Talking at the Vancouver Film Festival, she said she does, however, see a dire need for community, the absence of which is at the source of many of today's problems Carrie Coon has little interest in being liked. The film is inspired by Nattiv’s grandmother, whose archival testimony was recorded by Yad Vashem. Coon studied it extensively prior to filming and it became central to her understanding of the role.
The fact that she could only do it when she was deep in the cult.” The film’s central question, as Coon sees it, is why someone might willingly abandon a conventional life for an alternative community. I think so often, when we watch documentaries about cults, we stand outside it and we think, ‘Well, that would never happen to me.’” What Rita finds inside the cult is something that’s been missing from her own life: female friendship, self-exploration, the processing of her trauma — even singing and dancing. Rita has been robbed of her childhood, and inside the cult she finds herself returning, in some ways, to a childlike state.
And who are we to say what somebody needs to process the kind of trauma that she survived? Who are we to determine for a person what she needs in order to, frankly, not kill herself?” On some level, Coon adds, we all understand that the rules we’re living by are made up. There’s nothing real about society.
We’ve just absolutely made it up. And then we make up these rules and we live by them, and we shame each other when we step outside the bounds of them, and yet none of it is real.” That refusal to judge also informs Coon’s broader approach to acting. She believes every character, even one capable of terrible things, must be understood from the inside.
And I don’t know why, except that I’m in pursuit of what’s most interesting to me, and I don’t get to control how it lands in the world. I have no control over whether a project is successful, who likes it, who hates it, what they write about it.” To that end, Coon admits to reading everything written about her work, including good reviews, bad reviews and “mean tweets.” “I think it is an inoculation,” she says. She’s saddened when she encounters young actors who haven’t ever done theater.
You know when you’ve gotten them back. That muscle is really important, because it’s teaching you what good storytelling feels like.” In film and television, someone else makes that decision. In her television work, Coon often gets to explore more unconventional, complex characters.
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