Like many actors coming out of the recent SAG strike, Anne Hathaway and Tomasin McKenzie seemed more enthusiastic than usual to talk about their new movie. Even after hours of interviews, some in person, some on Zoom, they were still genuinely engaged, and, in general, that isn’t always the case. It doesn’t hurt that William Oldroyd’s “Eileen,” adapted by Ottessa Moshfegh from her own novel, gives both actors two of their most tantalizing roles in years.
READ MORE: “Eileen” Review: A slender thriller despite its gorgeous looks and terrific performances from Anne Hathaway and Thomasin McKenzie [Sundance]
A thriller with a genuinely surprising twist, “Eileen” stars McKenzie as the title character, a young woman stuck working at a depressing New England prison in the early 1960s. She lives at home with her widowed, alcoholic father (Shea Wingham) and seems resigned that there is no golden parachute around the corner. That is until Rebecca (Hathaway), the new prison counselor arrives on the scene. Captivated by a sophisticated woman seemingly out of place at this drab correctional facility, a mystery surrounding one of the inmates makes the pair unexpected comrades as the film unfolds. Oh, and there is also the fact Eileen has a romantic infatuation with her new friend that may not be what it seems.
Over the course of our conversation, Hathaway and McKenzie made sure to remind viewers to question the narrative perspective of what they are seeing on screen, reveal their inspirations for Boston accents, Moshfegh’s superb screenwriting skills, and, oh yes, the influence of Patrica Neal instant coffee commercials.
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The Playlist: I saw this movie at Sundance maybe 11 months ago. 10 months ago? It’s been that long.
Anne Hathaway: Wow.
The Playlist: I have been a fan of it ever since, so I’m excited to finally talk to you, even though it’s been almost a year. What made you want to take this role? How did it come your way?
Thomasin McKenzie: I actually auditioned for this role, so it wasn’t like, “Yes, I’ll do it.” It was like, “Can I do it?” I think I knew would be such an amazing opportunity to really delve deep into a character’s psyche, and I was really up for that challenge.
Anne Hathaway: And I really wanted to work with Will. So, when the script arrived with his name attached to it, I was vibrating with excitement. And then I thought the movie was really challenging and incredibly beautiful, and I thought that Rebecca was kind of hilarious. Someone who’s so messianic, and trailblazing, and who enjoys themself as much as she does. I thought that that could be really fun. I’ve always loved the line from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” when Holly Golightly is described as a real phony. She’s a phony, but she’s a real phony. And I saw a lot of that in Rebecca.
The Playlist: I’ve not read the book, but I read the synopsis of it and the movie seems to follow it pretty closely. Did either of you feel you had read it or was it the script enough?
Thomasin McKenzie: I felt like I had to read it because, I mean it’s all through Eileen’s POV. And so I would be silly not to read the book and to deny myself of the Bible of information on my character. So the book was, for me, the main reference point that was incredibly valuable.
The Playlist: And what about you Anne?
Anne Hathaway: I don’t know why I wouldn’t read it, especially because it was adapted by Ottessa…
Thomasin McKenzie: It would be rude not to.
Anne Hathaway: Exactly, exactly. It would be such a strange choice to just be like, no, I’m good.
Thomasin McKenzie: Yeah.
Anne Hathaway: But also it makes you that much more intimidated by Ottessa, because you’re like, what can’t she do? But actually, there was a key springboard in the book for me, because Rebecca in the book and Rebecca in the movie are slightly different. She’s kind of an amalgamation of two characters in the book. And so there was a certain amount of invention that happened, or reinvention rather that happened in the adaptation of book to screen. But in the book, she’s described by Eileen, and I might be imprecise in this so excuse me if I’m paraphrasing. “As if she seemed affected, if she seemed over the top, she was.”
The Playlist: Hmmm.
Anne Hathaway: I felt like that gave me so much permission to create this very heightened person who had kind of, I don’t know, a part of me wants to say she’s fallen victim to self-mythologizing, but I actually think that very often the people who change the world are the people who are self-created and do have that messianic sense of destiny. And I think that Rebecca really sees herself as a trailblazer. I think she thinks she’s going to change the world and kind of rid it of its rot. And I don’t think she quite understands that she’s participating in it.
