Women Talking

As I sat with the Women Talking team on a few benches under a tent, just outside the Werner Herzog theater on a warm Sunday afternoon, I was struck by how much our discussion mirrored what we see in the film: The laughs shared between these collaborators, the tears shed at one point. There was even a lone man (disclosure: this writer) listening to and recording what they have to say. (In the film, it’s Ben Whishaw’s sensitive ally, August, who takes the meeting’s minutes.) Indeed, entering this new territory for all of these women has translated to a movie, and a conversation, like we’ve never seen.


Watching the movie, it felt like something I'd never seen before. I imagine it felt like that making it as well. Jessie, to start, can you speak to that and whether it felt so new?

Jessie Buckley: I've never been on a set where I get to not just play, but to experience, with nine extraordinary women. Explore what that relationship means between us in a world, and how we can move forward together—not just on our own, but with people that we love, and move out of the place we're in. We don't know what we might find within ourselves and between each other. I've never read a script like that, yeah, where I can explore the complex, rich, knotty, difficult, beautiful parts of female friendship like that, and actually use it as catharsis, as something to understand between each other and from each other.

Frances, you've made quite a few films, and in this case of course had more of a behind-the-scenes role. What about this felt special and unique for you?

Frances McDormand: I'm 65. I'm the oldest.

Sheila McCarthy: [Raises hand] 66.

McDormand: Damn it! [Laughs] Well, we have four or maybe even five generations— decades—of experience here. That's a huge part of it. I've been in ensemble films before. I've never been in ensemble films where it was mostly women, but I've always abhorred “women films” where they end up singing into a hairbrush or wooden spoon, because I don't do that with my friends. We actually talk about science and the economy and things of that nature. The exciting thing that happened in the development was, our producing partner Dede [Gardner] and I would often use sports-movie metaphors with Sarah. “Where's the big triumph?” She kind of went, “I don't think women's stories are told that way.” So then, “What's the alternative?” This movie is the alternative. You haven't seen it before because it hasn't been explored. We were just having a whole long conversation about films that were seen in the festival that have main female protagonists but are still trapped in the old paradigms of storytelling. It's unknown territory and we're out there. We're swimming in it along with you and everybody else.

Sarah, I was at the tribute screening on Friday and one of the themes that emerged is your interest in how we tell stories. This movie feels like a kind of statement in that regard. Can you talk about the attraction to the material, and getting to this point as a filmmaker, in that context?

Sarah Polley: I love that so much of the film is them finding words for things, or saying things that capture a collective feeling around a different kind of experience or challenge. Why I was so interested in this book is that it's also about, How do you tell this story of where you're going, which is where you come from? We're getting better culturally at telling the stories of where we've come from and where the harms have been, and we have to continue to do that until there's a full picture. The act of imagining, “What's the story that we want to move toward?” is one that gets largely left out of the conversation. I was thrilled by the hope in that and the imagination in that.

What I love about this movie is that each of your characters are so distinctive, they all bring their own voices and perspectives and arguments to the central question of the movie. You had a few weeks of rehearsal. In the getting-to-know-each other, did you developed roles within the ensemble along similar lines? Claire, I see you're laughing.

Claire Foy: Yeah. It happens naturally in any group, but I had never been in a group where all of those people in those roles—the leader, etc—was a woman. I found it dynamic and unpredictable and really, really deep at moments. I went to spaces I don't think I ever would've gone if the environment would have been different. We all had something different to offer. That could lead to conflict, but that was really interesting, that we were able to do that within an environment where we were all offering something. It didn't feel like Sarah was some sort of megalomaniac director. There was a conversation, constantly.

McCarthy: We were also in the confines of COVID world. So we were all locked together for all these months. Literally we saw nobody else.

You got to know each other well.

McCarthy: We did. And so what was happening in our one big general group dressing room was also happening on set, our relationships really bled into the filming, I think as well.

