These interviews were recorded prior to the SAG/AFTRA strike, in June 2023, as part of the Tribeca Festival.  On this special episode of Back To One, actors Sophia Lillis, Hannah Gross and Michael Cera talk about their work in writer/director Dustin Guy Defa’s wonderful new film The Adults. We get a glimpse into each of their general preparation processes before doing a deep dive into their work on this actor-centric production. They each talk about how they built the reality of their complex sibling relationship, why the songs and dances that play such a big part in their characters’ past feel […]

The transportation of an object from point A to point B — it’s one of the most basic of human endeavors, and one that provides both story and a bit of mystery to Adinah Dancyger’s rich and elegant short, Moving. Starring Hannah Gross (Mindhunter, I Used To Be Darker) and winner of the Grand Jury Award for Narrative Short at the Slamdance 2020 festival, Moving, with much physical action and minimal dialogue, focuses on a young woman moving a mattress across town and up a flight of stairs to an empty apartment. Moving in New York City is a nightmare […]

Filmmaker‘s Taylor Hess recently attended and reported on the U.S. in Progress series at the Champs-Élysées Film Festival. While there, she spoke to a number of female directors, producers and actresses. Below, her conversation with Hannah Gross and Deragh Campbell, who both appear in Nathan Silver’s Stinking Heaven. Filmmaker: I Used To be Darker was your first film together, and Deragh, your first time acting? Campbell: Right, I’m not trained. My college degree is in writing and my background is publishing and writing. In a lot of ways I look at acting as another way of interacting with material and […]

With Charles Poekel’s charmingly melancholy debut, Christmas, Again, the independent film maxim “write what you know” gains a corollary: “write what you can learn.” For his tale of a withdrawn Christmas tree salesmen just trying to get through the season, again, Poekel gained knowledge of his protagonist’s trade by opening and operating his own stand in Greenpoint — a job he’s still doing five years later. Defiantly non-melodramatic and with the well-worn feel of a ’70s New York character study, Christmas, Again has both poetry and an unprepossessing air. In other words, it’s a perfect holiday visitor. Christmas, Again premiered […]