“ I JUST FEEL LIKE IT ’ S JUST GIVEN A LOT OF LIBERTY TO BE ABLE TO STEP INTO THE PAIN , THE SADNESS AND KIND OF WALK AWAY .”
learned a lot through that about letting go and accepting things that we can ’ t control .
The film explores themes of family , memory and forgiveness . How do you think AJ ’ s journey interacts as far as Grace ’ s journey as well ? Well , memory is a perspective . I think that the intersection of AJ and Grace is this space of perspective . And we could have taken another whole look at relationship if that movie was about Grace and a different brother or Grace and her mom , the whole movie would have changed . We ’ re deeply in this perspective of what Grace is going through and her perspective . I just love what this story got to tell about that this man is there at this juncture and this pain point in his life . And he is able to speak into his sister ’ s world .
The confined space of the hospital room means that the memories that do come up and , in the film , AJ , my character even says I can ’ t believe that you remember that . You know , and that ’ s a that ’ s a thing that often happens is we hold on to things because of the perspective that we were in at that point in time . I believe for our own growth , the only way that we can actually learn to readjust to that space is to objectively look at where we were and also reach back into that space and maybe heal something there so that it releases the trauma that is around that moment . And it might not release all of it , but it does give perspective to then be able to move forward without it being a heavy weight on our shoulders . We get to then say that happened . Now I can do this or now when this comes up again , I have the opportunity to choose a different path or speak up sooner or whatever the many other tool sets we get to glean along the way .
After playing a character that ’ s going through so much trauma , how did it affect you after the taping was over ? Well , I have been doing this a while now . I ’ ve been so fortunate . I got to work with the legendary Susan Batson for quite a few years and her method is a little more on the deep end , like really feeling pains and things like that . I feel like as I ’ ve grown as an artist , it doesn ’ t really affect me anymore . I just feel like it ’ s just given a lot of liberty to be able to step into the pain , the sadness and kind of walk away . But with this one specifically , I thought it was incredibly powerful for me because I had a really dear family friend who was actually going through this surgery at the time . And so , knowing that someone was going through this level of pain that I was truly trying to embody and experience in those scenes , she was going through it for real was such a wave of thankfulness
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