Eileen. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.The Playlist: So, what’s interesting about that is Eileen perceives her relationship with Rebecca in a very specific way and wants it to be a certain way. Did you portray it thinking Rebecca knew what she was doing, that she was sort of manipulating Eileen?
Anne Hathaway: Respectfully, Eileen is an unreliable narrator.
The Playlist: Oh, O.K.
Anne Hathaway: So if we are assuming that the Rebecca that is on-screen is the same Rebecca that actually existed, that’s one conversation.
The Playlist: O.K.
Anne Hathaway: You have to remember that this is Eileen’s perception of Rebecca.
Thomasin McKenzie: Which may not be that accurate.
Anne Hathaway: Which could be exactly what you’re seeing, but it might also not quite line up. And that’s something Will, Thomasin, and I talked a lot about. About how, and every choice, especially with Rebecca, had to work on multiple levels. It had to be this is exactly how it happened, this is a version of events, or none of this happened.
So would you shoot scenes in multiple ways to have different options?
Anne Hathaway: We did not have the budget, so no, no. The joy and the challenge was this is our script. These are the words. Ottessa has written them. We are trusting that the words that Ottessa has written are what we have to go on. How do we construct the animated reality from that?
Thomasin McKenzie: For Eileen, Rebecca was very real. So that’s what I was playing.
Anne Hathaway: Yes.
Thomasin McKenzie: Because it doesn’t serve me, I don’t think, to try to be too complicated and tricky with it. To me, to Eileen, that’s what’s happening.
Anne Hathaway: And for me as the person playing Rebecca, that’s all that matters. That for Eileen, this is happening.
The Playlist: Thomasin this will come across as a naive American question, but as a native New Zealander, how hard was it to learn that specific Boston accent?
Thomasin McKenzie: That’s not naive at all.
Anne Hathaway: Not if you’re American, and if you’re not from Boston, oh my God.
The Playlist: I feel it’s easier for Americans to do a Boston accent because we hear it so often either in real life or in the media. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m from the northeast, so maybe that’s why I think it’s easier to pick it up.
Thomasin McKenzie: It was very stressful. And that’s something I checked in with Ottessa a lot on the accent because she’s from Massachusetts herself. But a lot of work went into learning that accent with my coach, Mary McDonald-Lewis, I remember Mary pulled a lot of references and I watched a lot of Ben Affleck films, and who’s the other actor? He was a wrestler, or he was a fighter. And he’s also from Massachusetts.
Anne Hathaway: Oh, Matt Damon’s from Massachusetts.
The Playlist: Or Mark Wahlberg?
Thomasin McKenzie: Mark Wahlberg!
Anne Hathaway: Ah. He was in “The Fighter.”
Thomasin McKenzie: I watched a lot of his movies as well.
Anne Hathaway: He was absolutely, he was a fighter.
Thomasin McKenzie: Yeah. It sounds like the beginning of a song.
Anne Hathaway: It’s totally a Bruce Springsteen song.
Thomasin McKenzie: Oh, yeah.
Anne Hathaway: He was a fighter.
Thomasin McKenzie: Keep going. You need to write. This should the-
Anne Hathaway: Mark Wahlberg [Hathaway sings, Laughs]
Thomasin McKenzie: You need to be there singing.
Anne Hathaway: I want a burger. [Singing]
Thomasin McKenzie: All in the Massachusetts accent though.
Anne Hathaway: Oh. Well, that’s your department.
Thomasin McKenzie: Yeah, it was a fun accent to do. Maybe one of my favorites. It’s such a, in the best way, strange accent. It’s an odd one.
The Playlist: It is.
Thomasin McKenzie: Because it’s like an amalgamation of American and Irish as well. And the American accent is known for its Rs, but the Massachusetts accent is nonrhotic. They don’t pronounce the r’s. And oftentimes I felt like I was talking in a baby voice. You know how there are baby voices?
The Playlist: Yes.
Thomasin McKenzie: [does a baby voice].
Anne Hathaway: Never go to Boston. [Laughs.]
The Playlist: There you go. That’s the quote I’m pulling from this. That’s the best.
