London’s winter weather carries enough stereotypes for itself. But on that Wednesday afternoon, as I made my way to The Corinthia Hotel, walking down the arches of Monument station and up to Whitehall Place, the sun felt Hollywood-worthy, triumphing over December’s crisp-cold wind, shining through the London Eye, and mirroring the waters of the Thames. “I’m actually here to interview the cast of May December,” I overshare with the concierge, baffled by the floor-scraping ceilings, opulent decor, and red carpet floors, as she asks if I’m ready for my check-in. As I speak, I feel a breeze coming from the turning door that leads to the hotel’s busy lobby, moving at full speed. It’s London, in the holiday season. She returns a smile, gestures in the direction I should go, and wishes me good luck.

Sitting down for a conversation with Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton is one of those opportunities that you don’t get all the time — and indeed one that might ask for an extra dose of luck. So I take a final moment as the elevator departs to the third floor, where the cast faces an interview-packed press junket day, to reflect one last time about the brilliance of Todd Haynes’ direction and Samy Burch’s soul-wrenching scriptwriting. May December is hectic, involving, and at times extremely disturbing. But underlying its pop culture-esque tone that shines through a melodramatic soundtrack, lies an intriguing reflection on the power of seduction, dominance, and performative gender roles in an unusual offering of the traditional double-female-character takes centre stage type film.

Roughly based on a true story, May December takes us to Savannah, Georgia, introducing us to Gracie (Julianne Moore) and Joe (Charles Melton), a wannabe happy couple living in a suburban dream house with their kids, preparing to become empty nesters as the young twins make their way to college. On the other side of the screen, we meet Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), a movie star of a far more glamorous background that makes you doubt for a second how such narratives could overlap.

Even to an unprepared audience that walks into the room empty-handed spoiler-wise, Gracie has the aura of a broken character. Behind a perfectly brushed blonde blowout, ironed flowery dresses, and a baking-obsessed, we find a despicable and layered character and an extremely unconventional marriage story. Gracie and Joe met as fellow employees in a pet shop. She was 36 and he was a seventh-grader. She went to prison for the “affair,” and had their baby behind bars. Since finishing her sentence, they’ve been happily married. Or that’s the reality they want to believe in.

Twenty years after the scandalous drama that took over tabloid front pages, Portman’s character is about to step into Gracie’s shoes in a movie about her life. And what better way to embrace your source material than fully immersing yourself in their natural habitat? As she tries to enter her muse’s mind, imitate her mannerisms, her lisping voice, and even understand her motives, we watch these two characters unfold a game of power, seduction, and delusion. Drenched in mind-bending plots, which of the three leads become predators in one way or another.

With May December, Todd Haynes creates a real-life, mundane horror story, paired with a script that gives no clues about the characters’ next steps and has an intriguing neutrality that points no fingers or demonises any parties. Think of a psychological thriller that has no jump scares and hectic eyes closing; rather a stomach-turning and not-so-moral compass-proof story that weirdly makes you question your alliances despite a very clear power structure.

Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman are, needless to say, brilliant. But the star of the show might be former Riverdale character Charles Melton, as he takes on his breakthrough role when daring to face Joe, a central piece to this puzzle, but purposely and interestingly left in the outskirts on screen. On top of having the chance of a lifetime when sharing screen time with such trailblazers and iconic actresses, Melton now is a Critics’ Choice Awards nominee for Best Supporting Actor and a central gossip amidst Oscar buzz nominations. Julianne Moore is also a Critics Choice Awards nominee as Best Supporting Actress, and Samy Burch is in the running for Best Original Screenplay.

To take a deep dive into the fascinating yet spine-chilling film, we caught up with the actors in an exclusive interview, discussing all things character preparation, performances, and the power of a brilliant script. Keep scrolling to read the full interview…

Sofia Ferreira: What drew you to this project initially, and what motivated you to step into these characters’ shoes?

Natalie Portman: I got the script sent to me by Jessica Elbaum, who’s another one of the producers. I was just blown away by how the writing was so subtle but had so much complexity in the characters and two incredible female roles, which you never see in a single film. And then, all of these questions that were posed, that I would have been so interested in about performance, identity, and storytelling. I sent it to Todd [Haynes] who I always wanted to work with, and he took to it, which was so wonderful. He brought Julie [Julianne Moore], who I had always dreamed about working with, who was just the greatest, and then we discovered Charles’s [Melton] brilliance. Iit was just like the most incredible group of people to work with.