Polley: Dr. Lori Haskell works in trauma and with memory. Her work is incredibly important. She was a huge resource to all of us, both in terms of the research for the film but also as a presence and a container for a lot of us.

“Claire had done that monologue at full tilt, full tilt off camera 120 times.” —Sarah Polley

To that point, you’re running many long, intense scenes here. How many takes would you get on average?

Polley: I'll give you an example of one scene, which is where Claire has her first big monologue when the camera pushes in. We didn't do tons of takes on each person, but just the number of relationships we need to cover in dynamics—we shot that scene for two and a half days, and we realized at the end of it that Claire had done that monologue at full tilt, full tilt off camera 120 times. So it wasn't humane actually. And then I remember that night watching this video of the captain of the Canadian women's soccer team, who kept on playing through a broken nose, and the team was crowding around her and hugging her, thanking her. I was just thinking, “It's Claire.”

Foy: But then we learned after that. That was what was amazing about it, strategically going, “There's this big bit that's coming up, let's try and stop shooting there so that the next day we can come back and everyone's fresh,” as opposed to someone having to do these massive pages of dialogue together. But those first few days...

Polley: I had to change the way I was shooting it after that. I think that was an eye opener for me, where I was running 15-page scenes over and over and over again. There was one day where Sheila—and this just reveals it would be good for me to shadow an episodic television director at some point—came up to me and went, “Hey Sarah, do you think we could do a pickup for this one?” And I went, “Oh, oh sure, no problem. Thank you, Sheila.”

McCarthy: Like, “It's just for Jessie's closeup. Do you really need me to get there?”

In these heavy scenes, characters recount some of their darkest experiences in the colony. Claire, your last monologue is particularly remarkable, I would say, to watch. When I saw it at the tribute screening, you could hear a pin drop. It was just complete utter silence and focus. How do you get to that place as an actor?

Foy: I'd spoken to Sarah about that quite a lot. It was quite interesting because she would just say, “I trust you.” And I’d go, “No, I need you to tell me how to do it.” We were all really prepared as actors, I think because we knew the scale of the task, but also we knew how much we all depended on each other. I was continually surprised by the things I was seeing the other actors in the room do, which helped me to no end seeing people and how they had interpreted the material on what they were doing.

That scene, I knew I couldn't do it a million times and I'd already said that to Sarah. We only did it like three times, I think. Knowing that it was okay, that after that I didn't have to be like, “Ahhh!” But I don't know—I genuinely don't really know what happened. Really. It was one of those things that, I just did it. I did it and trusted it and trusted that it would be all right and that it was all there.

McDormand: And it's interesting how often we don't get to trust it as actors go into things, how often we have to protect ourselves from things that aren't as well-grounded and well-written and well-directed and well-led. We have to learn how to trust every time.

I have a thing about laughter in movies, where a lot of times it feels very forced to me. And in this one, every time you all break out into laughter, it is so incredibly authentic and gratifying, I think, for the audience. I've never heard an audience laugh with all the actors as much as in that screening. Michelle, I know you have a comedy background: What were those moments like and what, from your perspective as an actor, was so important about releasing that tension?

Michelle McLeod: Well, that's exactly what it is. You have to have that lightness to all of this as well. That does break the tension. Rooney Mara is a genius. She brought a fart machine on set but no one guessed it was her for a very long time. We heard this fucking raunchy fart out of nowhere. I thought for sure, it was a crew member. I almost peed my pants laughing. And then I couldn't figure out where these noises were coming from, and I looked over at Rooney—she's very quiet. Nobody knows. And she starts laughing, and finally she reveals, she has hidden a fart machine.

Rooney Mara: Laughing is harder than crying. So much harder. And after doing that scene 120 times, I was like, How are we supposed to laugh? Over a hundred takes. It's just going to be so fake—and it's so important that it's real. So I ordered a few different fart machines.

McCarthy: This whole article's going to be about fart machines.

Mara: We pulled that thing out later on in the hayloft set, too, when we really needed it. But I will say that Michelle has one laugh in the movie that's not from my fart machine.

