Claire Denis, Margaret Qualley, and Joe Alwyn on Trust in Stars at Noon
Photo: A24
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Interview: Margaret Qualley, Joe Alwyn, and Claire Denis on Trust in Stars at Noon

Qualley, Alwyn, and Denis discuss how the pandemic affected the production, and why trust underscores all elements of the film.

If there’s anything that becomes instantly clear from talking with Claire Denis, it’s that she feels an overwhelming fondness for her actors. She may have amassed a devoted following among cinephiles and filmmakers for her poetic choreography of bodies, but as Denis explains, she believes that her ability to chart the physicality of characters comes from never losing touch with the emotionality that she feels in and with the performers themselves.

When I first talked to Denis in 2019 (alongside Robert Pattinson) for the release of High Life, I was a bit blinded by the cerebral and critical appreciation of her work—and not as attuned to this undercurrent of compassion. I was determined to meet the director more on her own terrain when given the chance to discuss her latest film, Stars at Noon, a sweaty romance transposing Denis Johnson’s novel of the same name to contemporary Central America. Denis works within the genre framework of a political thriller to establish the stakes and context for how rogue American journalist Trish (Margaret Qualley) becomes enmeshed in the murky maneuverings of English businessman Daniel (Joe Alwyn).

Across Stars at Noon, Trish and Daniel’s instant physical attraction slowly gives way to emotional vulnerability that’s as raw as their carnality. Qualley and Alwyn prove adept at making their characters’ defensive shields both present and palpable. When overwhelming passion punctures their self-mythologizing façades, Denis’s sensitive camera captures these expressions of sincerity as they register in fleeting physical gestures. In the film, just as in any work by the legendary filmmaker, a small moment can land with seismic impact if Denis chooses to amplify the latent longing she senses like a tremor under the surface.

Shortly before Stars at Noon’s North American premiere at the New York Film Festival, I spoke with Denis, Qualley, and Alwyn over a Zoom call. Our conversation covered Denis’s unique approach to moviemaking, how the pandemic affected the production, and why trust underscores all elements of the film.

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Claire, I have such respect for your work that I pored over book after book about your films, and I think that led me to ask you very cerebral questions during our last interview that missed the mark because your work is so driven by feeling. Is it fair to say that you’re guided by sensation and sensuality?

Claire Denis: I know for sure that, since my first film, the best guide I ever have are the actors and actresses. Margaret, Joe, Benny [Safdie], Danny [Ramirez]. I remember four years ago when Margaret said, “Yes, I want to be part of that movie,” and then Joe accepted the movie in a minute. Things like that, of course, are the best guide ever. It’s so great to be able to share a trust and love because I was watching them, and I love them. It’s not because they are good actors and actresses. It’s because I love them as people. It’s only that. The rest is technique. It’s really feeling so respectful and close. This is the best guide for filmmaking, I guess.

And as actors, how do you all kind of fit into Claire’s technique? Does that love change the way that you approach the film at all?

Margaret Qualley: Definitely. If you don’t trust someone, it’s really hard to work with them. But when you feel like the person is looking out for you and caring for you, then you have ultimate freedom. It’s much more playful and exciting for me to work that way. Claire’s the ultimate example of that, somebody that is really holding you throughout the process of making the film. I even mean literally! Claire grabs your hand and gives it a little squeeze, and that gives you a little feeling of life when you’re entering the scene.

Joe Alwyn: I would agree with all of that. Trust is just so much about it, and I think we both completely trusted Claire. To what you’re saying about feeling and sensation, I do think the way that Claire’s films work—if you can put it in any kind of description—seems so much about feeling and instinct and less about theoretical conversations about character. It’s about feeling in the room, seeing through images, and atmosphere. That was really strong in a way that I hadn’t [experienced], probably more so than anyone else I’ve ever worked with. She really will find her way through feeling, which is amazing to see.

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Was it somewhat easier to do that given that you jumped into this project at the last minute and maybe you didn’t have the time to overly intellectualize it?

JA: Maybe! There was no other there was no other choice. I just had to trust Claire and was lucky enough to know and trust Margaret. I did, completely, and so was happy to be guided wherever she wanted to take us. I think we both were.

