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Nia DaCosta has "always had a yearning" to a more modernized take on Henrik Ibsen's classic play Hedda Gabler, the stars of the writer-director's new adaptation have shared. So much so, in fact, that it was like watching a dream come true while they were filming it.
From indie thriller Little Woods and superhero blockbuster The Marvels to legacy sequels Candyman and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, DaCosta has been behind the camera of all sorts of movies across her seven-year big screen career. With Hedda, she swaps world-building and VFX for a single location, period costumes, and a tight, tension-filled script, as Tessa Thompson's titular master meddler throws the party to end all parties (and potentially some lives, too).
Condensing Ibsen's original works into one evening, DaCosta reimagines the story in 1950s and Hedda's former lover Eilert as Eileen (Nina Hoss), which adds another layer to Hedda's new husband's professional jealousy from the source material.
"She's so intelligent. I mean, she was incredibly eloquent and smart and had obviously thought deeply about this story," Imogen Poots, who plays Eileen's lover Thea in the movie, tells GamesRadar+. "Nia takes her work incredibly seriously, and herself to some degree, but she's also got an amazing sense of humor. She's a very chilled out person and on set, she was very calm. She treated everybody incredibly well, which you would expect and hope for but isn't always the case, and just created an environment that felt really fun, which was necessary for this job.
"She was excited. She was excited to make this film because she's made bigger things but I think that she'd always had a yearning to make this with Tessa, and it's just really cool that that happened, because it's hard to make these smaller things."
"You could tell how much it meant to them, how personal it was, and then it was for us also, you know?" adds Hoss. "Nia is just very inviting and she knew what she wanted to say with this film, then she was so curious to see what we would do with it. In that sense, it really reminded me a lot of the theater work I used to do. We were all in the same room most of the time; no one wanted to leave, so we would hang out on the sofa, even if there was another scene. We just made sure we weren't in the frame. It was so wonderful to be there for each other and to experience this party together, as part of an ensemble."
According to Hoss, the whole "being together" thing was a choice. In Thompson's recollection, though, it was more of a necessity – thanks to the restrictions they had due to shooting in a listed home. Albeit it a welcome one in the end. Turns out, they weren't really allowed to "congregate anywhere", says the Marvel star, so they were often confined to a "little smelly room" where the owners usually kept their dogs. A far cry away from the lavish, champagne-fuelled event depicted onscreen...
"It meant that we spent a tremendous amount of time together," laughs Thompson. "Our whole cast basically comes from the theater, and I think there are just very different traditions in that world. When you're doing a play, you become kind of an ensemble; it's not like that on a film where people can go off into their own areas and then just come out when you shoot.
"We were making something that's very cinematic, it is not a play but it felt a bit like one. When you play a huge character like this, you're really only as strong as the actors that are supporting you and I felt so supported and so helped by this cast. It changed everything."
Hedda is in US cinemas now, and will land in UK theaters on October 24. It will be streaming on Prime Video from October 29. For more, check out our picks of the most exciting upcoming movies heading our way.
