Mar­garet Qual­ley and Mamadou Athie: ​‘A Yor­gos film is much more dreamy and sur­re­al when you’re in it’

After her small role in Poor Things, Mar­garet Qual­ley reteams with Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos in Kinds of Kind­ness, where she plays a vari­ety of sup­port­ing parts, not least as a mys­te­ri­ous set of twins who may have super­hu­man pow­ers. Mean­while, Mamadou Athie, the Yale-trained rel­a­tive new­com­er to Hol­ly­wood, joins Lanthimos’s eclec­tic set of play­ers. The pair play hus­band and wife in the sec­ond chap­ter of Kinds of Kind­ness, pro­vid­ing vital coun­sel to Jesse Ple­mons’ police offi­cer who is sus­pi­cious of his wife’s recent reap­pear­ance after being lost at sea.

LWL: I’ve asked every­one this ques­tion, but what is your per­son­al inter­pre­ta­tion of what Kinds of Kind­ness is about?

Mamadou Athie: You know… I kin­da gave that up! Ini­tial­ly, I was think­ing a lot about con­trol, because in every sto­ry there’s a theme of some kind of con­trol being exert­ed over anoth­er per­son or anoth­er being, but then I was like…maybe I’ll just enjoy the expe­ri­ence of watch­ing this or read­ing this with­out try­ing to intel­lec­tu­alise it.I think that’s real­ly the way to expe­ri­ence a film.

Mar­garet Qual­ley: Yeah, I think while mak­ing it I was just try­ing to dive in head­first, not think about it too much or not over analyse it – just kind of have the expe­ri­ence, in those trust­ed hands. But when I’m watch­ing it I can’t help but have a mil­lion take­aways. And you have some of the most impres­sive per­for­mances from Mamoudou, Jesse, Emma, Willem – every­one is so incred­i­ble in this movie and I feel like I can take in way more and more because it is so intri­cate and nuanced. I can’t help but at the same time feel sick from it! For me it’s pow­er, it’s con­trol – Yor­gos said in the press con­fer­ence that he is reflect­ing some­thing that’s off with­in human­i­ty but I tend to be more hope­ful than he is.

LWL: I imag­ine it must be real­ly reward­ing to work with such a large cast full of real­ly incred­i­ble performers.

MA: I was telling Mar­garet ear­li­er, every­one in this cast, I have enjoyed their per­for­mances immense­ly like Mar­garet in Novitiate.

MQ: He’s the only one who’s seen my first movie.

MA: That was your first movie?

MQ: Either first or sec­ond, yeah it was either Nice Guys or that.

MA: Wow! Congratulations.

MQ: Thanks, thanks Mamoudou.

MA: I can go on it’s one of these casts where it’s like, you want me hang out with these guys? It’s a lit­er­al privilege.

MQ: I feel the same way. It’s a bunch of real­ly inter­est­ing char­ac­ters and you’re just watch­ing, try­ing our best to show up in a way that serves the movie and serves your­self. It’s inter­est­ing to watch the way peo­ple who I real­ly respect and admire nav­i­gate these circumstances.

LWL: With Yorgos’s films he does some­thing quite dif­fer­ent to a lot of direc­tors in that he has like a built in peri­od of rehearsal time where you guys get to meet each oth­er and hang out and play trust fall exercises.

MQ: I can’t speak to that because I’ve missed the rehearsal both times!

LWL: Real­ly?!

MQ: I missed the rehearsal on both my appear­ances in his films because of sched­ul­ing conflicts!

MQ: I’d love to be there! No seri­ous­ly, I was doing anoth­er movie whilst they were prep­ping this movie and then I came straight from that to Kinds of Kind­ness and I came out on the week­end for a day of chat­ting to Yor­gos, for fit­tings and things but I couldn’t do any­thing else.

LWL: Like everyone’s at sum­mer camp with­out you.

MQ: Hon­est­ly I did feel like every­one was at sum­mer camp with­out me! And I also won­der if you can also feel that in the movie…

LWL: No not at all, I assumed you were all there.

MA: No way!

LWL: For you Mamadou, it was obvi­ous­ly your first time work­ing with Yor­gos, was that a real­ly help­ful thing to have that time together?

