.
Nadine Whitney: I wanted to ask you about your creative relationship with Thomasin McKenzie, who is essentially our narrator and Ann’s most steadfast follower. How did you work with Thomasin to create the character of Mary Partington?
Mona Fastvold: Well, first of all, Thomasin McKenzie is one of my favorite actresses. She can do no wrong. She is just such a strong performer. I was so excited when she came on board.
She’s also an incredible mover. She’s a beautiful, beautiful mover. Celia Rowlson-Hall and I were so excited when we started doing dance rehearsals with her because she really had such articulation in her hands, and like her understanding of the movement was really exciting. We started preparing early on with the accent work, the period Northern England which is a fairly tricky accent.
We kept on working together through all of the post-process as well, doing new recordings, several different recordings of the narration to find that voice, to sort of find Mary’s voice through it all. Because it’s almost as if she is every age even though she’s speaking to us as an older person, I think we are kind of moving with her throughout the story as well.
It’s exciting to me also to have Thomasin in that role because, to me, she really grounds the whole group in such a beautiful way. To be a character who’s just observing so much, but without judgment and with this sort of unconditional love. It was a very exciting collaboration.
We started just with a lot of conversations and then we also had some rehearsals in London with our movement assistant. Also, she was doing a couple of workshops with our improvisational singers in London as well, with Maggie Nicols, who’s in the film as well, to help everyone work on this, finding this improvisational voice and finding that. And then we had an intensive workshop with the entire cast leading up to the shoot.
Thomasin is just a really amazing actress and a great partner
