The best-selling novel about fate, love, moral dilemmas and the lengths one couple will go to see their hard-fought dreams realized comes to the screen as a lush, star-crossed romance starring Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Rachel Weisz, written for the screen and directed by Derek Cianfrance.
As mesmerizingly beautiful as it is heartbreaking, M.L. Stedman’s novel “The Light Between Oceans” was a literary sensation upon its publication in 2012. Set on the remote edge of Western Australia in the years following the devastation of the Great War, the book lured readers into a seductively old-fashioned tale of love and impossible choices beneath which lay roiling, contemporary questions of right and wrong, the effects of war and peace, the wonders of connection and the dangers of blind scruples.
This is where Tom Sherbourne, a shell-shocked veteran, devotes himself to his new job as lighthouse keeper on the otherwise uninhabited Janus Rock, surrounded by nothing but the vast sea, seeking solace in the solitude. He intends to remain alone, but unexpectedly meets Isabel Graysmark, a vivacious young woman from the town of Partageuse across the harbor, herself grieving two brothers lost in the war.
Despite the obstacles, their love fl ourishes in the stark isola on and they are soon married. Passionate for each other and hoping to be part of crea ng a new life together, they try to start a family, but fate intercedes. Then, one night, a mysterious rowboat holding a dead man and an infant girl washes ashore, se ng off a chain of decisions—some impetuous, others wrenching— that unravel with sha ering consequences.
Cianfrance immediately felt the cinematic potential of a story that invokes the power of landscape, the aftermath of war, the all-consuming state of passion and, most of all, the ageless tradition of romances that push a couple into illuminating moral borderlands. He adapted Stedman’s book faithfully, yet with a filmmaker’s eye for the details that propel human relationships into both bliss and catastrophe.
LOVE DEMANDS EVERYTHING
“’The Light Between Oceans’ is a film about love, truth and the secrets people keep in rela onships, and what happens when those secrets are exposed to the light of day,” says Cianfrance. “It is a moral drama, but at the core, it is a meless love story.”
DreamWorks Pictures and Reliance Entertainment present, in association with Participant Media, “The Light Between Oceans,” starring two- me Academy Award® nominee Michael Fassbender, Oscar winner Alicia Vikander, Oscar and Golden Globe® winner Rachel Weisz, Bryan Brown and Jack Thompson. The fi lm is written for the screen and directed by Derek Cianfrance based on the novel by M.L. Stedman and produced by Oscar nominee David Heyman, p.g.a. and Jeff rey Cliff ord, p.g.a. The executive producers are Tom Karnowski, Rosie Alison, Jeff Skoll and Jonathan King.
TELLING SECRETS CINEMATICALLY: THE ADAPTATION
M.L. Stedman’s novel “The Light Between Oceans” was published in the U.S. by Scribner in July, 2012 and was immediately embraced by readers and cri cs alike, appearing on both The New York Times and USA Today’s bestseller lists and as Amazon’s Best Book of the Month for August of that year. Since then it has been translated into over 35 languages.
“The Light Between Oceans” marks the first me director Derek Cianfrance has adapted a novel, but he has long been interested in crea ng a cinema of in macy and probing into themes of love, family legacy, loneliness and choices—the very same themes that made Stedman’s novel so resonant to so many. He won acclaim in 2010 for wri ng and direc ng “Blue Valentine,” a visually inven ve portrait of a marriage breaking apart, then garnered accolades for wri ng and direc ng “The Place Beyond the Pines,” a lyrically told crime drama that turns a bank heist into an intense father-son love story.
“I’ve essen ally made exploring rela onships and families my life’s work to this point,” he says. “I feel as if my mission as a fi lmmaker is to explore the most in mate rela onships in both private and expansive ways.”
With “The Light Between Oceans,” Cianfrance saw a chance to explore that duality in an en rely fresh way. The allure of Stedman’s book was in part its fable-like elements: a secluded island escape, a love aff air removed from the constraints of society, a crying baby found at sea, and a grieving woman whose husband and only child disappear without a trace. But what really drew him in was the chance to explore how even the most isolated and intense love must fi nd a way to weather the toughness of truth and the consequences of life’s harshest choices.
