“It is easier to live through someone else than to complete yourself. The freedom to lead and plan your own life is frightening if you have never faced it before. It is frightening when a woman finally realizes that there is no answer to the question ‘who am I’ except the voice inside herself.” That’s a passage from chapter 14 of the legendary book The Feminine Mystique, by the great feminist Betty Friedan. It’s a sentiment that, when it was published in 1963, was meant to reflect on women in marriage and relationships whose identities dissolved into their husbands’.

However, the quote is also applicable to actors, and is perhaps the best encapsulation of director Todd Haynes’ so-called ‘suburban cinema,’ a series of films starring Julianne Moore as a suburban wife questioning her own identity and existence. While extremely different movies, Haynes’ and Moore’s films Safe, Far from Heaven, and now May December are all perfect extensions of Friedan’s investigation into women’s individuality and identity.

Haynes has always been interested in identity and performance, major themes of feminist theorists like Friedan and Judith Butler (and Haynes goes full Judith Butler in I’m Not There). In this sense, May December may be the most explicitly Haynesian film of Todd Haynes’ career. Portman plays Elizabeth, an actor prepping for a role based on a real-life woman named Gracie (Julianne Moore) who slept with a 12-year-old boy and had his child, went to prison for it, and married him when she left prison. Elizabeth embeds herself in this woman’s small town and creeps into her family’s life to try and better understand the enigmatic Gracie.

The film is one of the year’s best, and hauntingly brings to mind Oscar Wilde’s thought in his letter De Profundis, “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” Portman and Moore give a masterclass in acting in the film, and spoke with MovieWeb about their roles, acting, and Todd Haynes. You can watch our video interview above.

Natalie Portman Perfectly Acts at Acting
May December Release Date December 1, 2023 Director Todd Haynes Cast Natalie Portman, Charles Melton, Julianne Moore, Andrea Frankle Rating R Runtime 1hr 57min Main Genre Drama
Portman is largely responsible for Haynes directing May December in the first place; her production company MountainA found the script and brought it to the director. She was specifically interested in playing an actor, especially the presumptuous, tricky Elizabeth.

“You know, I love this character so much that Samy Burch wrote, because it was so slippery,” explained Portman. “She’s so different with every person she’s with, it kind of illuminates the level of performance in every woman’s life. But of course, she’s also an actress who’s literally performing, but she really can shift into different modes at different times.” She added:

And so, it was really amazing to get to explore those questions that you talked about, like when is she telling the truth when she’s performing all the time? When are the moments that are actually true, and who is she performing for? What’s she trying to get out of her audience? Who’s her audience?

“And then, of course, her techniques of investigating this character that she’s studying, Gracie (that Julie plays), is obviously so unethical,” continued Portman. “The way she enters into her life and then interferes with it goes so far beyond research that, of course, that’s not something I endorse, but I found it interesting to explore.”

Related: May December Review: Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore Psychologically Duel Over the Truth

“And I think that, from an acting perspective,” added Moore, “because I’ve been the person who’s knocked on someone’s door and said, ‘Do you mind if I talk to you?’ or, ‘Can I ask you a few questions?’ — it was interesting.” Moore noted the delicious layers of self-referential delirium in a film about acting, where the actor had to research things to prepare for the role of a woman who is researched by an actor who is preparing to play her in an upcoming role:

“[I] went to talk to a baker to learn how to bake a cake and also to a florist to learn how to arrange flowers, to get that particular language so that Natalie could watch me do those things and play the character that she’s playing in the movie, you know, it went on and on and on in this kind of (always doing everything in parentheses) thing.”

“And we were talking about Todd,” continued Moore, “he’s someone who talks about context and identity all the time. Like, ‘Who are we? Are we who we present? How do we present it, in what world do we present it in?’ You know, so all of those levels, I think, are all present throughout the film and throughout our lives, and it was exhilarating to be able to explore that.”

Julianne Moore and Todd Haynes Are PB&J

Todd Haynes and Julianne Moore are — if you’ll allow the indulgence — the Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullman of American indie cinema today. There is a deeply thoughtful director who creates incredible roles for women, and there’s an actress who brings many of those roles to life. Like Bergman, many of Haynes’ films are about performance and identity, as Moore already said. Safe, Far from Heaven, I’m Not There, Wonderstruck, and now May December all interrogate the details of disposition, the pretense of performance, and the inconsistency of identity. Moore is triumphant in all of these films, and arguably knows Haynes’ process better than anyone else. She spoke with us about their collaborations and what she loves about working with the filmmaker.

“I mean, I trust his intelligence. I trust his interest in particular subject matters,” said Moore. “He writes a lot of his own things. And when he does select something to do that he hasn’t written, he’s really particular about it. There’s something that kind of rings a bell for him, and it’s always very human, really interesting, and provocative and compelling.” She continued, detailing Haynes’ process and why she loves it:

“And he does so much of the work for me, even in the way he frames something. I remember, even when I worked with him on Safe, he gave me a card of storyboard images that he’d drawn, and then each of those storyboards, those were all shots that we did, and we didn’t deviate from them. Not like he wouldn’t deviate, but it just worked. And it’s in each frame, you know, he tells a story. And for me, knowing where I am in the frame, knowing where other things are in the frame, knowing what his point of view is — all of that informs my performance so much.”

“So it’s joyful for me to work that way,” concluded Moore. “He frees me up.”

Natalie Portman’s Desire to Provoke

Todd Haynes spoke to us and Vogue about Natalie Portman’s “desire to provoke.” The phrase invites so much interpretation. Simultaneously sexy, disturbing, melancholic, and comically pathetic, the character of Elizabeth and Portman’s portrayal of her could certainly be deemed ‘provocative.’ That’s largely what drew her to the script. Portman is trying to stir up our expectations, and not just through her own performances, but through MountainA. This is an actor who cares deeply about art and cinema, and we’re better off for it.

Related: Best Natalie Portman Movies, Ranked

We spoke with Portman about Haynes’ comment, and asked her how she felt about that sentiment; does she have a desire to provoke? “Absolutely, absolutely. I think there was one day on set that probably made him feel that especially,” explained Portman, who shared the anecdote:

“It’s the scene where I’m doing the interview with the acting students, the high school students, and you know, they did a reaction shot on the kids, and they had already heard me say it like 1000 times. So I started changing it up to try and get reactions from them. And it was fun because I was also getting reactions from Todd, I could hear him like cracking up behind me, and I think he knew on that day, which was one of our earlier scenes (the whole movie was shot so quickly).”

“You know, it’s fun for me to play and to try and do things differently. And that’s the fun of it,” continued Portman. “I think I can only do that when I feel incredibly safe, and Todd is so, so kind and unconditionally loving in the way he creates the environment. He also has such a vision of what he wants, and then peoples the scene with the most wonderful people also, who are extraordinary actors and artists, and good people.” She continued, smiling in that special way that’s hypnotized audiences for 25 years.

So that’s when you can really let loose and play and provoke and, yeah, poke each other. That’s the most fun, that’s when you’re like, ‘We get paid for this?’ This is like, my favorite game.

From From MountainA, Gloria Sanchez Productions, Killer Films, Taylor & Dodge, and Project Infinity, May December hit select theaters Nov. 17, and is coming to Netflix Dec. 1 in the US and Canada. You can watch the trailer below and find the link to stream the film when it’s on Netflix:

Stream May December on Netflix