Photo by: François Duhamel/Netflix
We were joined on the Popernative show by Cory Michael Smith who can be seeing playing Georgie in Todd Hayne’s latest film, May December, now streaming on Netflix in the U.S. and Canada. The film just received 4 nominations for the 2024 Golden Globes set for January 7th, 2024. May December stars Julianne Moore as Gracie, Natalie Portman as Elizabeth, and Charles Melton as Joe.
Goergie is the eldest son of Gracie from her first marriage and is struggling with his career and life in general. When discussing reading the script and getting an idea of Georgie’s character, Cory says, “The first line of the first scene is ‘how much are they paying you?’ which was a huge cue for me to just understand that this is someone who is unapologetic, who is not too concerned with other people’s feelings because he grew up where people stopped caring about his wellbeing and his feelings around the age of 13. So for most of his life he has just felt like no one’s been particularly taking good care of him, so he doesn’t need to take good care of other people […] He just has to confront what life is, and so I like that he’s sort of brash that way.”
We also asked Cory about working with Todd Haynes again, as May December marks their third film together with 2015’s Carol and 2017’s Wonderstruck. This time around, Cory added another layer in bringing his character to life on screen:
“He offered this to me full well knowing that it’s unlike a lot of other things that I’ve done and so he really extended a great deal of trust to me as an actor, and also as a collaborator to really build a physical person that looked and felt a lot different than me. He asked me early on if I would dye my hair, but then I really wanted to him to have tattoos, and so I designed all the tattoos […] it just felt like a real collaboration in that I was able to show up and contribute and surprise him in new ways and that’s been fun.”
Watch the full conversation below.
May December is streaming on Netflix in the U.S. and Canada.
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