Polley: They would all help each other with laughing in different scenes. And at some point I said to Ben, who was helping Jessie laugh in quite incredible ways, “Oh, Michelle has a laugh coming up. Can you help?” And then after the first take, he's like, “She doesn't need my help.”

McLeod: I think I just generally can entertain myself. People may say I'm crazy. But honestly I tell myself jokes all the time and I laugh.

McDormand: Sarah asked Miriam really early on, “What do you want? Give me your directive?” And she said, “Remember the women's faith and their sense of humor.” That's what the collective does. You don't just get the laundry done. You keep yourself afloat.

“I was like, How are we supposed to laugh? So I ordered a few different fart machines.” —Rooney Mara

Kate and Liv, you play the children in the hayloft, listening in and observing these women and their conversation. What did you take away from the experience?

Hallett: I felt like I learned by being there and they were all just so open to answering questions. I went up to Rooney after one day and I was like, “How do you even do that?” And she was just like, “I don't even know. I just kind of do it.” I was like, “That is a great approach.”

Liv McNeil: I feel like we embodied our characters as well because Neitje and Autje are outside observers, and that's exactly what Kate and I were the entire time, just sitting and watching and learning. My character was pretty disconnected. I was kind of forced into just listening, and I felt like that shaped it for me.

McDormand: Your reading of “this is so boring” was so good. And I'm thinking, now, Were you ever bored?

Buckley: Oh my God.

McDormand: Well, you're all in a big room together, but you have to sit there for a long time! It must have been boring sometimes.

Kate: It's hard to be bored when you're watching them. [Group laughs]

Polley: It was very interesting. It felt like there was this constant theme for me of watching actors surprise themselves. You'd see something happen and then you could see a look in there, like, “I didn't know I was going to do that.” And that was so thrilling because there were just these moments that nobody was expecting to come out of them.

Did you have such a moment, Jessie?

Buckley: Yeah, many. And I wanted to have that experience. Even though all these characters have very particular points of view, I didn't want to prejudge what they might experience in the moment when you're working with such incredibly truthful, brilliant, amazing people in a room where you really can let yourself just go and let yourself be surprised.

McDormand: Constructive competition. [Group laughs] We were rehearsing at one point and I we realized that it was going to always be this concentrated circle, and that August was always going to be over there at his table. At one point, Ben came over—and nobody was struggling with their look at all; everybody was really into their look—and he was just like [mouths, “You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful.” So genuine. He meant it. And then he went back to his corner.

McLeod: Ben has heard things no man ever has.

Foy: He could write a book.

More seriously, Sarah, can you talk a little bit about changing the narration and the framing of the book for the movie? And particularly ending on a poignant line that sums up the movie really beautifully, I thought.

Polley: That was a really collective process between Fran and Dede and me and Kate and Christopher Donaldson, our editor. There was a point in the edit where we realized we needed to hear it through a woman's voice and we were trying to decide who that is. It was Chris who went, “You keep wanting me to get the camera on Kate. What about Kate?” Hearing it from the youngest person in the room and the idea of telling the story of this future—I was really scared of it at first and it required me to go into a lot of space by myself and go into my thoughts at 16. And I’d been wanting to keep the film here and my life here, and that was where my life bled into the film a little bit. Writing that narration for me was the hardest part, and then hearing it through Kate's voice was the best part. Writing that narration was a whole film into itself for me.

Sheila, you have one gorgeous scene in which you apologize to Jessie, who plays your daughter Mariche. It's incredibly complex. And it is to your early point, Fran, illustrates generational differences between these women. Very broadly, how did you go into it? What was it like playing it together?

McCarthy: In the hayloft we were allowed such freedom and such truth with each other, and having been there for two days and seeing the hurt and finally, maybe for the first time, understanding what [my daughter] been going through, it was an enormous penny dropping for a mother to have spent her whole life with this child. She's been in love with this girl since the day she was born, but we've been living this very rigid, very repressed, very somewhat misogynistic world.