It’s no coincidence that the story of “The Light Between Oceans” takes place on Janus Rock, aptly named a er the two-faced Roman God of endings and beginnings. Like Janus, the characters of Tom and Isabel are caught between two poles: between a past haunted by war’s destruc on and a future they hope to imagine together; between hiding away from the darkness of the world and chasing the fl ickering promise of light; between doing what seems fair in the moment and seeing what is truly just. The trick was wrapping all of this into a fi lm that is also a spellbinding romance and, ul mately, a reckoning.
For Cianfrance, the best way in was through the personal emoƟ ons he experienced while reading the book himself. “I wanted to be incredibly faithful to the book,” he explains. “The most meaningful compliment on the fi lm I’ve received so far was from Stedman herself, who said she spent the day weeping aŌ er aƩ ending a screening…weeping because she felt that she was understood. She said, ‘Isn’t that the point of life, that we, as human beings, are trying to be understood by each other?’”
Like millions of fans around the world, Cianfrance was transfi xed by Stedman’s wriƟ ng, her ability to create equal parts suspense and poetry out of dark secrets and doom-laden decisions. He remembers openly crying on the subway while reading the book, despite the stares. “In the years since, I’ve seen other people crying while reading the book in cafes, parks and subways and it validates for me that this is such a deeply human and universal story,” he says. “I think people are drawn to it because it is so honest about the pain of love and about love lost, but also because it then becomes a beauƟ ful rendering of redempƟ on and healing.”
Already able to visualize the story unspooling on the screen, Cianfrance made the decision to go aŌ er the story with total commitment. At that point, the novel had been acquired by DreamWorks and was in early stages of development by producer David Heyman (“FantasƟ c Beasts and Where to Find Them,” “Gravity,” the “Harry PoƩ er” fi lms) of Heyday Films. Heyman, too, had fallen for the book at the suggesƟ on of execuƟ ve producer Rosie Alison (“Testament of Youth,” “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”).
“I’m very drawn to stories where you can see all sides, and this is a story that economically shows all sides,” Heyman says. “You see not just Tom’s, Isabel’s and Hannah’s sides in what happens, but every character you meet seems to bring in another layer. In that way, the story takes you on a personal, emoƟ onal journey that I think people will want to discuss long aŌ er they’ve leŌ the theatre.”
Adds Alison, “The book has a hard, diamond-like quality in its take on love, loss and self-sacrifi ce. In a sense it’s a psychological thriller in which the mystery is where the strongest love lies.”
Cianfrance approached Heyman ready to fi ght for the project, telling him he was desƟ ned to make the fi lm, and his enthusiasm was irresisƟ ble. Having seen “Blue ValenƟ ne” and “The Place Beyond the Pines,” Heyman already knew Cianfrance’s nuanced wriƟ ng and strong visual style were a match for the vivid immersiveness of the book.
“There’s no arƟ fi ce to Derek’s work,” Heyman says. “That was so key to this adaptaƟ on because it’s such a charged story. We were fortunate that Derek connected with these characters in a profound way. The spirit of the book is wriƩ en on every page of his script and felt in every frame of the fi lm.”
Cianfrance wrote the screenplay without input from Stedman, but the author was omnipresent in his head. “Even though we never talked, I had such a deep relaƟ onship with her in my mind. I treated her words as scripture. I read the book so many Ɵ mes, I had it memorized,” he explains. “I always tried to remain true to the feelings I had reading it for the fi rst Ɵ me. That was my North Star.”
He also made sure to keep the book’s rigorous lack of judgment towards its complex characters intact. “Something that really aƩ racted me is the fact that there are no bad people in the story,” he explains. “That doesn’t mean everyone makes the right choices or that they don’t hurt other people, but in their hearts and in their minds and in their souls they are good people. And as a fi lmmaker interested in humanity, it was a great privilege to try to tell a story where the supposed ‘villains’ of the story might be the people you love most.”
While Cianfrance was steadfast in his respect for the material, he was equally as dedicated in wan ng to fi nd that mysterious alchemy that allows works of literature to live and breathe in movie theatres. In fact, he himself faced many wrenching decisions during the adapta on: decisions about where to compact Stedman’s carefully structured tale and where to translate scenes into something more explicitly visual so it could feel alive in fl esh and blood.
“In any adapta on, I think the greatest challenge is that of subtrac on, what you must leave out,” he says. “It’s like sculpture; once you embrace that, it can be the wind beneath your wings. Eventually you can expand the moments and themes that you love and push the boundaries to fi nd even more truthfulness. This is when it really starts to become alive. There are of course key differences between cinema and literature and one of those is the way me plays out. There has to be a diff erent way of handling pace and also of handling secrets and revela ons.”
