Mena Suvari opened up in an EXCLUSIVE interview with HL about her 'emotional connection' to Laura in Lifetime's 'Home of Chains,' if she views her character as a sufferer, and extra.
Mena Suvari stars within the harrowing new Lifetime filmHome of Chains. Whereas Laura and Tye appear to have the proper household, they've darkish secrets and techniques that stay hidden for years. Following their very own set of strict non secular beliefs, Laura and Tye’s authoritarian methods with their children develop stronger and lead them down a path of kid abuse, neglect, and imprisonment. HollywoodLife spoke EXCLUSIVELY with Mena about tackling such a troublesome position.
“To be trustworthy, I felt like there have been elements of Laura and her persona and her story that I personally recognized with, and I feel that’s a part of why I used to be so fascinated together with her,” Mena mentioned. “The story general is about how somebody can actually get caught up in one other and fully lose themselves and fully flip their very own model of their worst nightmare. I don’t suppose that Laura ever thought that this could be part of her story. I felt like going into it, I had among the emotional connection to it, but it surely was actually simply such a present with the ability to work with Stephen [Tonkin], our writer-director. I simply felt like every thing was there. We actually had the time to essentially work collectively, rehearse, and have conversations. That was the largest reward for me, actually having the time to have the conversations on actually moving into that house.”
Mena admitted that moving into the mindset of Laura on daily basis all through filming wasn’t simple. “It was intense. It was worrying. It was exhausting,” she revealed. “I felt like I needed to actually decompress. We had been filming up in Canada, and each single certainly one of our forged, our writer-director, our producers, had been probably the most great individuals. If we didn’t have any of that, I don’t understand how I might have gotten by it. All of those unimaginable youngsters, a few of them it was their first movie that they’d ever labored on, and the professionalism, the dedication, the care and consideration for this story and the telling of the story, I used to be so impressed. It was such an exquisite surroundings to be part of that it was actually bizarre that we needed to then carry out and placed on digicam. I couldn’t have carried out it with out all of them.”
As a result of intense material, Mena was “nervous” in regards to the younger actors who play Laura and Tye’s children within the Lifetime film. “I’m a brand new mother. My son’s nearly 17 months outdated, so I've all these new mother nervous vibes round all of this. All I cared about was them,” Mena advised HollywoodLife. “I mentioned [to writer-director Stephen Tonkin], ‘If there’s something that you simply want me to do with out them there, I’m greater than capable of do it.’ I used to be so nervous to indicate some sides to myself that had been so imply and abusive and violent, and the way they had been going to take that. I cared a lot about that. However once more, I’m telling you, the quantity of professionalism… I used to be blown away by the dedication and the understanding of the subject material. It was superior for me to see. I’m simply so grateful for every thing that I work on as a result of I really feel prefer it offers me the chance to study myself. I simply realized a lot about my very own life and the way I work by these children.”
Home of Chains bears similarities to the Turpin household. Laura and Tye’s relationship evolves right into a chaotic mess of abuse and management as they imprison their 6 youngsters of their dwelling. Tye is certainly the ringleader, and Laura falls in line. Mena mentioned how she feels about her character and whether or not she views Laura as a sufferer in any respect.
“I feel that’s actually what attracted me to it is because I don’t suppose that something is simply black and white. There are such a lot of shades to it,” Mena mentioned. “I used to be actually fascinated by how to start with of the movie if you first meet Laura, she’s so down on her luck. I really feel that she’s so in the end satisfied that nobody actually cares about her. Nobody’s going to avoid wasting her, and she or he’s simply desperately attempting and in search of something to cling to. She’s simply within the fallacious place on the fallacious time in assembly Tye.”
She continued, “Sure, I wish to imagine that she is a sufferer. I really feel like we’re all a sufferer in some respect, proper? I really feel like we may discuss her story without end, however I don’t suppose that she ever actually needed any of these issues for herself. I feel that Laura is so misplaced. I’d prefer to say that it’s like a chipping away. It’s a conditioning. I do know that for myself in my very own life and the issues that I’ve skilled a couple of years in, you kind of really feel like there aren't any lifelines. There’s like a relent that occurs. For me, once I skilled these issues, I didn’t have youngsters. So I can solely assume too that there’s one thing that binds you. I feel that Laura actually felt like there was nowhere to go, and also you’re so caught up within the manipulation. You see that within the movie. I don’t need to give an excessive amount of away, however I really feel like there's a solution to view Laura as a sufferer, particularly in direction of the tip, as a result of she tries to a minimum of make a greater transfer than she ever has in her life by the tip. She’s attempting. I’d prefer to imagine that there’s some hope for her indirectly.” Home of Chains premieres September 10 on Lifetime.