
“I Always Love Rehearsals” | Sophie Hyde, Jimpa

Films are made over many days, but some days are more memorable, and important, than others. Imagine yourself in ten years looking back on this production. What day from your film’s development, production or post do you think you’ll view as the most significant and why?
I always love rehearsals, the urgency to shut everything away and tune into the characters and get to know the cast. On Jimpa I remember a striking rehearsal session where John Lithgow was meeting with the actors who make up his closest friends in the film, three wonderful Dutch actors (Hans Kesting, Frank Sanders and Erle De Lanooi). We were doing some work on friendship, asking them to speak to each other of their personal experience, and also remembering each of our experiences with the AIDS crisis. This remembering led into a very simple movement session where writer Matthew Cormack, actor/EP Aud Mason-Hyde and I were able to witness these men move together with utter tenderness as they each held the intense feelings they had and shared them. It was an incredibly moving session for us all and set up a connection between them that was rich and also so warm and hilarious.