MA: Yeah absolute­ly, any kind of rehearsal peri­od for me is use­ful just to get to know the peo­ple you’re work­ing with, espe­cial­ly when you’re work­ing in an inti­mate way where you’re doing some­thing that’s you know rel­a­tive­ly uncom­fort­able or new or fresh, and at least my inter­pre­ta­tion of that peri­od was to famil­iarise with each oth­er while doing weird shit and hang­ing out and get­ting com­fort­able. Like Jesse and I did scenes while doing the Mon­ty Python sil­ly walks and it was real­ly all about hav­ing fun.

LWL: I’m curi­ous to know your per­cep­tion of Yor­gos as a film­mak­er just from watch­ing his work ver­sus what you dis­cov­ered work­ing with him on set.

MQ: It’s much more dreamy and sur­re­al when you’re in it.

MA: That’s a real­ly good way to put it. If I got to work with him again…I mean I had such rev­er­ence for Yor­gos since I saw The Lob­ster, he just seemed like a far off dream for me. So work­ing with him, I was like, ​“This script is the bible” in terms of how spe­cif­ic and pre­cious it is. I remem­ber one of my last days, he was like ​“Let’s just change this here” and I was like, scan­dal­ized! If I do work with him again, I’ve learned to hold on tight to a vibe and trust that this is what works.

LWL: When you’re work­ing on a film that is essen­tial­ly three short films you have less time to tell the audi­ence who this char­ac­ter is, so how did you two set about going about your inter­nal research your inter­nal char­ac­ter devel­op­ment? Are you both peo­ple who kind of enjoy intense research or are you more hap­py to just vibe it when you get to the set?

MQ: I think it depends. I like to treat each thing like its own new ani­mal and I don’t real­ly think I’ve got any choice, because the direc­tor real­ly leads the way. It brings me joy to do what’s best for them because I think it’ll be what’s best for me be. You know doing a movie, when you first show up you’re get­ting your bear­ings, its the first day at school, and you’re try­ing to under­stand how you fit into this sys­tem and who you are with­in this world. In this spe­cif­ic instance it was very instinc­tu­al, flu­id, quick­ly mov­ing – I think that played into how I pre­pared for the part.

MA: I like to rely on my imag­i­na­tion. I mean the script is num­ber one but there’s the play­ground between the lines where the rest of it’s filled in. So okay I’m say­ing this to get this, or say­ing this to get this, and then okay, what does this add up to what do they actu­al­ly do?

LWL: I’m real­ly curi­ous with Yor­gos and Efthimis, are we see­ing every­thing metic­u­lous­ly as it’s writ­ten down, or does it all come alive in pro­duc­tion? Did you get to set and think ​“This looks dif­fer­ent to what I thought it would be”?

MA: It felt like the for­mer to me.

MQ: For me, no mat­ter how art­ful­ly script­ed some­thing is, my imag­i­na­tion is dif­fer­ent than the real­i­ty. Even if I’m imag­in­ing it with­in the Yor­gos world I’m still sur­prised, and that expe­ri­ence for me is always end­less in a sense that I’ll real­ly have like an idea for what it’s gonna feel like or what it’s gonna look like, but luck­i­ly I’m wrong, because it keeps it fresh it and keeps it inno­v­a­tive and I’m work­ing with some­body because their take is dif­fer­ent from mine.

MA: John Gal­lagher Jr once told me the movie in your head doesn’t exist.

MQ: Oh yeah, yeah!

MA: Always been true!

LWL: Giv­en that this is quite a unique way of mak­ing a film, what was your key take­away as actors going through this new expe­ri­ence almost like a new way of working?

MQ: The expe­ri­ence in mak­ing these movies feels kind of unbaked – I feel like I’m swing­ing and I’m not hit­ting any­thing. It’s pleas­ant to see the movie and be like ​“Well, I guess that’s okay, I don’t need to feel like I’m hit­ting any­thing. Maybe there’s noth­ing to hit.”

MA: That’s dope, I think that’s why you look so free.

MQ: Thanks Mamoudou.

MA: I’m not gassing you up! For me, I don’t know if it was nec­es­sar­i­ly a con­crete thing, but I feel like I gained more access to myself. For every­thing that’s some­what chal­leng­ing, in one way or anoth­er, its like ​“Oh, that wasn’t as scary or dif­fi­cult as I thought.”