Charles Melton: I got the script and the self tape last summer, and I just felt this immediate connection to Joe; who this man was and this immense responsibility that he was given at such a young age. That led to me really diving in through Samy’s script. There’s so much complexity, it was a beautiful blueprint. There was a six-week process of taping before I met Julie for a chemistry read. And then the next thing I know I was flying to Savannah, Georgia, to film with Natalie and Julie for 23 days.

Julianne Moore: Whenever I get a call from Todd, it’s always out of the blue. This is my fifth collaboration with him, and people always say ‘how? Do you guys talk about it before or what?’ I swear to God, everytime, it’s a phone call or an email, or something sudden, and this was no exception, I got this email and he was like ‘hey, I’m gonna slip you this script Natalie Portman sent to me, check it out see if you like it’ and I was like ‘are you directing this?’ and he’s like ‘I think so.’ When I read it I was like ‘holy cow!’ It is just what Natalie said: to find something that was so original and arresting, and have these two really interesting female characters. I mean, it’s so often when women are opposite each other in a film it’s because they’re either romantically involved, or there’s a familiar relationship. But to just see these characters in kind of a face-off, in a narrative of dominance was really, really amazing. I think that’s what I’m really proud of, I think that it’s kind of unusual and I was like ‘yes!’.

SF: It’s interesting that you said that, though, because while watching the film, in a way, their connection feels almost sexual at times. There’s so much tension involved, and obsession, and intimacy. Did you also feel that when creating these characters and their relationship?

JM: Well, I think because, you know, we’ve been talking a lot about this, they are in a struggle for dominance in terms of who tells the story and how it’s told. I think they’re using everything in their arsenal to gain control or power. I believe that seduction is another one of those tools. So there is an erotic charge because of that. And I think that’s part of the performatively female tool of gender as well. Say that part about being self-regarding now, Natalie. [They laugh]

NP: Wait, do you remember what that person said to us, that Oscar Wilde quote about ‘everything in the world is about sex, except sex, which is about power’? That’s so good. They’re, indeed, two very self-regarding women. They’re looking at their reflection, not so much deeply, you know. They’re just looking at that surface, and I think when they see themselves reflected in each other, they’re very attracted to it. They are like, ‘you remind me of… me!’.

JM: When she walks in in the flower dress, and she’s dressed just like me [like Gracie], the first thing Gracie says is ‘you look nice’. She just sees herself.

SF: And I think this similarity is felt so strongly in the ending scene, in a way that I did not expect it to unfold, really. There’s a constant on-the-edge feeling, where you don’t know what’s coming next. And at times, I questioned myself if Elizabeth was, in fact, just as bad as Gracie. Did you feel the same at all?

NP: Definitely. I think that’s part of Samy’s brilliant narrative construction and Todd’s direction—that you’re constantly shifting alliances. At first, you’re taken in almost in a detective story way with Elizabeth, where she’s trying to uncover the truth about this couple, and you’re seeing it through her eyes. And then, all of a sudden, you’re like, ‘Wait, she’s not reliable as our guide’, and then you’re taken in by Gracie, and you’re sympathetic to her. And then she does something that makes you go ‘Um, I don’t know about this’. And then, of course, there’s Joe, who’s, I mean, Charles’s performance is so incredibly truthful and beautiful and moving, and I think finally you’re kind of like ‘Ah, someone I can rely on’, who, you know, that I can feel emotionally connected with. But you’re constantly off balance, which is kind of Todd’s genius.

SF: I’d love to know a bit about your preparation process for this role, Charles, and the tools you used to understand this character.

CM: I mean, again, Samy’s script, what a blueprint, just for exploration for the characters. But I think Joe, you know, there’s this arrested development that Joe has. He had to create this adaptive adult-child in order to survive to the age of 36, where we find him in the story, preparing to be an empty nester and for his kids to graduate. And with the arrival of Elizabeth, just asking so many questions that he’s never really asked himself or really acknowledged, you know. Joe represents this purity and this innocence throughout the film, but he doesn’t really have a grasp on his own identity. Everything comes before him; he doesn’t really take up so much space. He’s very preverbal. He communicates a lot through his physicality, I think. And that was just really exciting. The script really just informed that kind of natural transition, just the internal makeup.

