We Live in Time showcases the five rules of creating cinematic chemistry | Canada Voices

Early in rehearsals for the new drama We Live in Time, director John Crowley (Brooklyn) could see that his stars, Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, had mad chemistry, though they were only getting to know one another. But translating chemistry onto film requires more than serendipity – it needs to be nurtured.

The first rule of chemistry: Create a project your stars can dig into. On its surface, We Live in Time is a straightforward love story: Almut (Pugh), an ambitious chef, and Tobias (Garfield), a marketer for Weetabix, the world’s squarest cereal, meet in London, fall for each other and have a daughter.

But because the film bounces around in time, we learn early that Almut and Tobias have already weathered one bout of her cancer, and now it’s recurred. This allows us to see every moment thereafter, whether ordinary or exceptional, wherever it occurs in their relationship, for what it is: a moment you only get once. We live in the ticking of time, but can we live fully enough in the nick of time – whatever time we have?

“Reading the script, it was immediately a film I wanted to see in the world,” Garfield said in a joint interview with Pugh in September, when the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. He wore a maroon cardigan, she a white lace dress, and they encouraged each other like best friends.

“It felt like a deep pool people can drink from. It’s about how I want to live – I want to feel scared and go for it anyway, I want to try things, and free myself to fail and to lose. It’s a reminder that the only road to vitality, to the full experience of being alive, is through courage and risk. In your darkest, most difficult moments you can find the piece of gold that’s been waiting for you. It’s the part of you that knows the life you really want.”

The second rule: Cast the right pair. Crowley, who had worked with Garfield on the film Boy A (2007), said in a separate interview, “He’s a profoundly emotional actor, he’s marinated in it. And Florence displays a degree of strength, a fearlessness that reminds me of the young Kate Winslet. Watching her talent is like watching a plane take off in the sky. So my invitation to her was about Almut’s vulnerability. What would it be like if she were to hold onto her strength, embody a woman who knows exactly who she is and goes for everything she wants –and then a crack opens up?”

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Rule three: Modulate the chemistry; don’t let it peak too soon. “By day two of rehearsals, Florence and Andrew would read through a scene, and everything would begin to bubble,” Crowley says. “I was pulling them back: ‘We’re studying the map, not climbing the mountain.’ You don’t want emotion when the camera’s off. But they were like racehorses kicking at the stalls.”

The first take of the first pivotal scene – “a page and a half of chunky dialogue,” when Almut floats the idea of not continuing chemo – confirmed Crowley’s excitement. Afterward, Pugh told him she didn’t understand what had happened – the scene had felt easier than anything she’d ever done. “What she was feeling was what she and Andrew were giving to each other,” Crowley says. “Watching it was actually scary – ‘What if I’m catching lightning in a bottle just once and it’s gone tomorrow?’ But the more we went on, the easier it was.”

“It was all very exposing,” Pugh says, “but my understanding of Andrew, our characters and how far we could go with one another allowed me to let go a bit more each day. I felt I was being held in a moment by someone I was stretching to perform real life with. It felt like we were making magic.” So much magic, in fact, that after the duo continued a sex scene past the agreed-upon choreography – they claim they never heard “cut” – they came up for air to find the camera and boom operators had turned their backs, it felt so private.

Garfield is no stranger to intimacy, or sorrow: In 2019 his mother died of pancreatic cancer, and though he was shattered, he learned “grief is one of the secret keys to a life of meaning. Otherwise our hearts get calcified. If we keep pain and hurt at bay, we remove ourselves from love, aliveness, adventure, risk.”

“I had such a blessed experience with my mum,” he continues. “For whatever mysterious reason, I found myself in surrender to what was happening, and as soon as I surrendered, it became easy. Everything felt more alive, colours felt more vibrant. I realized, ‘Oh, it’s love. Grief is love. Grief is love.’ I forget that sometimes. But every time I access the harder stuff, I get to the bliss and the beauty of life.”

The fourth rule: When everyone is in the groove, shoot your film’s juicy, exhausting, irresistible, centrepiece scene – in this case, Almut giving birth in the bathroom of a motorway gas station, assisted by two wide-eyed cashiers and a 999 operator (England’s 911). Or as Crowley puts it, “strangers in a petrol station coming right up against the central mystery of life.”

A midwife choreographed the beats of a delivery, telling Pugh everything she’d feel, where she’d feel it and what sounds she’d make. They shot the entire scene through without cuts. Eight times. At the end, they brought in a real baby, whom Pugh and Garfield did not practice holding, so their awkwardness was real. “It was like jumping on a moving train, and clinging on as it sped,” Pugh says. “It was so hot, we were sweaty and panting. But between takes, neither of us wanted to leave.”

“It felt like we conjured a sacred energy in that room,” Garfield agrees. “It felt like a little chapel by the end, like that dirty toilet built on a soundstage was an ancient site where people have been praying for thousands of years.” He laughs. “We just kind of held each other after we finished.”

As happens after a chemical reaction, both actors felt changed. “So much of my life shifted after this movie, massive things happened to me,” Pugh says. “I don’t want to go into specifics, but I tried to change things to be a better and bigger human. It lit me up.”

The final and most important rule: “In the end, all you can do to achieve chemistry is to invite it,” Crowley concludes. “You can manipulate performances, you can push, you can cajole, you can edit stuff together. But you can’t make chemistry happen. You just invite it and hope.”

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