Buckley: I was scared because I think in that moment, the generational things that we've learned— the chain has to be cut. And from that moment it changed.

McCarthy: We're on entirely new ground.

Buckley: Which is scary, unknown ground. This is something which we've always understood about ourselves. This is how we survive. This is how we get up in the morning and go to bed at night. This is how I see you. This is how I've always seen you. And this is how you see me. And actually in one moment, it's like I see somebody completely different. And I can see myself differently for the first time. That’s really scary.

I would think that shooting it chronologically also gives you that building, where you get to a moment like that, both in the story and in the filming, where you reach new ground and it's scary.

McCarthy: Because that was never found in rehearsals. You're right.

McDormand: Can I ask you something that I don't know and I can't remember—is it once in the script? Did you add two more?

Polley: Yeah, so that moment for me was the biggest pivot in the adaptation because that doesn't happen in the book, but I realized it all hinges on whether she's going to move or not. I had just read all of this amazing work by Harriet Lerner on apologies. There's this amazing book called, Why Won't You Apologize? It's about, What does a great apology look like? How can it transform a person? And how can you move forward out of harm? I've been doing all of this thinking and talking about apologies. And so then I suddenly realized Mariche can't move until someone gives her the right apology. We shot it and we had some crew members who had come from backgrounds with abuse, backgrounds in devoutly religious communities where abuses have been repressed. I remember there was something missing in the writing. I literally turned to one of our crew members who came from this background and I said, “Would that be good enough for you?” He had been sobbing through the whole scene, and he just said, “No, I need more.” And I said, “What do you need?” And he said, “I need her to say, I'm sorry.” And so I said to Sheila, “If you feel like you have to say, you're sorry, say it. But don't say it if you don't feel like you have to. Hold it in.” Then Sheila just said three times, that was Sheila. The idea, it wasn't in the script, and Sheila just did that three times spontaneously.

McDormand: [Crying] And that's what forgiveness is. You don't decide to make a movie about forgiveness. How can you really do that? It comes out of the experience of a group of people creating that.

Polley: It was just so many people finding that moment together. And just to finish the story, because I forgot what the main part was. Then that crew member said, “That would be good enough for me. If my parents could say that to me, I'd be okay.”

Foy: Something we said a lot when we were shooting was not to slip into sentimentality. Not that we thought any of us were, but I think that because you are doing such emotional things all the time, there's a truth to how people communicate and a truth to trauma, which is that people aren't always able to articulate it.

Polley: You were so disciplined with that. Even Claire's big monologue that you were talking about—I said to Claire, “How are you feeling about it?” And she said, “I'm so frustrated with myself because there's tears.” What other actor is like, “Oh fuck, the tears”? There was this active desire to not do the obvious thing. It’s so good watching someone fight that.

McCarthy: And that makes you do the tears.

Foy: That's all these women have— is words. We act out so much of the emotion on each other in life, anyway. “Don't tell me what we're going to do, show me.” But in this, they have to articulate it. They have such a huge responsibility. It's like the United Nations or something. They have to be able to speak to each other and get their point across so they can all be heard.

Buckley: This is sort of Women Talking. [To me] Take some minutes! [Group laughs]

If I can be Ben Whishaw for a day, I’m happy.

McCarthy: In the last 24 hours, since our screening, I don't know if this is pertinent, but I've been in lines to the loo, with women who have seen the movie and they can't talk. A lot of the women just said, ugh. And then they're filled with emotion

Buckley: And men.

McCarthy: And men too, you're right.

McDormand: I had a great conversation with a couple, late 30s, man, woman. He was saying he saw it with his wife, her mother, and her grandmother. And that at the end of it, his position was that he really wanted them to kill [Mariche’s abusive husband] Klaus. He wanted someone to go back and kill Klaus and they were like, “Oh, no, no, no, no, you really missed the point.” And so they all really wanted to keep the conversation going. And it was so great to see it still happening. And that was the next day. They were still engaged in the talking.