SF: And Julianne, I think when it comes to Gracie, it’s really easy for us to understand what there is to dislike about her. But I imagine that to build such a deep connection to this character, you have to empathise with her to some extent. Would you agree? How was this process for you?

JM: It’s interesting. I mean, I found it very confusing and really challenging to build her because she is someone who’s promoting a narrative that is patently false and who has transgressed so greatly. So to think about that kind of transgression, and why you would do it, and what that takes. The story that she told herself, she described it as a great romance, that she was rescued by a prince. And you look at it, and this prince was 13 years old. So she’s elevated this young boy to manhood, and she’s kept herself forever a child. And, you know, that idea of believing in gender identity so strongly or feeling so trapped by gender that in order to get out of something, she has to make this kind of outrageous choice. That, to me, was horrific. And compelling and extremely disturbing. So when you see how disturbed she is, when you realise that there’s this story she’s telling, and there’s what actually happened, in that space, there’s this tremendous emotional volatility, shame and regret. And what was great about Samy’s script is that she allowed you to see that. She allowed you to see this woman who outwardly seems to be in control of this, who’s just playing a little girl who’s playing house. But inside, it’s just a maelstrom of emotion, noise and horror.

SF: Joe and Gracie’s power structure is one of the central elements of the story to me, especially the roles they perform in the scene where she breaks down over her cake orders’ cancellation. How was it working on building such a layered and complex dynamic?

JM: That to me was the key to the character. It wasn’t actually scripted that she was that emotional in the scene. But as I was working on it, there was this moment when I’m like, ‘this is it. This is the moment. It’s the middle of the movie, and this is where she gets a sense that she’s losing control of the narrative’. So not only is she afraid that her story is disappearing, that her whole world is crumbling, but it’s also kind of imperative. It’s right in the middle of the story, and you need to kind of build to that place. This is a narrative they played out before, where she’s like, ‘I need to be rescued, I’m just a child’, you know. And she’s always forcing him into this place of caretaking, and you realise that was the dynamic probably that has happened from the very beginning.

CM: And the scene before that is when Joe and Elizabeth have that walk and talk, and then he comes in, and it was written ‘Joe sighs inaudibly’. Because there’s a relief, he’s nervous like, ‘oh my gosh, does Gracie know that I was just having the time of my life opening up with Elizabeth’, and then he realises that no, she’s caring about her cake. So we kind of see Joe really step up into that responsibility as her husband, to take care of his wife. That was such an incredible scene to film.

JM: Yeah, it really was.

SF: Natalie, I’m also intrigued by your approach to preparing for this role, portraying an actress going through her own preparation process. Did you relate to her at all? How did you construct this character?”

NP: Yeah, we’ve been joking about it a lot because Julie studied with a baker to learn how to bake the cake, which she did in real-time in the scene. And then I, as an actress, played an actress watching the actors playing the character to learn how to bake the cake. The layers of how meta it was were always striking. I think that’s the beauty of Samy’s script, with all these layers of performance. You know, you meet Elizabeth at this barbecue, where she’s like a TV star walking into this very normal-seeming American ideal. And she’s just down to Earth; she’s just one of the people. But even that’s a performance, you know, her seeming normal and friendly – all of that is layers of performance. And then, of course, when it builds to this actual performance that requires imitation and mimicry and everything, but somehow Todd and I talked a lot about how that could feel the most truthful. Like when she’s alone, in her room, reading the real text, performing the real text, that’s actually the most honest she’ll ever be in the entire movie. So kind of building, you know, trying to see those layers of artifice and those layers of performance that we could find. Yes, in some ways it was like 30 years of research. As an actress, it kind of epitomises the performative nature of all of our identities, especially with gender and being female, the way that we perform being female from the way we make ourselves up or do our hair or dress. But also, the behavioural things. Someone’s aggressive with you, and you just swallow it and smile politely, you know, instead of lashing out. All of the feminised behaviour that we’re taught constantly and performing constantly. And that’s also why the makeup scene, I find to be one of the most heart-wrenching scenes. It was one of the most heart-wrenching scenes to perform because it’s like these two women who are trapped in these performances, trapped in their performances of being women. Makeup being the most clear manifestation of that. Talking about their mothers, and the heartbreak of not having the mothers they needed, even though they don’t really say that outwardly. That was one of those moments where you perform something and you’re like, wow, this writing is so much more than I ever saw on the page because it’s so simple on the page.

MAY DECEMBER is now available on Sky Cinema. Watch the trailer below…