Filmmaker Azazel Jacobs (The Lovers) wrote His Three Daughters to help confront his fear of losing his parents. The critically acclaimed drama delves into the complex dynamics among three sisters as they grapple with their father’s impending death. Carrie Coon (The Gilded Age), Elizabeth Olsen (Love & Death), and Natasha Lyonne (Poker Face) deliver outstanding performances as siblings who are coming to terms with their shared history and dysfunctional relationships.
Writer/director Jacobs and His Three Daughters‘ stars participated in a press conference hosted by Netflix in support of the film’s release. The following highlights from the Q&A provide a glimpse behind the scenes of Jacobs’ engrossing drama that was released in limited theaters on September 6th and will stream on Netflix beginning September 20th.
His Three Daughters Press Conference:
On Writing His Three Daughters:
Azazel Jacobs: “I have grown up very, very close to my parents and inspired and encouraged by them. Always dreaded losing them, and then suddenly this thing that seemed very far away was very, very close. And that definitely was a big part of the inspiration, was to kind of capture something that, more than anything, I was fearing. Not so much that I had gone through. I’d gone through it with close friends and other people that I’ve loved. But this thing was a way for me to kind of confront some fears and hopes that I had before going through it myself.”
Casting Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen, and Natasha Lyonne:
Azazel Jacobs: “Well, I should just say that this wasn’t a situation where I put the film together and then went to them. Like, this was the beginning. I went straight to them, and this group right here is how it all started. And we went out as a team together, so that has been a blessing all the way through up until now.
[…] I would say that I started thinking of them while I was writing the script. So just, it was integral to do it this way. And it really has been a joyful experience.
I would say out of every project that I’ve done, I wouldn’t say that there weren’t challenges, there was more just, like, I knew that it had to take place in a certain type of apartment, but it wasn’t the apartment that I wrote for. Finding that apartment and going through many, many apartments until I realized, like, ‘Oh yeah, this is what I pictured,’ without having a direct relationship to it, which is different than writing for actors that you have a direct connection, at least.
But this has been a very different experience. This has been one of those things that I’ve just trusted my gut, and it’s worked out in a way that I’ve really been grateful for.”
On Developing the Sibling Relationship:
Elizabeth Olsen: “We had never met before, right?”
Natasha Lyonne: “No. I think that was part of the mystery and the magic of it in a weird way, is that since Aza, in the first place, you know, wrote something that was so deeply personal. But then he wrote it for each of us. And then, you know, you have these sort of fantasies of, ‘Oh, yeah, I love that person.’ But I think we each heard it as like, ‘Those guys? I get to work with them?’ But we didn’t actually know each other. We don’t have each other’s phone numbers.
[…] But, somehow, it congealed in this way. And I think for me, for sure, it was this perfect storm. I was just dying to get to work with these guys.”
On Quietly Going About Making His Three Daughters:
Elizabeth Olsen: “It’s been a really wild testament to this, like, going back it seems to a time of when you started making films. Of there not needing to be this lead up of international sales to try and figure out what a budget we can get together. Every actor has a number above their head. It was like, ‘I know that I’m able to get this small amount, and I have these people, but one doesn’t require the other.’ And we’re not gonna make a public announcement about making it. We’re just gonna make something.”
Carrie Coon: “Yeah. Nobody knew.”
Elizabeth Olsen: “Yeah. So, it’s amazing that choosing to do that in this landscape right now, which is really hard to make features, it’s really a beautiful testament, I think, to the goals from the beginning that you set out. And I think we were also all excited to do something in secret, in a way, of this being our thing. And it’s only when we’re sharing it now that it’s actually being shared. But it wasn’t being shared from the get-go.”
Natasha Lyonne: “Right. Like, we weren’t doing any [publicity] from the set. Which does help to keep it sort of a sacred space. I always remember, you know, back in the ’90s or something, we didn’t have these cell phones. We would just go off to some weird location, and we would exist in that world for however long as a little team. Somehow, Aza, what you’ve created that we were dying to jump into was that sort of, ‘This is the safe, secret space, and not until it’s finished do we discuss it.’”