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What was the experience like of discovering how these characters interacted not just emotionally but also physically in the relationship of their bodies?

MQ: Your environment really affects your physicality. If it’s cold outside, you’re rigid. If it’s hot, you feel loose, free, and like you could just fall anywhere at any moment. That really was true for Trish. I feel like she was at once loose and free and like she could slither her way into or out of places to get by. And that even includes her interactions with Daniel. But as far as the physicality between them, I think something that’s true about Trish that may be true about her relationship to Daniel is false security. It’s definitely true in our emotional and physical senses. It took me a minute to figure out how to play anything in here, and I think it’s because everything that Trish says is kind of a joke. She doesn’t mean what she’s saying ever! [laughs] She’s way more insecure than she lets on, and maybe that has a presence in her physical relationships as well.

CD: If I may add something to that. In the film, I realized she’s lying. She’s pretending she’s so strong. But there are scenes in the film where she’s pleading to the old minister, and she’s pleading to the woman that owns the motel, and then she thinks maybe Daniel left at a point. I think those three scenes were very important, and then maybe when she meets the Costa Rican cop. Those scenes showed me how Margaret can go from the surface of that character of Trish to the deep end of her despair. This, for me, it’s…oof! I was so moved by that. It’s not something a director can give. It’s something an actress brings. Something that makes all the difference. And I could say the same with Joe because both characters are hiding what they really feel.

After a year of isolation and distancing during Covid, did it make the desire for intimacy and close contact all the more potent? Either in the production of the film or among the characters, who are experiencing the pandemic themselves?

CD: Honestly, I don’t think Covid was very important in [compelling] me toward intimacy. It’s what I like in making film. It’s that craving for someone, craving for love, craving for sex. I think it’s part of moviemaking. I’m not a cold person, so even a virus isn’t going to cool me down.

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I loved how you all kind of worked masking etiquette into the film. Until he does about an hour in, I was wondering if Daniel was ever going to put a mask on.

JA: I also like Covid in the film, because it plays into an environment of mistrust, not being able to read people, and people being covered up. These characters are so guarded anyway, and you don’t know quite what’s real and what’s not. They’re both putting on a front, and they’re in an environment of corruption and mistrust. And, for me, I thought Covid played into that perfectly. It wasn’t something I thought about a lot, but just the idea of people also going around literally not being able to read each other was a great metaphor for the world that they were in.

How did you feel tackling the sensuality of one of Claire’s dance floor sequences?

JA: That was fun. I mean, that was a really great day. And it was really simple in the end, wasn’t it? It’s obviously not particularly choreographed. It’s very simple, close, and tender. I love that we’re in this big, empty room with a kind of purple haze. The song is so beautiful. It was the first thing that Claire showed me in the two minutes between being sent the script and saying yes to doing it. She sent me the song, and I think it really does capture the feeling of the whole film.

MQ: It was a fun day, and it’s Claire’s dear friend Stuart [Staples, of Tindersticks] that made the music, which is really beautiful.

CD: Himself, he’s hiding his sensibility. He sent me the song and said, “I thought maybe you need something for the nightclub scene. You can just try that.” I listened to it in the office in Panama, and I called him and said, “You really are a motherfucker, you!” [Qualley laughs] There is no way to change it now. This is it. He’s really an Englishman too.

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The characters feel such a potent attachment to objects in the film, either in seizing them like when Daniel grabs Trish’s bag or in losing them like when Trish takes off her shoes at the bar. Is there any way to prepare for that other than just to let the sensation overwhelm you in the moment?

CD: The shoes and the bag are in the novel. And I have to say that I was afraid with the bag. I knew how difficult it is to wake up in a bed sweating, and you catch a handbag and squeeze it. It [requires] a lot of trust to do such a thing and make it feel. To share the feeling of, “Oof, she’s not gone! She’s still there.” Like Trish, when she’s on the phone calling the hotel and the answer is that he checked out. Those moments are small details, but they’re huge in emotion. They accepted to do it. They did it. They trusted those moments. That’s very important.

Marshall Shaffer

Marshall Shaffer is a New York-based film journalist. His interviews, reviews, and other commentary on film also appear regularly in Slashfilm, Decider, and Little White Lies.

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