The la er especially intrigued the director, who always saw a central theme of the story as the way secrets within a marriage can be both wrecking and uni ng. “The way cinema reveals secrets was as important to making the adapta on work,” Cianfrance says. “For example, in the book, Tom and Isabel both learn the truth about the baby at the same me, but in the movie, Tom sees it fi rst, so you see and feel Tom carrying this weight alone.”
Only a er he’d completed several dra s did Cianfrance meet Stedman for the fi rst me. “I was so nervous,” he remembers, “Because I respect her so greatly and truly hoped I could do her work jus ce. We had dinner together and she was just one of the most charming, though ul, loving human beings I’ve ever met. She’s a very private person, but she became a great support to me as I made the fi lm. I felt very sensi ve to the fact I was taking her crea on somewhere new, and her trust went a long way in giving me the confi dence I needed to make the fi lm.”
Says Stedman, “I’m so fortunate that, through Heyday Films and DreamWorks, this project found its way into the hands of the wonderful Derek Cianfrance. He has expertly and lovingly brought the world of the book to life in a new medium, complete with brilliant cast, cinematography and music. The result is an exquisitely beau ful and emo onally authen c fi lm that stays true to the spirit of my novel, yet also embodies the deeply personal interpreta on of the director and his actors. It’s been a great privilege to watch it come into being.”
The producers were thrilled with the structure of the screenplay. “We knew we had something special,” says producer Jeff rey Cliff ord (“Chloe,” “Up in the Air”). “Derek’s script dis lled the essen al emo ons of the novel in authen c and naturalis c ways and really brought to life the strength of the characters.”
The cast was equally as aff ected by Cianfrance’s dra . “The script moved me to tears, as the book did,” says Michael Fassbender, who takes on the confl icted character of Tom Sherbourne. “Tom and Isabel’s love story is so beau fully told. When we see something on screen that we relate to as human beings—and I think people will see themselves in Tom and Isabel—that is when cinema is most powerful.”
TOM SHERBOURNE: LIGHTHOUSE AND SECRET KEEPER
As “The Light Between Oceans” begins, Tom Sherbourne, a combat veteran haunted by me spent on the western front ba lefi elds in a brutal war that took the lives of 60,000 of his countryman, arrives in Western Australia. Trying to escape the looping cycles of grief, guilt and trauma, he fi nds a perfect way to be secluded, yet useful, as the lighthouse keeper who me culously keeps the beacon between the Indian and Southern oceans burning. Yet, rather than isola on, Tom fi nds himself instead being opened up in previously unimaginable ways by the love of a woman who truly wants to know his heart—a love that nearly unravels him.
Portraying this extraordinary unfolding of a solitary, principled man is two- me Academy Award® nominee Michael Fassbender in what is his most in mate and humane role to-date. Though he has riveted audiences as the sexually-compulsive Brandon in “Shame,” as the mutant Magneto in the “X-Men” series, as a cruel slave owner in “12 Years a Slave” and as the ingenious leader of Apple in “Steve Jobs,” this role was unlike any other he has tackled before.
That diff erence excited Derek Cianfrance. He explains, “I’ve been absolutely hypno zed and blown away by Michael’s presence on the screen for years. What always stood out to me was how smart he is, how his brain works on screen—it is larger-than-life. But with this character, I wanted to see the heart of Michael Fassbender—the heart that goes along with his physicality and intelligence. I wanted him to put his soul and vulnerability on the screen. I wanted to see the ba le between Michael’s heart and Michael’s mind.”
Cianfrance con nues, “When we met, I asked Michael if he had ever been in love, and when he laughed at me and said ‘yes,’ I felt an instant kind of brotherhood with him. And there was really no one else at that point. I felt it was des ny for him to be Tom. Tom is like a boiling pot of water with a lid on it. On the surface, he is very contained, but underneath there is a storm brewing.”
And Fassbender was drawn to that storm as well; drawn to a man who has an almost urgent need to be decent in the wake of war’s amorality, even more so when he falls in love. “Reading the book and script, I was impressed by Tom’s principles, loyalty and strength of character,” Fassbender says. “He’s a stoic, honest man, but he’s also a man trying to mend himself. He’s carrying all these mental scars from combat, yet when he meets Isabel, her freshness and innocence mo vate him to take a chance on opening his heart.”
