By Rollo Ross
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Spanish director Pedro Almodovar entered new territory with his drama film “The Room Next Door” alongside Oscar-winning actors Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton.
The 75-year-old director is known for his Spanish-language films like “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.” However, “The Room Next Door” is his first English-language production.
“He’s (Almodovar) so quick,” Swinton told Reuters.
“He will give you, if you’re lucky, two takes and you can beg for a third but generally he’s happy and he wants to move on,” she added.
For Swinton, working with the “Talk to Her” director was a “feat of faith,” in which she felt confident.
The film, distributed by Sony Pictures Classics, has a limited release in U.S. theaters on Dec. 20.
The movie is based on the American novel “What Are You Going Through” by Sigrid Nunez and follows Moore’s character, Ingrid Parker, who gets enlisted by her longtime friend Martha Hunt, portrayed by Swinton, to help her die before she succumbs to her cancer.
Although the film is about ending one’s life, Swinton believes that audiences shouldn’t be put off by the themes of death and euthanasia.
“It’s about living. It’s how to make one’s dying a life and how to find what Martha’s talking about, this quest for, which is a good death,” she said.
“That seems such a reasonable thing for us to want and should be a very achievable thing for states to support people in finding,” Swinton added.
The film won the coveted Golden Lion prize at the Venice Film Festival, which Moore found bewildering.
“The paint was barely dry on this movie,” the “Still Alice” actor said.
“You know, we had just finished it. We had just finished shooting it in New York City in May and suddenly found ourselves at the end of August at the Venice Film Festival,” she said.
“So, our heads were spinning. We’re like, ‘How do we go from just barely finishing this movie to having it win the Golden Lion?’ That being said, my God, we were so thrilled and so, so thrilled for Pedro too, who really deserved that honor,” she added.
(Reporting by Rollo Ross and Danielle Broadway; Editing by Mary Milliken and Stephen Coates)
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