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Nia DaCosta has had a version of Hedda Gabler living, or perhaps lounging, in her head for a long time. The writer and director first started thinking about a film adaptation of the Henrik Ibsen play in 2012, while she was getting a masters in the UK, and first took a stab at writing it in 2018, after the release of her debut feature “Little Woods.” But even as DaCosta dove into worlds fantastical and strange in “Candyman” and “The Marvels,” every six months or so, she’d take “Hedda” out of the drawer to fiddle with it. 

On a recent episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast, DaCosta told IndieWire that continuing to play with the script wasn’t just about calibrating the levels of performance, repression, and passion simmering just beneath the characters’ exteriors. Her approach to film adaptation requires looking closely not just at the text and how it can matter to the times we’re in, but why it matters to the person doing the adaptation. 

“It’s what keeps classical works alive. You have to adapt it not just for the time but for the person that you are and for whatever impact — emotionally, psychologically, existentially — it had on you, because that means something,” DaCosta said. “I think if you can transfer not just the play and what it means but also your reaction to the play and how you feel about the play to your version of it, I think that’s super important.” 

DaCosta’s “Hedda,” then, uproots from Norway to a post-war English manner, indulging in all of the gloss and repression of the era and pinning the characters in emotional hedge-mazes of their own making — as well as, of course, a literal hedge-maze that is not as great a makeout spot as it might at first appear. Offstage events get to be shown and experienced vividly through cinematographer Sean Bobbitt’s buzzed but still sharply observant roving camera. Tessa Thompson’s Hedda gets to be imperious at the very instant she enters a room, taking up a queen’s share of the frame in costume designer Lindsay Pugh’s dresses and expertly navigating the hidden corners of production designer Cara Bower’s sets. 

DaCosta is always adjusting the dials, whether it’s through the visual language and the amount of light we see lining up with Hedda’s whims or through the blocking and pacing of the film’s shifts between humor, desire, and darker character impulses. “You have to really be clear with the cast and crew about what the tone is for each scene in each moment and how we’re shifting into the next gear. That’s all calibrating, modulating, in rehearsals, on the day, in the edit,” DaCosta said. 

But every shift in the tone of the film arises out of DaCosta’s feeling about the protagonist. “I think she’s funny. I think she’s horrifying. I think she’s vicious. I think she’s vulnerable,” DaCosta said. “So we can go from farcical, like, chandelier falling and Eileen [Nina Hoss] getting into a fight in the conservatory, but it’s all fueled by real emotion. I think it’s so important to be able to do that.” 

It’s important to DaCosta because for however heightened and glamorous a setting as the film builds, the director wanted to balance it with the real, eternally relatable experience of wild shit going down at a party. 

“The tone shifts were me trying to mirror, like, when you’re at a party and the lesbian drama’s happening somewhere, it seeps into the rest of the party and you’re like, ‘Oh no.’ It goes from being super fun to being, ‘Oh god, who just came out of the bedroom with — oh, that’s not good. Oh my God. Oh, what happened? That’s hilarious.’ You know? It just is the way we are, and I knew that for ‘Hedda’ it had to feel as dynamic as real life,” DaCosta said. 

Real life on film, however, requires a lot of rehearsal. “ I studied writing at a drama school because I wanted to work with actors — to learn more about how they work, what their whole deal is, what’s wrong with ’em,” DaCosta joked. “I realize that what’s so beautiful about theater and what I love actually about telling stories is the collaboration… you know, I’m the coxswain at the head of the boat, making sure we’re going in the right direction, telling everyone, ‘OK, go fast, go slower,’ et cetera. And rehearsals, for me, are about making sure the script is right. Then my DP and I are blocking everything out with the actors.” 

DaCosta’s found that in slowly bringing the cast and crew together, starting with Bobbitt but then sometimes camera operator Simon Wood or others, a collaborative process can emerge to help the company adapt to the space and come up with exciting character work that just feels real. 

“We got to rehearse in the house with all the set dressing in the house for two weeks before we started shooting, so it was the ideal thing. For example, the scene with Eileen walking in with her dress wet and exposed, talking to the men, I want her to really play the room and use the whole space. So we were like, ‘OK, maybe she makes the martini here, and then, should she light a cigarette here?’” 

But the process of working all of that out helped DaCosta and her cast know exactly when and where Eileen should light a cigarette for maximum impact. “We [decided that] should have this moment with her and George [Tom Bateman], and George being so enraptured by her. Let’s bring her next to George. Oh he can’t light a cigarette. Let’s have that be a moment. Let’s have her light it.  And then, [the scene is] slow building and it’s just so fun and gratifying.” 

To hear Nia DaCosta‘s full interview, subscribe to the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.

“Hedda” is now playing in theaters and streaming on Prime Video.