Tom’s essen al wariness towards passion became a major thread in the character’s fabric. “He is numb from what he’s seen men to do each other and not hugely at peace with people anymore,” observes Fassbender. “That’s why working on the lighthouse seems like a tonic for him. But when Isabel comes into his life, he has a kind of sensual reawakening and starts to become whole again.”
As Tom’s innermost passion emerges in Isabel’s presence, the more he feels he cannot imagine the island without her, so when a child enters their lives, though he is visibly torn between his sense of duty and his wife’s happiness, he ul mately concedes to a choice that will rock many worlds. “When the boat washes ashore, it’s a very par cular me in Tom and Isabel’s rela onship, and that informs the decisions they make,” says Fassbender. “There’s also the fact that they’re so alone on the island. There’s an awareness that what seemed like paradise could turn into a prison.”
The decision to keep the baby as their own proves ominous, but Fassbender sympathizes with Tom’s discomfi ng decision to go with his heart, despite the profound misgivings of his head. “One of the things about this story is that it has the complexity of real life,” says the actor. “These things happen in life where you have to make a choice that has no simple or right answer. The story’s not about judging who is good and who is bad. It’s really about how we deal with the outcomes of our choices, and to me that is what defi nes us as human beings. For Tom, once he realizes what they’ve really done, it eats away at him, because at bo om, he is a man who believes in the order of things; he believes in doing right by others.”
As the baby, whom they name Lucy, grows up, she becomes an infi nite source of aff ec on and pleasure for Tom, which eats at him even more. “Tom is the kind of man who knows all about the des, the stars, where fossils come from, and he loves sharing all that with Lucy. As with most children, her curiosity, enthusiasm and excitement make him feel very alive,” says Fassbender. “At the same me, raising Lucy for four years with this buried secret is constantly going against his natural being.”
Those divisions between his love of being a father and his fear of what he has done to others slowly become percep ble in every sinew of Fassbender’s body. “I’m very proud of his performance,” says Cianfrance. “He shows you Tom as a beacon of security and safety, yet also someone who is very scared. I think Michael is one of very few actors who could do that simultaneously…who could hold steadfast to this exterior shell of Tom while also le ng you see what is unraveling inside him.”
Fassbender believes Cianfrance got a lot from his performance because the director put so much in. “Derek is the kind of director who doesn’t like to leave any stone unturned,” he explains. “Yet you really feel he’s got your back, and there’s a sense of trust.” He was especially intrigued by Cianfrance’s trademark long takes. “As an actor, it takes a lot of concentra on and focus to work like that but you realize that it allows Derek to fi nd those moments where you are truly the most aware and alive.”
In addi on to having to pry open Tom’s most walled-off emo ons, the role was also physically draining for the actor since Janus Rock is so exposed to the elements and has only Tom to maintain it. “I can’t remember any me in my adult life where I went to bed before midnight,” he laughs, “But on this fi lm, I was passing out at nine every night.”
For all that Tom sets in mo on, Fassbender believes that he also experiences something invaluable on Janus. “Even if things go wrong for Tom, at least he’s known love, he’s felt invested in something, and he’s perhaps lived 10 life mes in those four years on Janus before things go awry,” he summarizes.
ISABEL SHERBOURNE: A LIFE-ALTERING CHOICE
Beau ful, spirited and determined, Isabel (Graysmark) Sherbourne is at once a beguiling mystery to Tom and the source of his enchantment in the a ermath of war. She is also the s mulus behind the choice that will bring husband and wife to a reckoning. To play Isabel in all her challenging layers—her vivacity, her loyalty to her ins ncts and her recklessness—Derek Cianfrance knew he would need an actress capable of plunging deep beneath the surface. He found that in Oscar® winner Alicia Vikander, the young ballerina turned actress who garnered acclaim for two of 2015’s most intriguing female roles: Ava, the android with superior ar fi cial intelligence, in “Ex Machina” and Gerda Wegener, the ar st wife of one of the fi rst recipients of sex change surgery, in “The Danish Girl.”
