Four Good Days, currently out on limited release, explores the very real world of addiction among American families. In the film, Glenn Close and Mila Kunis play a mother and daughter who must overcome their estrangement to help the latter finally get clean from her heroin addiction.
The actresses spoke to Screen Rant about what drew them to the roles and how they explored their delicate dynamic.
Glenn, the interesting thing about this film is that it humanizes the addiction issue in a very specific way. Can you talk to me a little bit about why the role spoke to you and what you hope to get across in your performance?
Glenn Close: The role spoke to me through two things. Number one: a mother locks her own child out of the house. What on earth would bring that on? And then secondly, Deb is the kind of woman that you'd see at a McDonald's or somewhere, and you never would think twice about what her story is.
I think what I loved about this movie is it's a story of someone who might go absolutely unnoticed, but what she is dealing with on a daily basis is something that thousands of people are dealing with on a daily basis. I thought to make her human, and to show the story, and to hopefully engender some empathy about what's going on in this country - I thought that was an important thing to do.
The entire film really hinges on the audience believing your character's reality and finding ways to sympathize with Molly. How do you balance that line and tap into some of those emotions?
Mila Kunis: The script was incredibly well-written. Not to take away from the writer and from from the story that he put on paper, I thought that was [important]. Tapping into the idea of, "What does it take to not be with your kids?" was really the reason that I did it.
It's something that I don't think I could have related to necessarily. I mean, we can all pretend to be drug addicts, but I wouldn't have related to the idea of the desperation before having kids. Now having kids, I looked at this character, and I was like, "Oh, my God, what on earth? " To Glenn's point about locking your daughter out, I was like, "What on earth would cause me to not be with my kids?" There's nothing. I would move mountains or waters for my children. And I was like, "How does this woman get so wound up?" To me, that was the most interesting thing to explore.
And you can access any emotion. I mean, we're all human. We're all just a big bundle of emotions; we're all just holding it in, and this just gives us a way to get it out.
Glenn, this movie soars on the chemistry between you and Mila. You've worked with many legendary actors before, but what makes Mila such a unique actress?
Glenn Close: Cuz she's good. She's really good. And you know, I've always felt that somebody who is really great in comedy, probably would be a very, very good dramatic actor. I think comedy is harder than drama, so I didn't doubt for a second that Mila would be magnificent in this part.
Mila, you also go through quite a physical transformation. Can you talk to me about how you achieve that look?
Mila Kunis: Sure. I did it once for Black Swan. I had to lose a lot of weight to look like a ballerina, but I had to look like a healthy-looking woman, just a little skinnier. In that regard, I was like, "Alright, that's okay. I can figure this out and do it in a healthy manner."
But I would say, looking gaunt and frail and all that stuff. Yeah, you lose weight. You figure it out. You change the way you walk, you change your physicality, you change your mannerisms. And then you try not to bring it home. That probably was the biggest challenge. Because I do have kids, I do have a husband, I have a family. I still had to do school pickup and drop-offs. For me, it was just a matter of balancing the two that was probably harder than actually being one or the other.
Four Good Days is now playing in U.S. theaters.