Anne Hathaway: Never said it. She never said it!
The Playlist: Never said it. She never said it.
Anne Hathaway: She’s using a jet lag card. That never got said.
Gregory Ellwood: Jet lag card. Never said it.
Thomasin McKenzie: I love the accent. It’s my favorite one I’ve done. That’s what she said.
The Playlist: I don’t want to give anything away because this story is going to run before the wide release, but something does happen at the end, and Eileen is perhaps not where she thought she might be. What your thoughts of her are at the end of the movie as some people might think she would be sad because she was alone, but…
Thomasin McKenzie: Right.
The Playlist: She doesn’t seem like she is.
Thomasin McKenzie: Yeah, I feel the opposite because I don’t think feeling alone would scare or sadden Eileen because that’s what she’s been used to up until this point. She’s always been alone. That’s her norm. I think there’s hope in the ending, and there’s excitement and potential because she’s escaped.
Anne Hathaway: And I think that the ending is terrifying because the person who we understand Eileen to be at the end of the film has escaped.
Thomasin McKenzie: Yeah.
Anne Hathaway: And none of us know how to spot her.
The Playlist: Very true. My last question, though, actually is for you, Anne. You said were inspired to sort of let loose a little bit to play Rebecca. Was there anyone, any ’50s or ’60s actresses who inspired you at all? Or did it just sort of come out of your own head?
Anne Hathaway: I mean, first of all, it’s always a group effort, so it was as much Will, as it was Ottessa, as it was me, as it was Olga Mill, our costume designer, as it was Colleen LaBaff, who designed that wig. So it’s always such a group lift. Will and I talked a lot about Monica Vitti. Very important to me that, because when you’re playing someone who is kind of heightened, who is theatrical, you have to make sure that she has a ground root system as well. And that’s real. And even if it’s never articulated to the audience, they can sense it. And that was where Monica Vitti came in, because she was such a transparent performer, she communicated so much non-verbally and through her breath, and she was just so present in her emotions. And also so desirable in her effortlessness and her glamorousness. I think that Rebecca is a little bit more artificial than that, but underneath it all, you had to get the sense that this is someone with an authentic heart who really does care about Eileen. And then in terms of the sound of her. Otessa references Katharine Hepburn in the screenplay, so I thought Katharine Hepburn would be an important one to be very familiar with. But [there is a] Patricia Neal instant coffee commercial and it became really important to me because Patricia Neal projects such a fantastic sense of intimacy and authenticity despite describing something. I don’t think Patricia Neal was a great fan of instant coffee, but who am I to know? She convinced me otherwise. And so that sort of getting lost in the fact that there was a moment where people really spoke. I mean, we are still speaking in affected ways. Now we say things like, I’m shook. We still have a stylized way of speaking. It doesn’t quite sound the way that it did 50 or 60 or 70 years ago. 1964? Don’t make me do the math. However many years ago it was.

A mid-Atlantic dialect we could liken it to the way people speak on TikTok nowadays. Julia Fox is our new transatlantic dialect.
The Playlist: Yes. As it continues to evolve.
Anne Hathaway: I think it’s fantastic, by the way. I want to make sure that doesn’t come across in any way like a dig. I think she’s wonderful.
The Playlist: Oh, of course. And I have to jump but I was going to say really quickly, if you’ve never seen Lauren Bacall’s instant coffee commercial…
Anne Hathaway: Well, I think that it’s the same thing. I think that Patricia Neal did it first.
The Playlist: Oh, do you think she copied her?
Anne Hathaway: No, I just think that the way ambassadors, or ambassadresses there was the Patricia Neal era and then there was a Lauren Bacall era. But I love how suspicious you are.
Thomasin McKenzie: Oh. The drama.
Anne Hathaway: You think that Lauren Bacall copied Patricia Neal’s instant coffee commercial?
The Playlist: The more you learn about Lauren Bacall, well maybe she had a devious part to her. Maybe just a little. That’s a whole other conversation. Speaking of devious things, congratulations on the movie. It’s so fun and I’m glad to finally talk to you guys and that it’s finally coming out into the world.
Anne Hathaway: Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thomasin McKenzie: Thank you so much.
“Eileen” is now playing in limited release.