And sometimes, the movie itself is the argument. “Women Talking,” the justly anticipated fourth feature directed by the Canadian-born actor and filmmaker Polley (after “Away From Her,” “Take This Waltz” and “Stories We Tell”), takes the form of a feature-length debate. Adapted from Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel about a fictional Mennonite community, the movie, which will be released Dec. 2 by United Artists, unfolds almost entirely in the hayloft of a barn where several women and girls have gathered to decide their fates, as well as the fates of the other women and girls in their isolated colony. They must decide whether to carry on with life as normal, stay and do battle with a common enemy, or set out on their own, leaving behind the only home they’ve ever known.

The tragedy that sets this furious clash of wills in motion — a repeated, ritualized campaign of sexual assault by the men in their community — is never explicitly shown, though we see the aftermath in discreet, searing shots of bruised legs and bloodied sheets. It’s enough. Polley has no interest in exploiting the male violence that has been inflicted on her characters, and she trusts her superb actors — they include Frances McDormand, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley and Rooney Mara — to subtly embody the horrors of the past as their characters grapple with the future. Nor does Polley lean exclusively on realism in a movie that deliberately hovers between drama and parable, the materially concrete and the spiritually abstract, and whose stark austerity sometimes gives way to bursts of salty wit and cathartic laughter.
And so, as sharply honed and concentrated as it is, “Women Talking” has a remarkable formal and conceptual fluidity. The cinematographer, Luc Montpellier, employs a palette that’s muted to the point of monochrome; it’s a deliberately unlovely look — a reflection of an ugly world — that makes it all the more remarkable when moments of color and beauty steal into the frame. The setting is contemporary (there’s a reference to antibiotics and a brief scene with an automobile), but this farming community, with its horses, wagons and agrarian garb, could be situated anywhere and anytime. None of the women can read or write, but they have the battle-hardened eloquence of seasoned verbal pugilists. (Ben Whishaw plays a sensitive male schoolteacher entrusted to take the minutes of their meeting.) Their vigorous back-and-forth, with its emphasis on accountability, protection and liberation, has the resonance of a #MeToo debate; it also confronts an issue — forgiveness — that doesn’t always or even often figure into those debates.

As the women (the excellent Judith Ivey, Liv McNeil, Sheila McCarthy, Michelle McLeod and Kate Hallett round out the cast) grapple with their God-given imperative to forgive their attackers, “Women Talking” gathers extraordinary emotional force, and also something more: genuine spiritual weight. Polley has made an angry, compassionate parable of Christian belief and female empowerment — two forces, often thought to be irreconcilable, that are shown here to be intrinsically bound. She’s also made a movie that, with its acutely sensitive child performances and its deft evocation of unspeakable trauma, seems undeniably informed by her own remarkable but not untroubled history growing up in front of the camera.

Some of that early history was referenced in a special festival tribute that Polley received before “Women Talking’s” first screening Friday night. But the focus was primarily on her later work as a director, especially “Stories We Tell,” the splendid documentary feature she brought here in 2013.

Frances McDormand, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley and other actors in the ensemble of Sarah Polley’s extraordinary drama “Women Talking” were walking into the Werner Herzog Theatre for a post-screening Q&A Sunday just as a few members of the audience were leaving the venue. A friend of Buckley’s spied the actor near the entrance and embraced her, sobbing. They clung to each other for nearly a minute.

“Never had that happen before, nope,” Buckley said later, still feeling the moment deeply.

It’s likely to occur again, given the film’s thoughtful, moving examination of faith and forgiveness, of women coming to terms with trauma and debating how to move past it — if that’s even possible. Adapted from Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel, “Women Talking” centers on the women in an isolated, fictional Mennonite sect who have been drugged and sexually assaulted. The women and girls must decide whether to stay and forgive the men — the only way, they’re told, that they can enter the kingdom of heaven — or stand and fight the men. Or pack up and leave the only home they’ve ever known.

