Interview: Morfydd Clark Discusses Her Folk Horror Movie Starve Acre

Daniel Kokotajlo’s Starve Acre sees a couple, played by Morfydd Clark and Matt Smith, uprooting their lives and moving to the family countryside estate. But when tragedy strikes, the secrets of the land begin to drive a wedge between the two.

ComingSoon’s Neil Bolt spoke to Morfydd Clark about collaborating with Matt Smith, enduring the weather, and being excited about meeting an animatronic hare.

Neil Bolt: Your character Juliette has to go through this twisted cycle of grief, and the distance it creates between her and Matt Smith’s Richard is such an effective part of the movie. Did any particular work go into driving home that onscreen rift? Was it a collaborative effort between you and Matt?
Morfydd Clark: Well, I just felt incredibly comfortable with Matt as Matt. He’s a wonderful scene partner and a generally wonderful person to be around. I think feeling close and comfortable with him as Morfydd and Matt meant we could explore not feeling like that as the characters. 

That you bring that up, it’s something I find really interesting about it. This idea of trying to grasp for someone in the dark and you cant reach them. No matter what you try. And it’s not like these people don’t like each other.

NB: It’s a strained situation.

MC: Yeah, and also they’re kind of looking at each other as looking at themselves. So there’s something frightening about being known by each other.

But yeah, ultimately, every performance is better when you feel comfortable around your scene partner

NB: That makes sense! Daniel spoke about how filming had to roll with the generally dreary weather. Did that feel like an obstacle or did it add to the experience?

MC: I think it definitely added to it. The big main character of this is the inevitability of nature and us just being little pawns in its game, so that felt quite right.

 I’d say it was more of a trial for Matt because I was inside most of the time. Everytime he had to go in that ditch it just poured.

But it was quite fun to feel like, ‘’We’re cursed!’’ as it was in keeping.

NB: You’ve tackled the sinister side of religion before in Saint Maud, but this contains a very different take on that. But did you still feel a connection of sorts?

MC: Yeah, definitely. I think it’s something I feel as someone who now has to kind of accept they’re an adult, and being like, ‘’Where are the adults? Who is the person who knows what is supposed to be going on? Just someone who knows something, anything?’’

So I guess it’s in that searching for a parent in a simpler world I find compelling. There’s something tragic and sweet about human beings that we always have this feeling somewhere of, ‘’I need to defer, I can’t cope with this’’

NB: Absolutely. So, I’ll wrap up with this. The animatronic hare in the film.

MC: Ohh, yes!

NB: It’s such a cool addition. You spend a fair amount of time with it so how was that experience?

MC: It was amazing! I grew up loving The Neverending Story and The Dark Crystal, so being able to work with people who create that, these puppeteers was just fabulous for me. But also it is just uncanny and odd. I don’t know if you’ve ever been around hyper-realistic puppets but they make you feel quite strange in a deeply unnerving, odd way.

NB: There’s an uncanniness to them, isn’t there?
MC: Yes! So I loved that. And I just loved chatting with it!