Eliza scanlen3/25/2023 ![]() Ben and Essie, they’re two very different actors too. We had a lot of rehearsals actually, and by the time we were on set we were all quite close. ![]() What was the experience of creating this with Ben Mendelsohn and Essie Davis like? I loved the chaotic family dynamic in the film, it’s kind of messed up and falling apart but comes together in a really sweet and touching way. We all know that we hide behind our hair so to not have that was scary as fuck. When you’re playing a character you’re adding things on and more and more layers to you as a person, whereas here I took a big part of myself away. ![]() It was definitely eye-opening too because unfortunately people do see you in a different way, when you’re taking public transport or when you’re out in public, there were some times where people didn’t really want to look at me, and afraid or uncomfortable to be looking at me for too long. Some actors choose to lose a few kilos for a role and most of the time it’s an optional thing, but in order to play Milla the hair had to be gone, but it was really empowering. ![]() Once I was in rehearsals I was excited for it be shaven off and really throw myself at the character. What was the emotional and psychological impact of doing that? I read somewhere that you had your head shaved every single day. At this stage in my career you’re lucky to come across something you love entirely, but this is definitely something I fell in love with straightaway. After seeing Toby, I thought I’d email my agent about it, and at the same time the casting director called me to offer me the role – so it was a really funny coincidence. We had a mutual friend so we ended up hanging out that night and talked about Babyteeth because by that point he had gotten the role of Moses. I had been sent the script and auditioned, but hadn’t heard anything, and a few months later and I had flown to the states to do Little Women, and funnily enough, Toby Wallace – who plays Moses – was in Massachusetts as well shooting The Society. I first met Shannon in 2018 about Babyteeth. We caught up with Scanlen over the phone from Sydney and talked about the empowering process of shaving her head for the role, and subverting romantic cancer-teen film tropes… Fresh in our minds from a series of staggering breakout roles: she is a terrifying and sinister presence in HBO’s Sharp Objects opposite Amy Adams in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, her tenderness and vulnerability as Beth is heartrending – but one thing they have in common is Scanlen is coruscating and uninhibited. Her open face has the ability to embody a spectrum of triggers of the human psyche. Standout scenes include Milla bringing Moses to a chaotic family dinner where her mother is accidentally high and incapacitated on a cocktail of prescription drugs in another, Henry and Anna question their parenting skills as they witness rat-tailed Moses playfully strong-arming Milla to the floor, straddling her as he tickles her.Īnd Australian actor Eliza Scanlen is mesmerising. Cliché-free and never veering on saccharine, it is tear-chokingly heartbreaking, unexpectedly poetic and chock-full of pitch-black laughs. Helmed by theatre director Shannon Murphy from a script that playwright Rita Kalnejais adapted from her play of the same title, Babyteeth takes a hackneyed premise (sick teen falls in love, thus allowing them to make peace with their grave situation) and offers something completely refreshing. But that isn’t her reality in this unforgettable coming-of-age film, which follows terminally ill 16-year-old Milla (Scanlen), who falls in love with erratic tattooed junkie Moses (Toby Wallace) – all while her parents Henry (Ben Mendelsohn) and wife Anna (Essie Davis) navigate this unchartered territory. She dances with the unabashed fervour of a teenage girl without a problem in the world. ![]() There is a moment in Babyteeth where Eliza Scanlen cranks up the music (the spirited strings of Sudan Archives’ “Come Meh Way” cuts through to the soul), rippling her body, limbs akimbo, shoulders undulating, her feet kinetic on the carpet. ![]()
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