On Bonding During His Three Daughters Rehearsals:
Carrie Coon: “We sat around the table in one of the apartments. It was a green room. And we read through, and we talked a little bit about backstory and a little bit about history. We had some chemistry reads with some of the actors who’d be joining us, and we did have a chance to talk through it. And again, I think we all knew, by virtue of having signed up for it at all, we knew the kind of actors we were working with. Our job is to build intimacy.”
Natasha Lyonne: “I’m so sorry, I just want to just say, this is Carrie Coon. For me, just humbly speaking, you know, it’s like being a musician or something. You know what I mean? Like, f you’re Harry Nilsson showing up to a session with John Lennon, you’re a little bit like, ‘Well, I better bring my A-game.’
When you’re talking about just real acting, there’s so few left that actually, you know, it’s about the craft, like in a real way.”
Elizabeth Olsen: “Every second of every day.”
Natasha Lyonne: “I mean, so I think that the rehearsal process was a lot. It sounds like it was, for both of us, of being like, whatever Carrie tells us is the way.”
Carrie Coon: “It felt like theater. It felt like rehearsing theater.”
Elizabeth Olsen: “And we were also trying to figure out, you know, very basic things like how do we sound similar? We all come from different parts of the country. (Laughing) So, we need to find a sound that also makes sense with the rhythm that Aza had in his mind.”
Carrie Coon: “Yeah, and me from Minnesota, it’s so hard with the New York.”
On the Appeal of His Three Daughters:
Elizabeth Olsen: “The thing that I loved was how much language there was in it. I feel like there’s not a lot of opportunities to, where, at least in American cinema, you know, that we have become like trended towards, there’s just not as much language. And I think that was the first thing that I loved, because you’re opening this script and Katie speaks for like a page and a half before anything else happens.
I think by that get-go, you already understand that there’s a strength, a point of view in how he wrote. How he was directing it was also written in. That all we see is…like he was very clear about what part of the room we’re looking in, not knowing who’s watching or what the perspective is until he reveals it. And so, it’s all really specific. It was a gift to read something like that, that wasn’t like, ‘And then we’re cut into coverage and there’s, you know, two overs or medium and wide.’
You could feel his point of view from the get-go of reading it.”
On Playing Each Sister as an Outsider in the Sibling Dynamic:
Natasha Lyonne: “I mean, aren’t we outsiders everywhere? Doesn’t everybody feel like an outsider everywhere? Maybe isn’t saying it. I come from a family, there are five kids in my family. So, everybody in this movie exists in some level inside of my own family, including me as a controlling older sister. And so, I think we’re all performing self. Aren’t we performing self more than ever now? Aren’t these young people, that’s all they’re doing now? In a way, that’s a pressure that we didn’t actually have when we were growing up. It’s horrible.”
Carrie Coon: “That’s like Brando in the interview with Connie Chung. […] She says, ‘You’re the greatest actor of your generation. How does it feel?’ The dog walks by. ‘Isn’t he the greatest actor? Every day he pretends he loves me but all he wants is a snack.’”
Natasha Lyonne: “Yeah. I mean, what are we all doing here? It’s so hard to be a person. But I also love, again, it’s so specifically written that you see the people you know. I’ve had people come up to me in the screenings and be like, ‘Oh, I’m such a Katie.’ You know, ‘I can just feel their inclination to control.’
And there’s just nothing arbitrary about those relationships as they’re portrayed. I also just love the emotional immaturity of some of it. That Katie is really constitutionally incapable of making like a really wholehearted apology. But her sisters accept whatever version of that she can offer because they know who she is on some level.
Carrie Coon: “Well, what a beautiful portrait of the fact that people are broken – or whole or however you want to look at it – you know, in so many different ways. Like, and isn’t it there’s such a relief when you talk to somebody and you’re like, ‘Gosh, you seem so together.’ And then they start telling you about their family members. You’re like, ‘Oh, you too? So, I’m not a weirdo.’
[…] Obviously Rachel, it’s a more obvious outsider in a way because it’s like smoke and pomp. But it’s like, the nuance of trying to keep a life together on the outside, while the inside is sort of like exploding. It’s just such a beautiful thing. And again, I think it’s like a real, probably like active service to mothers who are trying to do their best.”
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