Polley, who adapted and directed the film, describes the story as “bewilderingly hopeful,” which sounds like a bit of salesmanship — except it’s true. (“I’ve shown it to some teenagers,” producer Dede Gardner says by phone, “and they literally vibrate. It seems it’s almost anthemic to them.”) The conversations these women have in a hayloft — they must make a decision in 48 hours before the men are bailed out of jail — are thrilling in their clear, empathetic and nuanced understanding of the validity of differing viewpoints and, ultimately, the power of community.

In a tented area outside the Herzog Theatre, the women of “Women Talking” — Foy, McDormand (who has a small, key role and is a producer), Buckley, Michelle McLeod, Sheila McCarthy, newcomers Kate Hallett and Liv McNeil and, of course, Polley — shared a joyful camaraderie and respect. Rooney Mara, another standout, sent her regrets, as she was putting her child down for a nap. Judith Ivey and Gardner had left for home earlier in the day. But this movie, which will also screen at the Toronto, New York and London film festivals ahead of a Dec. 2 theatrical release, has a deep bench and the conversation could have gone on for hours.

Fran, you came on stage and knighted Sarah with a plastic knife before the movie’s world premiere Thursday. Have you ever knighted someone before?

McDormand: No, but they need to get a nicer sword. It’s all I could find.

Polley: I was very happy with it, actually. I thought there was a metaphor in it. Like, receive this but don’t take it too seriously. It can change and break at any moment.

Your face, Fran, just radiated joy.

McDormand: With the COVID restrictions, we didn’t get to be together as much, so this is our time to be together and celebrate with this [she gestures at the surrounding mountains] as our background and the quote-unquote “casualness” of Telluride. But I never expected to get to do what I’m doing. I never thought it was a possibility. And this represents the best of the best of the last 10 years, and I believe this represents a shift in our industry.

And it started with “Moonlight.” Our poster says, “From the producers of ‘Moonlight’ and ‘Nomadland,’ a film by Sarah Polley, written, adapted and directed by Sarah Polley.” Those three things together are, for me, a real change in the industry. The moment that “Moonlight” not only existed, but was not recognized in a way that it needed to be, it shifted something in our industry that needs to be acknowledged. It’s time for real shifts in the paradigm of power.

“Moonlight” and “Nomadland” — those two films and those two filmmakers — changed the conversation, and “Women Talking” is a direct descendant of that. Now it’s up to the audience. They have to take some responsibility and continue the conversation.

Buckley: Someone asked at a Q&A this morning what happens to the women after the movie ends. And in my head I thought, “That’s you. You are them. They are you.” It doesn’t end with the film. That’s you telling somebody else to go watch this film and then coming out and saying, “Well, where do we go next?” And then being brave enough to step into that scary place.

McNeil: We’re hoping that the audience might have their lives changed by having those conversations.

Foy: You can’t put the genie back in the bottle. The way this film has been made with the people who made it ... that’s difficult to ignore. When I started acting, this wouldn’t have even been possible. Not because nobody wanted to see it, but because nobody believed in it.

The dynamics of the debate in the barn felt authentic and truthful. Anyone who has been on a committee can relate to the way the discussion ebbs and flows. The women listen to each other and, in hearing different perspectives, open themselves up to changing their views.

Buckley: Gloria Steinem said in order to move forward we have to unlearn things so that we can learn new things for our future.

Polley: We live in a world where we’re all shouting at each other. Being open to a conversation changing your mind is a radical act right now. To be able to be transformed from the beginning of a conversation to the end and to change your mind ... we lived that with this movie, from the very beginning in the script phase.

Buckley: Unexpected things happened.

Polley: We’d take the process you see in the film and use it. During prep, we’d literally be throwing stuff up on the board and saying, “Let’s have this hard conversation.” There was a moment when we had to cut the budget. We called it “the week of pain.” And everyone had to bring up every idea they could possibly think of and they weren’t allowed to think about anyone’s feelings. And then we just debated each and every idea. We put a number beside each item. And we cut a million dollars in two days. And it was really OK. Nobody walked away, saying, “I can’t believe we had to lose this thing.”

