You’re likely well aware of the classic Wuthering Heights, but what about the voice behind the iconic 1847 novel? That’s exactly what Frances O’Connor digs into in her feature directorial debut, Emily, starring Emma Mackey as Wuthering Heights author, Emily Brontë.
Given the degree of mystery surrounding Emily and the Brontë family, O’Connor takes a part fact and part speculation approach to her story. Emily is the second-youngest of the Brontë siblings. There’s Alexandra Dowling’s Charlotte, Branwell Brontë played by Fionn Whitehead, Mackey’s Emily, and then the youngest of the Brontë siblings, Amelia Gething’s Anne. All bonded, all quite different, and all feeling some form of pressure courtesy of inner demons and/or societal expectations. In Emily’s case, she’s forced to navigate an oppressive patriarchy and being branded “the strange one” in order to find and embrace her true vocation.
In celebration of Emily’s world premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, O’Connor, Mackey, Dowling, Gething, and Oliver Jackson-Cohen who plays William Weightman, the local curate, all visited the Collider Supper Suite and Media Studio at Marbl to discuss their experience bringing O’Connor’s vision to screen.
Mackey’s been making a huge impression via Sex Education ever since the show first debuted in 2019, but now it’s becoming quite clear that she’s eager to make the most of her time between seasons. She's a standout in Kenneth Branagh’s star-studded Death on the Nile, she’s truly exceptional in Emily, and next up is the highly anticipated Barbie movie starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling. How does Mackey go about selecting projects in general, and what made Emily stand out? Here’s what she said:
“There wasn't a list of requirements necessarily that I look for, but what was so great about Emily is it was the right time for that kind of project, and I was really excited about working with a literary figure, so to speak. And it just felt like there was a lot to do. There was a lot to get our teeth stuck into, you know what I mean? It felt like a complete thing. There was a whole range of things to do and a palette of colors to explore. It felt like a whole piece to do so that was really exciting. And then yeah, I've been very lucky to do different things, but it's always scripts. The same with Emily, is you read the script and you have an instinct about it and you kind of just follow that.”
Sure enough, Mackey’s instincts were on-point with Emily, which boasts a beautifully complex and poignant narrative. There are a number of key contributors to shaping Emily’s journey in the film, but one of the most impactful of the bunch is Emily’s relationship with her sisters. While discussing key qualities of the Emily and Charlotte connection, Dowling noted that their love for one another is important, but also explained:
“There was very much a sense of Emily being this kind of rebel or this difficult character, [that] was something Charlotte found very difficult because she was much more concerned about how other people saw her whereas Emily just didn't care. She was just fine with being a weirdo. [Laughs] So it was kind of that thing of being able to balance the kind of love and care and the protectiveness with the judgment and the frustration.”
On the other hand, there’s Anne, the youngest of the bunch, but the only one who’s able to function as a mediator and can truly see her siblings. Why might Anne have that ability when her sisters don’t? Here’s Gething’s take:
“I guess being the youngest sibling, seeing how the other siblings have grown up and have their dynamics and different things that they bicker on or get on with, I guess she was kind of very observant. In researching stuff about her, I feel like she was very observant and stuff like that, so I tried to kind of take that on board when I was thinking about how she would be the mediator because Charlotte and Emily's relationship’s a bit like, [‘Whoa.’] So yeah, I think it was probably her way of trying to keep the peace in the house and keep everyone loving one another and just being a chill girl, really.”
While Anne’s efforts do strengthen the family dynamic at times, Emily also addresses the fact that, no matter how close one thinks they are to their siblings, there could be hidden corners of their world. In this particular case, that often begs the question, how well do the Brontës really know each other? While discussing character qualities the cast couldn’t fully tap into until they hit set, Dowling highlighted Charlotte’s eagerness to truly know Emily. Here’s how she put it:
“I definitely found something about Emily's character, [her] being such an enigma and holding so much back, that feeling of longing to get close to her and wanting to get in. I didn't know how much that would mean to me, affect me. So I think that, to me, wasn't something I really thought about, but that longing to know your family, know your sister and feeling like you don’t, that was something I think came up in the filming of it for me.”
O’Connor further emphasized:
“Sometimes with siblings, you think that you're so intimate and you know each other so well, but in other ways, they're just total strangers to you and I think it was very much like that for the real Brontë's as well.”
There are a slew of important on-screen relationships in Emily, but there’s also a rather unique one behind-the-scenes that heavily influenced the atmosphere and the immersive nature of the film. It’s O’Connor and the cast’s collaboration with cinematographer Nanu Segal. Rather than plan every shot to a tee, O’Connor and Segal opted to do away with marks and give the cast the freedom to move around the space however they pleased. Mackey in particular was a big fan of that filming style:
"I love it. I didn't feel stuck. I feel like a lot of time with marks or with lighting, sometimes you go onto a set and everything is done for you and you just need to stand in a certain place. Here, a lot of the time, we kind of just got to feel it out and figure out where we wanted to be and what we wanted to do, and often because we're using natural light in a lot of it and we're outdoors a lot. You get that freedom to just move about and the camera’s following you or you’re following [it]. It felt very, not to use the overused word organic, but it felt very organic. You know what I mean? It feels like it had that fluidity to it a lot of the time, even if you're in a costume drama, even if you're in corsets, I never felt tense or stilted in that way, which is nice.”
Jackson-Cohen further explained, “Nanu films the majority of it on her own and so there's something so raw about the way that she works.” O’Connor also added, “I think it depends for actors who's looking at you through the lens and because Nanu, she’s a brilliant cinematographer, but she's also this gorgeous person and you feel that she's loving what the actors are doing, and I feel like there's a kind of circle happening with that as well.”
Eager to hear more from O’Connor, Mackey, Dowling, Gething, and Jackson-Cohen on their experience making Emily? Be sure to check out our full TIFF 2022 interview at the top of this article!
Special thanks to our TIFF 2022 partners A-list Communications, Belvedere Vodka, Marbl Toronto, COVERGIRL Canada, Tres Amici Wines, Toronto Star, and Blue Moon Belgian White beer.