I’m always interested in the movie magic that goes into things like having a character ingest things that are dangerous — because it looks so real here. Did you achieve this by pantomime or did the prop department have to whip up some sort of edible swallowing items?

A magician never reveal their secrets, my friend. I will never talk about how we made those things, but let me just say, they’re illusions. I’m glad they felt real to you, but I will not divulge any further.

I can respect that. Speaking of real, Haley Bennett gives a tour de force performance on the level of Woman Under the Influence or Rosemary’s Baby. How did you get connected to her, and did you have to do any convincing to get her on board?

Well, I’m so glad you feel that way. I completely agree. I think her performance is just out of this world, and, you know, she’s so good with layers of emotion.

Hunter wears multiple masks throughout the film: there’s that first mask, which is like her plastered smile reflecting normalcy and what her husband wants her to be; there’s that second mask, which is her pain, her doubt; and her third mask, which his her true self, her primal self, threatening to emerge.

Haley can give you all of those emotional textures instantaneously with just the touch of her hair or the twitch of her eyes, and she poured every iota of her soul into this part. I knew that I needed an actor who would invest everything into the role and someone who could bring the audience into their internal cosmology — because the film does go into some very unusual and threatening places and really needs an actor who’s an empath, who can really sculpt emotion on their face and bring audiences into their world.

I’d seen Haley in The Girl on the Train, and I just thought she was amazing in it. I watched her other roles, and I thought, ‘I wanna to see her in a lead role’. I suspected she was looking for a part that would be really bold and unusual and powerful, and I thought I’d take a chance. I wrote her a passionate letter offering her the part, and I thought, you know, she’s gonna turn me down and that’ll be that. But to my incredible joy she decided to meet with me.

We sat down, and right away, there was this telepathic bond between us. It was a real meeting of the minds, and we instantly had wonderful rapport and collaboration about the character, and it just became clear that we wanted to make this movie together.

So, that’s how it happened, and we’re so appreciative that she decided to take the part. She’s also an executive producer on the film, and she was extremely generous with her time and her energy. We’re so fortunate that she decided to bring Hunter to life.

The story takes a lot of interesting swerves, especially in its last act. Did you know early on where it would end or was it more a discovery process getting to the film’s final moments?

I knew I wanted that climax to happen, that conclusion — there’s a big scene at the end, and I won’t spill the beans, but I always wanted that to happen — however, the final final ending, that was a big question mark. One of the things they don’t always tell you in film school is: if you want to make a great film, you’ve got to have amazing producers. So, I asked my friends, ‘So, who are the best producers in the business?’ And they said, ‘Mollye Asher and Mynette Louie, but you’ll never get them.’ I was like, well, I’m gonna try, and amazingly, both of them decided to work on the film.

It was really during the rewrites of the script — we did a lot of rewrites and we talked a lot about the ending — that that final ending emerged. They had some amazing notes, and in the end — I was say too much about what it is, but — there’s a final moment that I think really gives a beautiful ending beat to end the film on. So it was a journey. We settled on that ending about a month before production.