This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast More What You Here
weekday Afternoons on the Drive pallin Rowden. You know from Cold k CSI,
Crime Scene Investigation, Lost Weeds, and many many others. Her new film,
she co stars with Kyle Golner in Mother May I and she's joining us
now. Greetings, Holland, Hi, how are you good to have you
along? This film centers around a man who has to go back to the
house of a deceased relative to clean it out. I'm chuckling because I've done
my share of that. It's definitely the reaction we're getting is it's quite a
personal story that you know, a lot of people have had to experience.
Unfortunately, is the cycle of life. And hopefully it didn't go down exactly
like this. No, No, but all three my mother in law,
father in law, and brother in law, and they all died within about
a ten year period. All of them were tenacious hoarders. Every nook and
cranny had something stuffed in it. When we got it all out, We're
like, what are you gonna do with all this stuff? That was a
big part of the movie was the objects had so much nostalgia behind them and
even you know the red lipstick and it's uh, everything was attached to a
memory. And I do think that hoarding is so closely related to that that
psyche and so uh you know, as like you had to go through it
and meant going through all of her things. But with the spin of is
my girlfriend acting like my mom because she's actually finding these things before I do?
Or is there a supernatural aspect as to this idea of Bardo and when
a soul is not ready to leave earth because they have unfinished business. It's
it's the puzzle story where you can you can see it through to both both
lenses. And that's what I love how Lawrence wrote that script is that when
you can watch something with one mindset and then watch it again with another mindset,
it's quite it's quite a fun puzzle. Lawrence denis Sally's who she's referring
to, who developed Mother may I with his partner Daisy Long, who by
the way, as a former ballerina, and Holland Rowden plays of the fiancee
of the main character, Emmett played by Kyle Gahner, and they go back
to his recently deceased mother's house to clean it out and hopefully flip it quickly,
something, by the way, that never happens quickly. Yeah, I
mean it's it's a it's a bit of this hipster Brooklyn couple that she's pretty
high up on the I want to be a feminist mentality of I don't like
to wear makeup, I don't like to show my body, and his mother
was the antithesis of that, being a professional ballerine in the nineteen seventies in
New York. And there's this idea of what the what does the New York
woman represent today versus back then? And I love that this couple had completely
different languages and how they communicate. And a mushroom trip is what spawns this
entire experiment. And when she wakes up and starts acting like his mother in
that Anya never cooked and Tracy did, and she's wearing this tight clothing and
the red lipstick and Annie doesn't swim, and Tracy that was her main form
of exercise after she retired from the ballet. And so when you're not sure
who is the bad guy in this film, that's always a fun way to
watch something where you think he's a little short with her in the beginning and
maybe she's the one that needs to get out the relationship. But as the
movie progresses, you go on, I don't know, is she the one
actually playing him? And you know, unconventional villains or something that I really
enjoy, So you have to the audience is constantly having to work through that
mind game as well as the characters. Rodan. She plays the fiance Anya
in the upcoming film Mother may I. You know her from CSI crime scene
in many other roles, I see that Daisy long Perform, who was a
ballerina, actually choreographed the dancing scenes. Do you do some of those dancing
scenes? Yeah? I did to the dancing scenes. I've danced a little
bit growing up, but nothing nothing to Daisy's level. But we did dance
rehearsals. We had a Buddhist guide that came on, this woman named Katie,
and had several sessions with her. Lawrence and Daisy did as well as
I, so did I, and it was interesting to wh what I thought
was going to be just a personal session. I was prepping for this movie,
and it kept bleeding into this idea of Bardough and souls that feel unfinished
and playing two characters in one movie, and uh, there's a there's a
very spiritual aspect in addition to the psychedelic one that was imprinted throughout the film
because of her. I do believe that too. By the way, Holland
Roden's with us some other Mayi is the name of the film. Uh yeah,
I've had experience that make me feel as though, Okay, that was
a visitation from old so and so. Have you ever had anything like that?
Oh? Absolutely, I do believe in science personally. I mean,
there's a lot we don't know about the or very young species in this universe.
Holland wrote in the name of the movie mother may I. So is
this more of a psycho thriller or does it get kind of gritty? I
think it's very quiet. It's very and I think when someone's you know,
they don't say anything, or they give you the silent treatment. That's much
scarier to me than someone blowing up in someone's face. And so I love
that the cicadas. Watch out for cicadas. If you have a bug fear,
that's gonna definitely get you. If you have a needle fear, that's
gonna get you. But it's it definitely sneaks in the back door. It's
it's psychological thriller in that you're you're having to solve the puzzle with the characters.
And you mentioned cicadas. Does this take place in the Deep South,
It doesn't, it takes it takes place in upstate New York. Okay,
that part was a cheap, but we loved this idea that New York influenced
both of these women pretty heavily on you as well as Tracy in two different
decades. And I loved the foliage up there, and we talked about shooting
in Tahoe and cheating it for New York, and we just felt that would
be really hard to do and it would not create the same experience. Oh
yeah, yeah, it seems like when you make more trouble for yourself when
you do that as a filmmate exactly. And the property that we were on
was just a wealth of opportunity where we found new places to shoot scenes that
were in the kitchen, but now we're going to be in you know,
the makeshift patio furniture next to the pottery studio that was on the first floor.
That's where we would get our here and makeup done, we got to
add more pawn scenes and more we got to shoot different kinds of pond scenes
where we got to go to different ponds and just create more of a rich
background than if we had been stuck at one pond or you know, had
to only shoot you know this angle shooting in a different place than New York
where the ponds clean they were not. It was so much fun. They
had a great time in indie filmmaking. They usually in big movies they'll line
our TV shows, they line the bottom of the pond, and this was
not the case on this one. But it was quite fun. It was
really hot and there was no air conditioning, so we were we were looking
forward to the pond scene days. You didn't have to go get a tetnas
shot afterwards, did you. No. But although I'm from Los Angeles and
don't experience ticks like the North does, and so this was this was a
new dawn, a new day for me. We definitely were very worried about
ticks. The thriller is mother may I holl Andro and Rodin is accent it
along with her her co cohort Kyle Gallner uh and it is out in theaters
now. A thriller that is worth seeing any Thank you for joining us,
Thank you, thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews
Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to
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