With each passing day, science seems to understand more and more about the natural world, which is exactly why, when unexplainable events begin to unfold, things feel all the more frightening. While American films have their own brand of folklore to draw upon, when folk horror from the UK is brought to life, audiences are able to dive deeper into all manner of untapped potential of otherworldly tales. Morfydd Clark stars in the new folk-horror movie Starve Acre, which offered her the opportunity to immerse herself in an atmospheric and dreadful experience that explored dark forces. Starve Acre lands in theaters and On Demand on July 26th.
Starve Acre is described, “When their son starts acting strangely, a couple unwittingly allow dark and sinister forces into their home, awakening a long-dormant ancient evil rooted deep in the countryside.”
ComicBook caught up with Clark to talk her interest in the genre, the harrowing process of bringing the story to life, and more.
Morfydd Clark in Starve Acre
– Brainstorm Media)
ComicBook: I’m a huge folk horror fan and I know you are a huge folk horror fan, not just because you’re Welsh, even though that doesn’t hurt, but what do you find so fascinating about folk horror as compared to ghost stories or slashers?
Morfydd Clark: I’ve always been scared of the sea and lightning, and I’ve always felt this fear and respect for the environment, which I think is often the running theme of lots of folk horrors. And I also just feel … we’re in 2024 now, but we were just the same all those years ago, as well. There’s this idea that we’re still scared of the same things, we still desire the same things, we still don’t cope well with the same things, and so that’s something. I find that connection to the past and the sweetness of humans, as well, that we can’t learn. It’s really interesting.
It’s not just the story of Starve Acre that was so compelling, I know that for you and I know that for director Dan Kokotajlo, just the overall atmosphere, just the sense of dread, just that spooky vibe of the original book was a draw for this project. With Dan controlling the visual palette and the editing, it’s a little bit more clear how he’s going to be able to lean into that dread. For you as a performer, does that excite you just knowing that you’re going to get to play in that landscape or do you approach the material as, “This is how my performance will help elevate that sense of dread,”?
I think for this project it just felt very … I just really took lots of inspiration from where we were filming and the weather. I feel that she is so deeply frightened and uncomfortable and almost as if, I don’t know, it’s horrible to describe, but it felt like she had no skin, she’d been flayed, and so the way the wind touched her and whether it was cold or whether it was warm or if it was raining, she’s so open to this feeling, sensory physical feeling because she can’t feel what’s actually happening because it’s too awful.
We were filming in a time of year that is not necessarily … I mean, is any time of year great in Britain at the moment? We’ve had the most rainy summer ever, but we were filming in February, March, April in north of England. It’s pretty intense. You don’t feel cozy and safe. You feel like, “Please give me a good day today. Please be gentle with me,” and so that was really helpful.
You speak about how your character just feels so vulnerable after what has happened to her and her family. Do you find that bringing a role like this to life almost helps you process some of your own types of trauma or grief that you might’ve personally experienced? Or do you feel like going through this role, bringing her to life, does that just make you more empathetic to others around you who maybe have dealt with such things?
I think it’s something that I quite like about horror, that I think you’re watching it and you’re always thinking about the other worlds where someone did step in or someone looked after them. It’s something that I really love about horror, that by showing the darkness, they also show the possibility of a lighter, safer, kinder world. I think it definitely made me more empathetic when I play these characters. I always try to think how I would look after all my characters, how I’d mother them, I guess. And that’s a nice way in, because it’s not about judging what they do, it’s about everybody deserves to have a feeling of safety and care.
The dynamic between you and Matt Smith’s character is so interesting because you’re a married couple and you’ve been through this shared grief, but there’s still this distance between you. How do you and Matt establish that dynamic? Is there something different about how the two of you collaborated? Did you intentionally keep some emotional distance, or was it really just about what these characters, what these scenes required of you that dictated that distance?
I definitely do not want to experience what my characters are experiencing, and I feel that I can go to the biggest extremes when I feel the most safe. I was really lucky to be working with Matt because he is just lovely, but not just lovely, he’s silly and fun and playful. Having that kind of tonic to what we were doing on screen, I think, also was really interesting because we were really aware of when they felt uncomfortable, shy, or unsafe with each other. And it was also from Dan. We were just in a really lovely space in terms of how we were working.
But I think, also, we really wanted to make sure that it’s not that these characters don’t like each other, they can’t bring themselves to open up or look at each other, really, because it will be looking at themselves and they can’t face it. I think, also, we just cared a lot for our characters.
I’m a huge fan of your work in Saint Maud. I know I’m not the only one.
Oh, thank you.
And I know we talked about horror and you’ve spoken before about how much you enjoy seeing discourse around horror and just the fan community and how people react to it. So it’s been five, six years since you made Saint Maud.
Oh, my God, it has.
To be fair, a pandemic altered everyone’s perceptions of time.
Time went funny.
Have you seen discourse around that movie that, especially with a few years having passed, has made you retroactively think, “Oh, wow, I never thought of that movie in that way,” or are you just a fan of all discourse around that movie?
Oh, gosh, that’s a really interesting question. I don’t know if I can come up in the moment with an answer for it.
I think it’s quite interesting, for Saint Maud to come out in the pandemic and then post-pandemic conversation, because she’s a care worker and also was experiencing a mental health crisis. I think we were all made acutely aware of that, that could happen to any of us, so there’s been quite a lot of interesting discourse about that.
Some people have spoken a lot about the aspect of care work, and care work is something that can be so glorious and wonderful and also abused so intensely, and also care workers themselves can be abused and undervalued. That’s something I find really fascinating. I think once you start to notice that care work is all around, it really changes the way you look at the world. I, to be honest, think that all crews need to … They do so much care work and it’s just not mentioned at all. And also as actors, I think we need to be aware that we’re experiencing people caring for us. Oh, no, you’ve really got me going now.
It requires quite a different type of recovery care work. If you’re putting a lot of care into someone, you need to have that coming in at you and you have to be able to live a life that can be not stressful and beautiful, and most care workers aren’t paid very much. So it’s something that I’m really passionate about. And when that conversation comes up in terms of Saint Maud, I’m always like, “Yes.”
I know that Kristen Stewart loved Saint Maud and then she went and made a movie with Rose Glass, so she manifested that opportunity. For you, do you happen to have a filmmaker or a collaborator or even just a movie you’ve really liked recently that you would like to manifest, like, “I’m just going to put that out there that I really liked this movie that could result in a future project,”?
I wish I had one to say right now so I could do a Kirsten Stewart and make it happen, even though I don’t think I quite have the chops for that.
You could also just say Kristen Stewart.
Well, yes, to be honest, I’d love to work with her. I think she’s so interesting, and I thought her in Love Lies Bleeding, as I’ve seen it before, but she just cracked me up in that movie. I found her so funny. It’s also, I think Rose does get that out of people because it’s also something I liked about Maud, that there were parts of it that was like, “He-he, we shouldn’t be laughing, but it’s quite funny.”
I’d love to work with Rose again. I’ve got just done the second season of The Rings of Power, that’s actually coming out in a month. But coming back to directors that you’ve previously worked with is really fascinating. So maybe in 10 years, I’d love me and Rose to get together and see what we’re obsessed with then. Kristen Stewart as well.
I don’t want to wait 10 years for the Morfydd and Kristen Stewart buddy comedy, whatever the hell you cook up with Rose. I don’t want to wait that long, but I will wait that long.
That’s the dream. That’s the dream.
Starve Acre lands in theaters and On Demand on July 26th.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter.