“Isabel has no fi lter; she is what she feels” Cianfrance says. “I didn’t know who I would fi nd who could be that vulnerable, that open, that mercurial, that brave. So, I went on a search and met with many great actresses, but at the me, I had never heard of Alicia un l our cas ng director told me to watch ‘A Royal Aff air.’ When I fi nally met Alicia, I knew instantly she was Isabel. I read some scenes with her, which I don’t normally do, and just fell in love because she went for it; absolutely with reckless abandon. I also sensed that she and Michael would fi t together like a glove. And I was right—they played off of each other in such a beau ful way.”
As Michael Fassbender did with Tom, Vikander felt a magne c draw to the character of Isabel. “I was impressed by how much life Isabel brings to the beginning of the story. Like Tom, she’s been through trauma and felt a great loss with both her brothers dying in the war,” Vikander says. “And yet somehow she s ll has this beau ful spark and so much fi re, and that’s why Tom gets thrown by her.”
For Vikander, Isabel’s a rac on to Tom is in part a search for freedom and iden ty. “In Tom, I think Isabel fi nds a man who actually lets her be who she is. I think she feels with Tom that she’s fi nally able to relax and be herself,” she says.
That self is full of contradic ons, something which Vikander embraced. “I see Isabel as very strong but also naïve and vulnerable. She’s a person who goes with her impulses for be er and for worse,” she explains. “She has a tough journey in the fi lm, but I was always drawn by her willpower and strength of spirit.”
As for her decision to pretend the infant who washes ashore is her own daughter, Vikander sees Isabel as willfully ignoring the most painful outcome imaginable, and instead throwing herself into the overwhelming feelings of love and maternal ins ncts. “Some mes in life we make decisions that maybe are not the best decisions,” she says, “But there are two sides to every story and I think the beauty of this fi lm is that you feel for all the characters and understand why they do what they do. I felt equally for Isabel, for Tom and for Hannah.”
The passionate chemistry with Fassbender was essen al, but equally as important was Vikander’s rela onship with Florence Clery, who plays young Lucy/Grace at age four, when her life is turned upside down. “Florence is extraordinary,” says Vikander. “I had to fi ght just to keep up with her incredible imagina on. She has such natural presence. I truly fell in love with her, which made it all the more heartbreaking.”
Cianfrance’s directorial approach kept those emo ons vola le. “Derek is so humble and giving in the way he just lets the actors be in the scene as the camera rolls, wai ng to see what happens. He’s very emo onally intelligent,” says Vikander. “At the same me, he’s well prepared. He’s already edi ng the fi lm while making it, so he gives you diff erent ideas of how each scene could turn out, which really helps.”
For the scene in which Isabel arrives for the fi rst Ɵ me on Janus Rock, Cianfrance wanted a completely unmediated response, so he brought Vikander to the set for the fi rst Ɵ me blindfolded in pitch-blackness. She explains, “They walked me into this windowless shed in the darkness, where they put me in my costume for the fi rst Ɵ me and had me sit there. I didn’t see Derek, I didn’t see anyone. Then the AD came in and told me they were going to open the door and that I should walk towards Derek and the crew and experience the island for the fi rst Ɵ me, which is what I did.”
She conƟ nues, “I opened the door and ran up the hill as Isabel, and that’s when I felt her child-like excitement and love of nature. Then I walked up towards the lighthouse, and at that moment the sun came up…I had never seen such beauty in my life. I experienced it as Isabel, and it’s something that I will carry with me forever.”
“That moment was just purity,” adds Cianfrance. “It was something you couldn’t write, something you couldn’t expect…it was Alicia becoming Isabel before our eyes, seeing this place for the first time.”
HANNAH ROENNFELDT: IN SEARCH OF AN ANSWER
When Tom and Isabel Sherbourne find a baby in a floating dinghy, they make a wished-for assumption on that the baby’s parents are gone. Only later does Tom learn of the existence of the woman who will wreak havoc on his conscience for years to come: Hannah Roennfeldt, a resident of Partageuse clinging desperately to the unlikely hope that she will one day fi nd her husband and baby lost at sea. As a character who goes from scorn and sorrow to dismay and ultimately reconciliation, Hannah is as key to the story’s human intrigue as Tom and Isabel.