At every point leading up to making the film, we had these difficult conversations that lifted us up instead of dragging us down. People got their hands dirty, and it was really, really fun.

Foy: And that ended up in the film. I didn’t realize how much of the movie’s story hinged on people changing their minds. When Mariche [Buckley’s character] finally says, “I get it,” I really was like, “Oooooh. We can all move forward because you can’t leave one behind.” That doesn’t make coming terms with that decision easy. You don’t suddenly go, “I feel great now. What a weight off my shoulders.” But you can’t go back. You can only move forward. And that’s terrifying. I didn’t realize a lot of this until I was acting it in the movie.

McDormand: Here’s another example. Miriam [Toews] chose August to be the narrator of the book. That came along with the adaptation, but we questioned it in development. Can you see “Women Talking” and hear a man’s voice first? Don’t we need to hear a female voice?

Polley: It was a collaborative conversation with Dede and Fran where it was Dede saying, “Maybe it was Ona [Mara’s character] talking to her unborn baby” and then Chris [Donaldson, the film’s editor] saying, “What if it’s Autje [Hallett‘s character, the youngest in the film]?” And then I said, “What if it’s Autje talking to the unborn baby?” And it was this amazing, collaborative process of people building on each other’s ideas.

McCarthy: Did Miriam like that idea?

Polley: She likes it a lot. It really works in the book for August to be the narrator. But I think the film needed a more immediate connection.

Buckley: I love that the book and the film sit beside each other. You can have two different experiences.

McDormand: I’m not sure I want to say this because it seems so petty, but, um ...

[The group collectively implores McDormand to “say it, say it.”]

McDormand: The fact that Sarah is acknowledging how many different voices went into that decision, because I dare say, a man of my generation would be taking full credit for that. “I chose to do this because I’m the visionary filmmaker that made this film.” And I think that what we’ve started, when people say they’ve never seen anything like this before, its because I believe we’re changing something. Am I naive?

Foy: If people are willing to listen, then no. You have to be willing to grapple with it.

Buckley: I had that experience the first time I read the script. I couldn’t contain it all. It wasn’t until I saw it that I really understood what we were doing. We couldn’t see it when we were in it because we were in it.

McDormand: We needed to see ourselves dramaturgically in a larger whole. And to Sarah’s credit, she gave everyone the opportunity to do that up in the hayloft. No one was ghettoized by age or experience. Everyone had a voice.

McCarthy: We were in a parallel world, working on this movie. In that hayloft, we were actors and our characters, listening, taking in the information and jumping on it, debating, disagreeing. We were working on the movie and in the movie.

McLeod: I’m the youngest of five, and I have four big brothers. So I was dubbed the “emotional” one my whole life. And no one could truly understand me. I didn’t have the outlet or the understanding of how to express myself. So I accepted that title for many years. And I struggled with that. Hearing the characters and the language used in the script and in the book validated so many things that I didn’t even understand I needed to hear.

So it’s not only the power of the film and the story, but it meant a lot to me as a person to be around this many women. I don’t think I’ve ever been around this many women in my entire life! Just being surrounded by feminine energy for the entire process. You don’t realize how special it is to be surrounded by women until you’re not anymore. And it’s just so comfortable to be around.

McDormand: You hear things differently, don’t you? I recently realized a male in my life often does this. He stays in one place and says, “Come here.” And I realized how long I’ve gone there. And I started to go, “No. How about you come here?”

It was interesting being on set. We had extraordinary male collaborators. It wasn’t an all-female set. We’re not a bunch of Amazons. It was an incorporated group of people. A lovely, lovely man we work with would go, “Come on, come on ladies!” I’d be like, “Come on ladies? Hmmm. I’m going to think about what ‘come on ladies’ means.”

Polley: We had a talk about that. [Laughs]