I know it’s early in 2018, but I think I’ve seen what will go down as one of my favorite films of the year: writer/director Alex Garland’sAnnihilation. Based onJeff VanderMeer’s terrifying eco-horror novel of the same name, the movie starsNatalie Portmanas a biologist and former soldier who joins a mission to uncover what exactly happened to her husband (Oscar Isaac) inside Area X, which is a mysterious—and growing—patch of land in the United States that seems to fundamentally alter everything in its path.Annihilationalso starsJennifer Jason Leigh,Tessa Thompson,Gina Rodriguez, andTuva Novotny.
Unlike a lot of movies where everything is explained and watered down by studio notes and focus groups,Annihilationis a hard sci-fi thriller where you’re constantly trying to figure out what is happening, and I loved every second of it. In addition, the film contains a lot of weird and bold choices that will infuriate some and leave others floored by its brilliance. It’s the type of film that rarely gets made and I commend Paramount Pictures for releasing it.
WithAnnihilationarriving in theaters this weekend in North America, I recently sat down with Natalie Portman for an exclusive video interview. She talked about memorable moments from filming, how they filmed a sequence with a monster where the cast didn’t know the monster was going to come out and try and attack them, how she managed to pull off firing the machine gun without blinking, and being part of a movie where the people trying to figure out what happened are all women scientists.
Check out what she had to say in the player above and below is exactly what we talked about and some images from the film.
Natalie Portman:
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