Cynthia Erivo Interview
Drift (2023) is a heartbreaking feature film starring Cynthia Eviro, Alia Shawkat, and Honor Swinton Byrne. The film follows a young Liberian refugee, Jacqueline, who barely escapes her war-torn country to settle on a Greek island. Her daily struggle for survival keeps terrible memories at bay, and she becomes close to an American tour guide.
TNBFC were able to sit down with Cynthia Eviro to discuss the inspiration behind her role and the story behind this role.
Cynthia: I think the way in which Jacqueline was treated as a human being within this was the thing that fascinated me the most. I think sometimes when we see stories about refugees, we are given a really broad stroke about who the person is, but we're mainly diving in and talking about the experience of being a refugee but not the human being. I feel like this gave us a chance to learn about her, get to know her, and see through her eyes as opposed to having our own judgments about what she was going through.
Cynthia: I think she was treated with such dignity and elegance that I fell in love with her. I also fell in love with the fact that there's sort of this crazy determination in her. She just keeps going.
Cynthia: I just was fascinated by that. I was fascinated by the fact that this person, after the things that she'd been through, still found the will to keep going, even if it felt like there was no direction necessarily. Forward was the direction, just, I'm going to keep going to the next day and the next day and the next day.
Cynthia: I'm not even entirely sure that she knew where she was aiming for or where she was going or headed to. The end point would have been but something in her said just keep going, which I think I'm fascinated with. I think I was lucky because I was a producer on this, so I had to, obviously reading the script is definitely helpful.
Cynthia: When the script is good, it's your gold. I was involved in everything, so everything from picking the family to where we would be shooting, what the costume would look like, shoes on her feet, the design, hair, face, the whole, picking the person I would be interacting with, Callie, working within those spaces. That's kind of what I did.
Cynthia: For me, physical prep is just sort of like, I'm a runner, so for me, the monotony of consistent running and, you know, also little things like I didn't want to get to set, have to shoot something where I was meant to be hungry and have been full. It's like actually allowing myself to feel hunger, to feel hungry and to know, I can only know so much because that's not the experience and I'm lucky. But just even to feel, just the twinge of what it's like to be empty and want something is helpful when you're shooting something that needs you to be hungry.
Cynthia: So when I got to a place where I could eat something, I wanted something to eat, you know? It's like that. I had to do some diving practise because that moment at the end when she dives into the water and is under the water, I'm under the water. I want to say it's about 20 to 40 seconds we're under there.
Cynthia: And we had to do some diving lessons because it's open water and I hadn't dived in open water before. So my production partner was like, everybody was like, is she coming up? Was she there? Is she coming up? But yeah, we did lots of physical practise to make sure that I was able to do that. And just actual mental prep around it.
Cynthia: And I had a really wonderful therapist who was on call so I could call whenever we had hard scenes to go through and use music to access, to sort of like get into an emotion. And then I use sense memory to stay there and to get deeper. So I pick a playlist for prep and I pick a playlist for the production.
Cynthia: And that is all of the sort of things put together that helped me find my way into the character. There are definitely scenes that took a few minutes to come out of. I haven't quite figured out the automatic button.
Cynthia: I haven't figured out how to like switch it off immediately. And so sometimes it's just about time. Sometimes it's about sitting with someone and breath control and finding my way back into the room. I get waves usually when I shoot things like that. So I will have the emotion. I'll be shooting the scene. Once the scene is done, I can come out of it for a second. But if I step away, then I get like a full wave of whatever I was holding on to that was left. And that sort of releases.
Cynthia: And usually only then is it sort of like do I feel more normal again? And then after that, it's about making sure that I have proper support. So it's talking to the therapist and having a conversation with them to sort of process and let go. Because those things don't really ever go or they don't really necessarily leave you, but they just they stop affecting you the same way they did when you needed them to affect you in a particular way.
Cynthia: So she was around during the Biafran war. She was about 15 or 16 when it was happening in Nigeria. And she was with her mother and her sisters. And she would drip feed me some information. Over the years, we've had several conversations about what that was and what she experienced. And it dawned on me that that experience was helpful in this particular storytelling, but mainly because knowing her and her being my mother and knowing that she'd come through that and has gotten to where she is now, I'm very acutely aware of the kind of determination that my mother has.
Cynthia: One, to live and two, to strive and to thrive and enjoy her life. And I think that that's the thing that sort of rang true in Jacqueline, that sort of quality of living, wanting to continue to live, I think is something that I recognise in my mother, which I think was a really important part of who Jacqueline is. So that's something I wanted to put into her.
Cynthia: No, but when it comes out in London, I'll be there. So I think I'm going to take her with me to see it. And that will be an experience for the both of us. I don't think my perspective on the film has changed necessarily. I've always felt like this film was an important piece to see. And I think it's a special piece because it's just a different point of view when it comes to this subject matter.
Cynthia: So the thing I feel more vehemently about this film is that I hope people go and see it. I really do think it's important, and not just for me, but because I think it makes us take a look at people who are going through this and in these circumstances in a different way. So somehow it's managed to land at this point in time.
Cynthia: I didn't know it would. But I think we sometimes allow ourselves to take the humanity out of human beings suffering in these circumstances. And I think this film is one of those films that says, don't take the humanity away.
Cynthia: See people who are going through these situations as the human beings that they are, as people who had full and rich lives and are now having to deal with another point in their lives, but that part of them hasn't disappeared. They are just now placed in a different situation that they have to move through. So I'm hoping that people see it and grow their empathy.
Cynthia: I think everyone is capable of empathy, save from those who are medically unable to. But I think that most of us are capable of accessing true empathy for others. And I think, I hope that this is one of those films that helps to encourage that.
Drift released in the UK on 29th March, 2024.