Struggling with trauma, she becomes haunted by her daughter’s increasingly disturbing behavior. Its director, Western Australian-born Reid, is one of Australia’s most active television directors in the United States, having helmed THE handmaid’s tale, Apple series shiny girls and the Steve Carell series Space force.
Reid says she was instantly drawn to the film, seeing it as a chance to explore the difficulties of on-screen motherhood in a realistic and grounded way.
“To me, motherhood is just begging to be explored, because we are sold motherhood in a certain way. Mothers are portrayed in a certain way. When I became a mother, you watched women walking down the street with their prams, they all look like they were born for it and it’s all joyful. And suddenly you have a baby, and you think to yourself: “hop, I’m really good at this, and now I’m a mother.” I don’t think that’s the case. It’s a really, really hard thing and the conflicting emotions that happen when you become a parent and your self-doubt and all of that is so hard. It really fascinated me to explore that kind of extreme vulnerability of what happens to your child,” Reid says.
While the movie was originally planned to re-equip Reid with her shiny girls stars Elisabeth Moss, the Mad Men/Handmaid’s Tale the actress was replaced by an Adelaide-born Succession star, Sarah Snook. Reid says working with Snook was one of the highlights of making the film and his career in general.
“All the things you can give her and what she finds next… She’s also a fun person to be around.
“We were handling pretty dark material. There’s a scene that’s no longer in the movie, but we were all on the beach and she must have had a big swim. I turned around and she’s like a kid. She runs from the waves and bumps into the waves and runs away like she’s 10 years old.
For Reid, who has comedy roots, having gotten her start as a Pauline Hanson impersonator in the comedy sketch series Full frontaldirected episodes of Jimeoinand more recently Young Oscillatehaving the chance to work in a contrasting genre was a challenge she relished.
“I came out of it and I was like, ‘oh, that’s why I was a comedy actor (laughs). I was in comedy (early in my career) and I think I was trying to avoid it. I like to swap between the two. And I like to do one and then the other. So it’s good for my own sanity to say, “I did that and now I going out and cracking a few jokes, and keep jumping between genres.
Another element of Running Rabbit Running that Reid loved, was working with an actor for the first time Lily LaTorre, who plays Snook’s character’s haunted daughter, Mia. Snook played a key role in guiding Tower to be comfortable on screen, helping it navigate fairly dark material.
“It was very family caring for Lily. Sarah and Lily have become a real team. And she and Sarah played along. Of course, we don’t shoot all (his scenes) at the same time. We didn’t do a lot of difficult scenes every day. We made one and found a way to cross it. For example, with the scissors scene, which contains gore, it’s really “your hand goes here, and the hand goes there, and the hand goes there,” Reid explains.
“She came to watch the monitor with me, interested in the whole process. And, when she wasn’t there, she watched what was going on.
Surprisingly, for Reid, the manufacturing process Running Rabbit Running at home, with an Australian cast and crew, was a lot like filming American series like Handmaid’s Tale And shiny girls.
“The process is the same. It’s a very similar kind of experience, really, it’s the budgets that make the difference. So obviously there was a good budget on The Handmaid’s Tale, so you can ask just about anything. But we did well Running Rabbit Running Also. There really isn’t a difference for me in terms of the process,” Reid says.
“With these two, they’re quite similar in a way because there’s a gender filter through both shows. The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian future. Running Rabbit Running, the child says she is someone else, is this a reincarnation? So there’s a filter like that through both rooms, but inside it’s very, very grounded and real. That is why The Handmaid’s Tale is such a success, because it was a real world in which something happened. there is nothing in it The Handmaid’s Tale this did not happen in the real world. All the things that happened to these people are happening to people now or in the past. So, in a way, there’s a real similarity between these plays in that the performances are really grounded and true, and the reactions are real and as human as it gets.
Running Rabbit Running premieres on Netflix Wednesday, June 28.