William McGregor’s gothic folktale Gwen casts West End star Eleanor Worthington-Cox in the eponymous lead role, alongside Maxine Peake. The eerily quiet yet ultra-violent film marries supernatural undertones with real social themes, creating a fantastically unsettling coming-of-age tale from the first-time director.
Gwen will undoubtedly propel Worthington-Cox to extraordinary heights, for her performance is simply pitch-perfect. We had the pleasure of sitting down with the Laurence Olivier Award-winning actress at the Edinburgh Film Festival to talk about her role.
How was the festival premiere?
It was fantastic, I was really hoping we’d have a good Q&A afterwards even though it was so late, but everybody seemed to have really enjoyed it… if enjoyed is the right word. Whenever we see somebody after the film, we’ve coined the term ‘Gwen face’, so everybody just comes out looking completely dumbfounded. We know we’ve done our job if people have the Gwen face.
The ending struck me as well, I was expecting a feminist revenge story where they all walk away happy. And I suppose you get an element of that, but overall it’s very dark.
When we were doing the final scenes, it was so heart-breaking because you so want for their family to succeed and get through this patriarchal, oppressive situation. The landowners are trying to take their home, but the fact that Maxine [Peak]’s character – my mum in the film – can actually say that she does love her child, and was only ever trying to protect her, does get that message across that we needed that feminist final push, that last bit of sacrifice.
It seems to be pointing to a brighter future for the next generation.
And me walking off into the mist with my little sister.
Such a powerful shot!
I know, and we filmed that at about 3 or 4 in the morning, the sun was just starting to rise over the horizon. We were just like, “let’s go! Let’s go!” and working with a six-year-old as well [Jodie Innes]. She’s honestly one of the sweetest kids I’ve ever met, let alone worked with. She’s just a bundle of joy and you can’t help but fall in love with her.
That must have helped render the sisterly connection on-screen.
Before we started actually, we did a bonding session. So Will, the director, took us rock-climbing and then baking, because that’s what Jodie decided she wanted to do. It was adorable – we spent the whole day just playing around with her and by the end of the day, it was like she’d been my sister her entire life.
How did you come to be involved in this film?
Gosh, I think I got the script in September of 2017. It was quite different when I first read it, but I knew it was something that I just had to do. It was right up my street – I’d rather be covered in mud and sending a positive message than in a pretty dress not doing much – so I knew it’s what I wanted to do. This is a beautiful story, and it’s so rare that you find a coming-of-age story that’s told through a gothic folktale, it’s such an interesting sub-genre.
I was just enthralled from the moment I first read it, and so I went into two meetings with Will: we had a chat and read through a couple of things, and it all snowballed from there. When we were on set, it’s like we created the film as we went… if we came to a scene and went, “what do you think of this line?” [shrugs], “Scrap it”. So we ended up with this eerily quiet and introspective film, as opposed to having explain everything all the time through dialogue… we convey so many emotions, but we don’t need words to do it. I’d never done such a silent job. Actors rely so heavily on words to get into the characters, but one of the most rewarding things was getting to create Gwen as we went along.
It’s like the coming-of-age element is happening on multiple levels…
It’s so true. As we made the film, I definitely progressed as an actor and a person. It was just incredible.
You got your big break through theatre, how does film compare?
I’ve always said, if someone’s asked me my favourite between the two, it’s like asking a mother to pick her favourite child! It’s just impossible. I think they’re both so different, but obviously I cut my teeth in theatre. I went straight from being a lead in the West End to being a ‘blink-and-you’ll-miss’ role in Maleficent. For an eleven-year-old girl to be able to say she’s technically a Disney princess – life made. I didn’t have any formal training, I did an after-school class every Thursday evening, we did improvisation and that was my training, as it were. They’re like my family over at Formby school. By the time I got on a film set, I thought no amount of training can prepare you for this. It’s all about learning on the job.
Guess that’s the value of improv.
It really is! I was like, thank you! Just being able to work with people and be ready for any situation, I feel like that’s the best training anyone can have.
What were some of your favourite scenes to film?
There’s a lot of scenes where Gwen is completely vulnerable to what’s going on around her, and then there’s scenes where she’s quite peaceful with herself. There was one scene where I’m just picking herbs on the side of a mountain, and I remember it being the most beautiful sunrise I’d ever seen. So you’ve got incredible scenes like that, but equally you’ve got incredibly harrowing stuff where I’m running out into a field and just screaming. And you know what, that was my favourite scene I’ve ever filmed, because sometimes you want to let that all out. And you think, because we almost filmed it completely chronologically, by the time we got to that scene there really was this huge build-up. Being able to do that was so rewarding, and to be able to go through the same process as my character was, was invaluable.
And filming on location probably helps with the mood of the story.
I mean, I’ve filmed in some beautiful places, but to have filmed in this building that was basically my home for six weeks and to have filmed in the villages we were basing Gwen’s world around, and on mountain-sides, it just completely immerses you. If there is literally a gale outside, you’ve got snow pelting into the windows… we were in the middle of filming a scene one night and we said, “Let’s cut this short and go outside” and we filmed a scene in the middle of the blizzard. So I’m stood there in my nightie, 2 am, a lantern in my hand, just getting pelted with snow. It was incredible.
You also get some really heavy scenes involving animal slaughter that add to the tension.
I’m a vegetarian, and I feel like every job I’ve done recently has been, ‘how to put Eleanor off meat’. It’s just slaughtering horses, plucking chickens… and my grandad grew up on a farm, so I talked to him a lot, and Will also grew up on a farm, so I had a lot of people to talk to about that lifestyle. One of the main horrors of the film that make those scenes so poignant is, there is horror in losing your livestock. It’s all you have. There is horror in having your horse, who is basically your only friend aside from your sister, being slaughtered because it got away from you. That’s the true horror of it. Which is why Will was saying that this isn’t a horror film, it’s a film of horrors. Yes, you’ve got the gothic and folktale coming through, but the real terror and gut-wrenching stuff is the mundane… It’s about the true, deep-set horror of having something stripped from you.
It makes it more visceral that way, because you know these are things that could and do happen.
We really worked on the whole mother-daughter relationship, and how there’s so much fear and distrust but also, that at the core is a mother doing everything she can to protect her child. And Gwen had to realise that so much sooner than the average, modern child would have to. She was put through so much, and she does come of age very quickly and very young. It’s a survival story… They were struggling so much. It was a period where, in that area in Wales where we were filming and where it was set, it was the lowest home ownership in that whole country and people were being kicked off their land so quarries could be built. So that is partly historical. We did take liberties, but the core is real.
I think that the film side-steps a happy ending gives it a sense of realism and understanding that wouldn’t otherwise exist.
We spoke a lot about how it could be translated to today, which is quite sad. I was talking to Will and he said that when we started off, it was very much a fantasy. And then you get to shooting and you think, “how has it become that our reality is slowly creeping into this story?”. You do find that what’s happening around you is mirrored in your work. On my part, it’s a young woman who’s completely weighed down by the patriarchy, who’s trying to break out, and being told by those around her that she just needs to get on with it. When you’ve got a story from the 1800s that you can see similarities with even now, you know there’s a big underlying issue.
Gwen is out in cinemas today.