Sundance 2016 Interview: Natasha Lyonne and Chloë Sevigny Talk ANTIBIRTH

During the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, Daily Dead had the chance to sit down and chat with two of the stars of Antibirth, Natasha Lyonne and Chloë Sevigny. Written and directed by Danny Perez, the film is a wildly surreal examination of the horrors of pregnancy, and the duo discussed what attracted them to the project, how their real-life friendship spilled over into the project and more.

Thanks for speaking with me today, ladies. What I really dug about Antibirth is the fact that it starts out going one way and then in the third act it goes somewhere totally different than I was expecting. It’s very much the type of movie you'd expect to see at Sundance.

Chloë Sevigny: Danny is a real head case. The best partner there is with a one-of-a-kind mind and vision. I do think that, in a way, that was a lot of the appeal for us, even as actors, is that for the first two thirds we really do get to–

Natasha Lyonne: For the first two-thirds, we really get to do this kind of gritty movie that's, in many ways, grittier than a lot of things either of us have experienced as actors before. It's really a rough-and-tumble story. We get to use a lot of our built-in familiarity for our characters and then all of a sudden the last third becomes something totally else that's just something we've never really done before.

And I don't think I have been in any alien stuff before. It's interesting to hear Danny talk about, because it comes from this place of conspiracy, not because it’s campy. It's really about the government and the post-Edward Snowden America, dark stories only told in the deepest labs hidden away kind of shit.

From a female perspective, I enjoyed that Antibirth is not your typical movie about a woman who gets pregnant and things go wrong. We've all seen that movie before. We've all seen, or at least know the story of, Rosemary's Baby. This tackles that feeling that a lot of women out there suffer from, those who maybe are unable to have children, so they feel like there's something that's broken inside of them to a degree.

Chloë Sevigny: That’s a credit to Natasha's performance and how she inhabits that character. It's why I wanted to do the movie, because I obviously love Danny, but I love Natasha more. I wanted to see her have something really juicy to work with. We've both worked in movies for a really long time and we’ve both had some good parts and some better parts, but I just want us both to have better parts overall.  There are a lot of things that we can relate to, in regards to these characters, and I just wanted her to have fun with a character that has some real meat to her.

Natasha Lyonne: I would say I am over-the-moon grateful to both Danny and Chloë. The idea that Danny wrote this part for me and that Chloë, my best friend, showed up and was really in this thing with me, was incredible. It's a leap of faith on both parts because we didn't really know how it was going to turn out. We love Danny, we love his aesthetic, but this movie is pretty out there.

Chloë Sevigny: We've been in some “out there” movies.

Natasha Lyonne: Oh, yeah.

Chloë Sevigny: It's in our wheelhouse, to a certain degree.

Natasha Lyonne: We do like it “out there.”

Chloë Sevigny: We've tried some wild stuff and went to some scary places on this film. We also believe in artists and Danny, I feel, is a true artist. He's a true weirdo, a true outsider. I wanted to see what he was going to do with a little bit of money and a couple of actresses willing to play.

Chloë, what was very interesting to me about your character Sadie, is that we discover throughout the course of the story that she's not necessarily the person we think she is. Without giving too much away, can you discuss your approach to that duality?

Natasha Lyonne: There's a turning point in the movie where Sadie throws Lou under the bus. We really wanted to justify it. They really are friends and they really love each other, but we had to try to come up with some real high stakes for Sadie. There had to be really high stakes for her to do what she did or it wouldn’t have mattered.

Chloë Sevigny: It’s true; it's her Fredo moment, like in The Godfather II. It's the big betrayal. I would say, as friends, it was also the most confusing scene to play because it seemed so unnatural to our true natures.

But these are desperate characters, you know? They're really desperate people, stuck existing in this desolate wasteland. They’re hopeless, broken and they don’t have a lot to live for, except for their next kick. And that speaks to a lot of the America we're living in right now. There’s a bit of commentary built into this story and these characters. There’s definitely a metaphor here but it’s more of a weird, surreal metaphor, kind of like Repulsion.

Natasha Lyonne: In all honesty, one movie that we kept going back to was Jacob's Ladder. Should all this be in Lou’s mind? We workshopped the script, the three of us together, for a long time trying to wrap our heads around how we make that leap in the story. It was a lot to figure out.

Chloë Sevigny: Danny would send us these crazy videos of people that really think this happens to them and there are so many UFO-based reality shows happening these days focused on these people that really, firmly believe in it. We had to be able to really buy into this type of reality because these are certainly characters who are affected by whatever the hell that shit is.

We also thought of Antibirth as a buddy movie. In the beginning, the realism and the dialogue between the two of us and all the moments that we have, it sets up this great relationship and rapport that Lou and Sadie share.

Natasha Lyonne: As heightened and as hilarious as they are, it seemed to me that their relationship was gritty and real, too.

Chloë Sevigny: I remember there was one take in particular, where I didn't realize that she had started the scene. We just went with it because it felt so natural. We spend so much time together when we're not always staring at each other all the time—looking at a book or a phone or we’re distracted while sitting down together—so if she starts talking, I just go with it because that’s every day for us. All we do is talk, as you can tell [laughs].