4 days ago
‘Disclaimer' star Leila George on how she landed ‘the best job of her life'
Imagine you're an actor, the phone rings, and it's Alfonso Cuarón offering you a role in his next project. No audition.
That's exactly how Leila George landed the part of young Catherine Ravenscroft in Apple TV+'s Disclaimer, alongside Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Lesley Manville. Cuarón wanted George to play Blanchett's character in flashbacks told from differing perspectives, which would prove key to unlocking the mystery at the heart of the thriller.
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Opposite such powerhouse acting talent, George found a way to make the role her own — so much so that Cuarón, who had originally intended to just use her as a body double, decided instead to let her performance stand fully on its own. Critics took note, calling her work 'strikingly remarkable.' 'Leila George shines as the younger Catherine,' wrote Carla Meyer in the San Francisco Chronicle. 'Shown in flashbacks, George nails Blanchett's signature emotionally distant allure and exhausted yet superior speech patterns.'
Disclaimer follows the fallout of a long-held secret on the life of a journalist (Blanchett), her husband (Cohen), and her son (Kodi Smit-McPhee), as the father (Kline) seeks revenge for his son, Jonathan's (Louis Partridge), death. When we first meet George's Catherine, we're seeing her in flashbacks, seemingly flirting with Jonathan; we later learn the truth about their interactions.
Here, George recounts to Gold Derby how she navigated the demanding dual performance.
Gold Derby: Amazing that you didn't even have to audition — that you just got a call from Cuarón.
Leila George: It was nuts. I got told that Alfonso was going to call me, which in itself felt just crazy, and that there was a script, but I wasn't allowed to have it. I didn't know how to prepare, so I decided to read the book, because like, how do I make sure I get this job? I was so nervous for the call because I'm just someone that will generally talk people out of hiring me. I'm not good at selling myself. I always feel like maybe they've made a mistake. But he got on the phone with me and told me the whole story, and then asked me if I wanted to do it, which I still don't know really how that happened. I've heard rumors — I feel like the casting director had a big part in it. I'm just very, very happy that it happened that way.
SEEKevin Kline, Cate Blanchett, and every 'Disclaimer' Emmy acting submission
What was that conversation like?
He started telling me the whole story from beginning to end. About two minutes in, I interrupted him and said, just so you know, I have read the book. He didn't like that I'd read the book. I think he wanted me to experience it firsthand from the script. I thought I was going to get brownie points! And then he said, "Would you like to do this?" And there was obviously only one answer that I was going to give. We talked about some of the nudity and sex scenes, just to make sure that that was all understood up front. And other than that, he was just like, "OK, well, I need you here in three days." So I packed up my whole life and got on a plane.
How did you get yourself into character that quickly?
When I arrived, they handed me a big binder, and I just got reading. We started shooting about 10 days from me knowing that I had the best job of my life. I often go into a bit of a panic before the first day. Have I done enough work? Do I even know what this character is? Luckily, with this job, Cate Blanchett, the queen, had already created this character. So I got to essentially just find pieces of what she'd already done and decide it was really mostly about finding the balance between how much to be like her and how much not to be
Something that Alfonso and I talked about was how much of this fictional, novel version of her that you see in the first four episodes, how much that has to be like Cate's Catherine, because we know it's not actually her. We know that this is a fictionalized version of the character who Jonathan's mother has written based on a five-minute interaction that they had in a coffee shop years go. But you also want to still be able to fool people into thinking that it obviously is her, and then just finding the balance between that and the last three episodes, the true version of her. And it was difficult because we were shooting both versions in the same day. So depending on how the lighting would be, we'd be on the beach, and maybe a cloud would go in front of the sun, so it's like, "OK, we're going to do the last three episodes now." That was tricky in that you're going from being this fantasy, sexualized, confident seductress to a woman that has just been sexually assaulted the night before. And so it's a lot of flip-flopping between those two things. That was incredible and very scary.
SEE'Disclaimer' trailer: Cate Blanchett's life falls apart in teaser for Alfonso Cuarón's limited series
How did you manage to do both on the same day?
There really isn't a chance with Alfonso, because you're just thrown in and you have to do it. You sink or swim. And I think luckily, I was able to stay afloat. You don't have time to worry about things. You're on to the next thing. Being able to work with a director like him, you can trust that he's going to either fire you or not move on until he gets it. He's not really going to settle for mediocre. And so I just think having that confidence, that trust in him meant that I knew it was going to be OK in terms of going back and forth, I used music a lot, because I think that's the quickest way — a song can change your whole demeanor immediately. And so I have playlists. I had a playlist for one version and a playlist for the other version, and I would just need a few minutes to listen to some music to hone back in on whichever version we were doing.
