Anne Hathaway had to shed her Oscar-winning musical pedigree for David Lowery’s “Mother Mary.” The independent film, which centers on Hathaway’s pop character, features original songs written by Charli XCX and Jack Antonoff. While Hathaway recorded vocals for the tracks, the music wasn’t finalized during the filming of “Mother Mary,” leading Hathaway to ad lib the on-screen singing scenes.
“It was so confusing. I had to learn,” she told Vogue . “Because if I had the song a year before we turned on a camera, I would have tattooed every note of my soul, and there would have been a whole, very specific process. And that wasn’t available to me. In the end, I’m very grateful that I couldn’t take control.”
The “Odyssey” actress actually had to relearn certain aspects of acting. “I had to submit to being a beginner,” she said. “The humility of it—showing up every day knowing you’re going to be terrible. And you have to be okay. You’re not ‘bad.’ You’re just a beginner.”
Hathaway’s character is described as “a sort of Gaga-Taylor Swift hybrid.” Michaela Coel plays a fashion designer who gets tangled in Mother Mary’s web. Coel, who went to techno clubs with Hathaway to prepare for her role, said that “it’s a very brave job that [Hathaway has] done.”
Writer/director Lowery even mentioned how intense the production became at one point. While filming a crucial scene toward the end of the film, Hathaway became completely immersed in the moment. “At one point, Annie broke down and said, ‘I have to apologize because I think what’s going to come out of me is going to hurt you,'” Lowery recalled. “And Michaela took her hands and said, ‘I love you, I trust you.'”
Lowery added: “It felt like shooting the apocalypse right now.”
The filmmaker previously said during the Melbourne International Film Festival that “Mother Mary” is a “strange, weird film” that is in part inspired by Francis Ford Coppola’s “Bram Stoker.”
“I’m in editing right now [for ‘Mother Mary’] and I’ve been asking myself, ‘What is this movie?’” Lowery said. “I know what I set out to do and that’s what I did, but it’s so wild. It’s a movie that I’m sure will provoke a lot of strong feelings, in every possible direction. It feels very true to who I am, and very close to me, but it’s also always surprising me in ways I didn’t anticipate.”
