“By the time we were shooting it I was like, ‘Oh, I get it. This isn’t about my body, this is not about my nipples or my butt, it’s about the entirety of an image. Seeing somebody obviously, literally naked but also very symbolically and metaphorically naked in a location that she’s never been allowed…This is barely even about Jane. It’s just about a dynamic that needs to be visually represented.”
Odessa Young is making waves. In Mothering Sunday, in which Odessa plays Jane, a maid living in post-World War I England entangled in a secret love affair with an affluent man, there are many scenes with little to no dialogue. Still, Young and the rest of the cast captivate by embracing the film’s quietness, relying on physicality and, at times, pure emotional tension to tell the story. Mothering Sunday was this year’s Cannes Film Festival’s breakout film, and Odessa Young was the film’s undeniable breakout star.
Covering our Autumn 2021 issue, Young talks navigating the male gaze on and off-screen, unwanted DMs and upcoming true crime series The Staircase.