What kind of direction did Alfonso give you?
He doesn't. I think with the seductress, in the first four episodes, his direction was mostly about turning up Cate and turning her down, do more of this here to just really feel turned on all the time, like she's got a fire in her all the time. He really wanted us to push the flirtation. For the other version of Catherine, it was such delicate material that unless he had something that he really had to say, he stayed away for a lot of it. It was about showing how Jonathan was like pushing his evil as opposed to pushing her vulnerability. He definitely doesn't micromanage, but he is going to get what he wants.
It must have been so hard to film that second half. How did you protect yourself emotionally?
I'm quite good at just leaving it there. I've always been quite good at leaving things at work. Sometimes character elements follow me around, like the way a character dresses, or the way they move physically. But the actual emotions don't stay. I actually find it really useful, really therapeutic. There's only so much I can do of it, and once it's done, it really feels like I've already given it all of it. So when we're done filming, especially something like that, those scenes, I'm so relieved that it's over, because I'm so scared. I don't know how much I have left. So I do find it quite, quite easy to leave it at work.
How were you able to access Cate's portrayal? Did they show you what she had already filmed?
When I first arrived, we did a block through in a studio of a couple of the scenes, and so I saw Cate's idea of what those scenes would look like. I just watched her, and I could see some of the things that she was doing, some of the mannerisms that she had going on. And so I got to make some notes of that. And then we worked with the same dialect coach, and I think that was hugely helpful just for us to have the same sound. Beyond that, I was a bit panicked because I hadn't seen anything, and it was our first day of shooting, and I'm in hair and makeup, and I know that I'm about to have to go outside and do my first shot, and and a PA knocks on my trailer door with an iPad. I had about 30 minutes to watch some scenes that she'd done, and I kind of knew I wasn't ever going to see this iPad again. I thought about recording it, but then I thought, Apple's going to know somehow that it's on my iPhone. So I set it up on a table, and I put my phone facing me in selfie mode, and I videoed myself just mirroring everything she was doing, so that I had a physical image of what she was doing in scenes that I could then refer back to that was on my phone.
What did you think when you saw the finished product?
I don't know if people know this, but when I was hired, it was just to be her body. They were going to face replace us. And about halfway through shooting, I remember Alfonso said, "I think we'd like to make it so that in the first four episodes, it's actually you, and then when we cut to the truth, we'll put Cate's face on your body." When we finished shooting, it was tough, because when we were shooting those last bedroom scenes that are really personal, and you're just leaving all of you out there on film, I'd be driving home thinking it's going be really hard to watch those scenes with someone else's face on my body. I'm not sure I'm going be able to do that. I don't think I'll be able to see it. I was trying to just savor everything about it, knowing that was not mine anymore, that I was giving that away. And then about a year later, Alfonso let me go to a screening they had of an early cut and it was me. He called me after, and he said, "What do you think? Do you like it?" And I was like, "I'm so, so happy I got to see it before you did all of the CGI. Thank you for letting me see that." And he was like, "Yeah, we're not gonna do it. We're just gonna let it be you." I just bawled my eyes out. I couldn't believe it, and I felt so, so honored that that they would decide to do that.
Did you ask him why he changed his mind?
I'm not really sure. I think maybe it just wasn't necessary in the end. When you're doing scenes like that, I think there is something really personal about it maybe doesn't feel quite right. I was very happy. It was really kind of affirming. Every step of the way, the confidence that Alfonso put in me made me grow as an actor, and he is my fairy godfather. I'm forever in his debt.
What did you take away from the experience?
The main takeaway is to be able to trust that I can do it, to have the confidence. I remember we were at dinner quite early on, and Louis Partridge asked Alfonso who his favorite actors were that he's worked with, and Alfonso said it was the ones who actually weren't actors like in Roma. And so I decided from that moment to show up on set and trust that. I do a lot of research before; my scripts are like a Rorschach test, there's no white space on them. So to trust that I've done that work, and to show up on set like I'm not an actor, like I'm one of the non-actors, that's been really useful. I always feel like I have to prove myself. I can relax now and go to a meeting or sit at a dinner amongst peers or people that I look up to and just feel like I belong a little bit more, That's been the main difference — confidence.
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