Jodie Comer On How She Really Felt About The Birthing Scene In The End We Start From
If you fancy seeing what might happen if the UK went through a climate change-related societal downfall, The End We Start From is for you!
The movie, which is the feature film debut of BAFTA award-winning director Mahalia Belo, hit cinemas last Friday and has already garnered praise for its stunning visuals and incredible acting.
Starring Jodie Comer as the lead – known only as “Mother” – The End We Start From follows a young woman and her newborn baby who must try and find their way home amongst the chaos of a society in crisis.
Speaking to HuffPost UK, the actor recounted her experience shooting nude scenes at the beginning of the film, when her character is still pregnant.
“When I met Mahalia early on, we kind of chatted in depth about those more intimate moments, the nudity and the depiction of showing a woman’s body in this way, and we both really wanted to go for it.
We had an intimacy coordinator... but I feel like she had more trepidation than I did.. I was just so ready to do it!”
Referring to the intimacy coordinator, Belo added, “you didn’t really need it for that, you didn’t seem to want it there?”, to which Jodie replied: “no, not at all”.
A little later in the movie, “Mother” gives birth in a scene that is unusually candid for a feature film, and makes use of a prosthetic vulva.
“It was amazing... I loved having that prosthetic on”, Comer shared with us. “I have so many amazing pictures [from working with the prosthetic team] which I’m definitely going to post when the film’s out. But it also felt to me like an armour.”
Speaking about nude scenes in general, the Killing Eve star went on to describe the process by which she signed on to do the movie’s more revealing sections.
“It was always very clear between me and May the reason why it was there and how it was significant to the story.
May, very kindly at the start of shooting, was like, ‘I know you’re happy to shoot this now, but if eight months down the line when we’re in the edit you see the cut and you go, that’s actually too much of me, let me know and it’s gone’... [because] once it’s on film, it’s on film!”
“I just know so many actors who have been slightly misused by nudity”, replied Belo. “I think we wanted this film to be close to a woman’s experience, but we also didn’t want it to be sensationalist...
For this, it was quite a major part of it, but at the same time, it’s not worth it if like 20, 15 years down the line it’s being misused in some way. I don’t think this ever will [be] actually, because it’s made in a different way.”
The End We Start From is now available in UK cinemas now.