Sally Hawkinshas a fondness for characters that, in her words, “fall in the gaps.”
“Those stories are always more interesting.
Every single person has a voice.
Credit: Everett Collection
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What drew you to Jane and this project?
SALLY HAWKINS:She’s totally unique.
It’s somebody basically handing you your baby and something that is very precious to his heart.
He wrote this beautiful script that is based on somebody he knows.
He approached me years before we actually got to do it.
But that was just a gift really.
You always want more time.
Because of the subject matter itself, it’s quite sensitive.
Because we’re friends we have a similar taste in film and music and humor.
Can you tell me how you worked to avoid that in your portrayal?
I did focus on the little bit that I’m doing.
You just double-check it’s really grounded in reality.
But knowing the thread of each single one of those lines and thoughts and where was the root was.
you’re able to’t ever do enough [research] for me.
Every case will be different.
You have to do it that way because it’s all so personal and subjective.
You seem to gravitate toward playing slightly broken people caught in the midst of unusual love stories.
Why is that a story or jot down of role that keeps attracting you?
Stories have an incredible ability to transform people’s viewpoints, and I’m always fascinated by that.
Everything I do, always feels different and hard, even the seemingly simple characters can be the hardest.
All Jane’s nerve endings are very on the surface.
She’s very much like a child and that can be challenging to watch and to play.
It never stops; she’s unpredictable and that is really exhausting.
But that’s the same [with people] in life as well.
Jane has what some might deem an invisible illness, though it obviously manifests more visibly than others.
You’ve spoken openly about having lupus.
Maybe that’s why it meant so much to me.
People are extraordinary in what they go through.
Every single person has something that they’re dealing with.
And it’s all relative.
You always pull those things in and you take courage in stories like this.
How amazing is she?
How amazing is that person?
How amazing are you?
The fact that you get up, every single day, because you just keep going.
And that’s what’s so wonderful about her.
She keeps running on.
I find her bravery so profoundly inspiring.
It’s about the human spirit.
It’s very difficult to suss out what is happening in Jane’s head and what’s real.
I did chart it, just for me outside of Jane.
I wanted to know.
When I was in Jane, everything’s real.
She’s not aware of what’s not real because that’s what she’s experiencing.
That’s what’s so frightening.
She sees those arms, those limbs in the fridge.
She believes that voice on the phone.
She sees the past through a hole in the wall.
She feels the wall spin, and then suddenly, she’s in a dark place.
It’s a very scary thing.
But she just knows that that’s what she has to deal with.
That’s what so’s moving about her story.
Despite that terror, she’s able to have this incredible heart.
Ultimately it’s all real to her.
It’s terrifying, but also beautiful.
It’s on the edge of life.
She vibrates by being so alive and so in the moment.
She’s present tense all the time.
