Lazareth follows Lee (Ashley Judd), a mysterious woman who adopts her nieces, Imogen (Katie Douglas) and Maeve (Sarah Pidgeon) following the death of their parents, and raises them in a remote cabin as a deadly pandemic rages on around them.
For over 10 years, the girls are raised to never leave the woods, avoid any and all interaction with outsiders, and ultimately rely on Lee as their only connection to the outside world. Lee has convinced the girls this is the key to survival in what is now an infectious and violent world.
However, when Imogen and Maeve discover an injured man (Asher Angel) in the nearby woods, Lee’s absolute control begins to disintegrate as their faith in her, and everything they’ve ever known, begins to unravel in this nail-biting new thriller.
Lazareth arrives in select theaters and on Demand today, May 10, and we were fortunate enough to speak with Ashley yesterday about her role in the movie.
As well as offering some fascinating insights into how she approached Lee, the Emmy-award nominated actor (who counts A Time to Kill, Double Jeopardy, Olympus Has Fallen, and Missing among her many credits) also reflects on being a mentor to Lazareth's younger cast members.
You can check out the full interview below.
I thought it was interesting to see you in a far more contained, post-apocalyptic-type story after the Divergent films. Was that farmhouse setting beneficial in such a character-driven story?
I think you put that so well, Josh. It’s very contained. I lived on set. That was a nature reserve in Oregon, so how ideal is that for this rural woman? The set itself was an old cabin and we shot the film with candlelight, so there was no electricity. We used flashlights for a couple of scenes, and I walked from my tiny home to set through the woods on the river every day. My world was very small, but the emotions are really big. The themes and the philosophies we’re exploring are really big too, so it was a wonderful experience. It’s one of the funner movies I’ve ever made actually.
Lee is such an interesting character. We’re thrown into this world without a tonne of backstory and pick up with these characters. Did you talk to [director] Alec Tibaldi about her history or did you not feel it was needed for this performance?
Yeah, I’m glad you noticed that. It’s a very efficient story. It’s very lean. Alec is not an indulgent filmmaker which I really appreciated about him. I did have to think a lot. I kept a journal as Aunt Lee and started writing. That was a really rewarding exercise. I wrote about myself and my background and I wrote about my nieces, and my dreams, and hopes, and fears for them. It was pretty cool.
Working with Katie and Sarah, you had a mother/daughter dynamic and with Asher, it’s quite combative, even down to the way he eats irritating Lee. What was it like working with them and finding that groove?
Sarah and Katie were such a delight. We kind of fell into each other the moment we met. I lived in the tiny house, as I said, and had them over, lit some candles, sat on the floor, and basically said, ‘Look, I’ve got a couple of hen wings here, so if you want to get under, there’s a lot of room for you. It’s an offer, not a demand.’ We just developed a pretty wonderful sense of community right away and I think that really informs the relationships on screen as well."
"I didn’t have someone like that when I was coming up. I think not only would I have benefited from it, it would have helped me to avert a lot of male sexual violence if someone had know that producer who was inviting for me for dinner…it was a Sunday, it was a bar, he was married, it was not for work, he was a predator…I didn’t know those kinds of things and I wish I’d had an Annett Benning or Michelle Pfeiffer to talk to. I am that woman for people who are coming up today and encourage those kinds of relationships. So, there was a lot going on on set and off set.
It’s so fascinating to hear how that influenced your performance and the film. I know Alec started writing the movie before the pandemic, but since then, we’ve all lived through one. Did your own experiences change your approach to Lee at all?
I think my approach was really informed by the understanding I have of, not just me, but all people have for things like connection, safety, and belonging. That’s in our evolutionary drive. We all have ways of trying to meet those needs. Some of them are graceful, some of them are pretty clumsy, and I was thinking about what I was doing as Aunt Lee that’s meeting those needs and just went for it. She has developed a plan and she is going to stick with the plan!