Oscar winner Rachel Weisz is known for bringing multiple shadings to a range of fi lm characters in titles like “The Constant Gardener,” “The Lovely Bones,” “About a Boy” and, most recently, “The Lobster.” The director had wanted to work with Weisz for years, and Hannah seemed like a role for which she had special insight. “She’s a mother, and I think you have to be a parent to truly understand Hannah,” Cianfrance says. “I had an amazing collaboration with Rachel, one of the deepest, most rewarding experiences I’ve had in terms of the places we got to in our trust with each other.”
He acknowledges that Weisz faced a tightrope walk to keep Hannah’s bereavement real without sliding into sentiment, and had the actress meet with a grief counselor to help provide some insight into the grieving process when the outcome of a loved one is unknown. “It was around the Ɵ me of the Malaysian airplane crash when the plane and passengers could not be found, and we had numerous conversations about how hard it must be for those families trying to keep hope alive when everyone else assumed the worst,” Cianfrance says. “Rachel and I talked a lot about how Hannah’s hope is seen as delusional by the town, but it’s the thing that keeps her going. The remarkable thing about her is that she never loses faith…she stays steady as a dedicated mother and wife, sustained by hope.”
Weisz was drawn to the characters in Stedman’s story because each one was fl awed, as she is more interested in characters who are not perfect people. She was also struck by how fully the screenplay channeled the cathartic emotions of the novel. “I think it’s one of the most faithful adaptations I’ve ever come across,” she says. “It was so true to the experience of reading the book. Like the book, it touches a raw nerve.”
Still, she knew the character would take her into some turbulent corners of the psyche, where the residues of loss, betrayal and the need to know the truth no matter what, combine in volatile ways. “Hannah is a challenge because she’s so heartbroken,” she explains. “I can’t imagine a greater loss than to lose your child and husband at sea, and not even have the closure of a burial. So I saw her as existing in a state of limbo, waiting for answers that she must believe will someday appear.”
Hannah’s story is also a love story, one that is set into mo on by her own rebellious courtship with a German immigrant, Frank Roennfeldt (Leon Ford), someone her wealthy father forbid her to see at a me when prejudice against Germans, the war me enemy, was at its peak. She stands by Frank, which leads to the birth of their beloved daughter Grace, and, ultimately to the tragic night Frank ends up adrift at sea with the child. “There’s a lot of love in this story, between parents and children but also between husbands and wives,” says Weisz.
For Hannah, the long-awaited discovery of her daughter’s surprising fate is at once a moment of elation and alarm, as she comes to the realization that their bond has been cut. Hannah’s love for her daughter has not changed, but her daughter now sees her as a frightening stranger. “It’s a complete shock to Hannah that her own child doesn’t know her anymore, and doesn’t think of her as her mother. I think it brings up fascinating concepts about nature and nurture and what it means to be a parent,” Weisz says.
Like Alicia Vikander, Weisz says young Florence Clery, who plays Grace/Lucy, made exploring Hannah’s maternal dilemmas even more powerful. “Florence loves to play and invent and I think she might grow up to be a director,” laughs Weisz, “Because she was very good at organizing everything on the set.”
Given their conflicted relationship, rife with incomprehension and frustration, Weisz looked for her own ways to work with Florence. “We had some tough scenes so I really wanted to try to make her feel safe, and explain things to her,” she says. “I’ve got a 9-year-old myself, so I know how to play games with kids to keep things on a lighter level and that was really, really important for us.”
Though Hannah’s and Isabel’s stories move along two separate tracks, they ultimately collide. One of Weisz’s most intense scenes comes in Hannah’s fi rst face-toface encounter with Isabel a er her daughter returns. “It’s two devoted mothers facing off ,” describes Weisz, “And it’s highly charged.”
As for who is right, Weisz hopes audiences will debate that lingering question. “I love that this story is almost biblical in how it explores morality,” she says. “I think there will be people who will fi nd one character’s actions completely understandable and others who think the same character is in the wrong. That’s intriguing because I think morality comes into play most when things aren’t black and white, when the answers aren’t easy. Most of life is a grey area and this story brings humanity and empathy to a group of people caught in that grey.”
According to the actress, Cianfrance was a constant guide through the grey zones where people make mistakes out of love and longing. “Derek really directs,” Weisz says. “He really gets in there and gives you suggestions as to how to play scenes a number of different ways, which I loved. You never know which take will be the one that will fi t the movie, but you know Derek is always looking for the truest moments. He inspires you to go right to the edge of your capabilities—and maybe just a bit beyond—whilst being immensely kind and supportive.”
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