February 8, 2025

FILMHOUNDS Magazine

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“We didn’t want this to be a documentary portrayal of their relationship” – Vera Bulder talks Bleeding Love

sees a father () take his estranged daughter () on a road trip in an effort to mend their broken relationship and keep her out of trouble. Along the way they meet all kinds of characters who test everything they know about life and how it should be lived. 

In this interview with FILMHOUNDS, writer, actor and producer shares her experience on the film in bringing it from script to screen. 

 

Where and when did Bleeding Love start for you? 

So Clara [McGregor] and I, we started in the pandemic of 2020, we sat around my kitchen table, scratching our heads thinking, “What are we going to do as actors now that the world is ending?”

We came up with the idea of starting our own little film production company and finding different projects to devote our time to during quarantine. And we were lucky that another friend lived nearby – Ruby Caster, our screenwriter. We spent many weeks around my dining table just trying to figure out what this project was. Of course, it was important for Ewan [McGregor] to be okay with this, because he's a big part of it. Thankfully, we got his blessing very early on.

So we were given the go ahead to keep working on it and to keep developing the script. He was a very integral part of that, and very much involved from the jump and like I said, was involved in getting it made. We wouldn't have been able to get it made without him. But we were able to attach Killer Films, a wonderful production company in New York, also quite early on. I was very much involved the whole way through from start to now, so that was a really wonderful and special experience, especially it being my first sort of feature film as a producer and co-writer and an actor. So it was really a special and unique experience in that way. 

Did you see yourself acting in the film from the get-go? 

We were like, “We can't be waiting by the phone for these agents to call a potential audition.” There was nothing. So yes, it was very much our goal and my goal to be involved as an actor in the film, I wasn't quite sure what the role was though. When we started writing it and developing these different characters and looking at them as an ensemble, I started seeing myself more and more in this Tommy character. But then it was important to me that everyone else was on board with that decision so I didn't want to just jam it down their throats and be like, “Sorry, this is what it's going to be.”

Though at some point, you sort of have to do that. But I think it was a decision that we made as a team. I was very happy that I got to play her though, because it's a role that I would love to do again. In some ways it's one of those roles that is hard to let go after the small amount of time I got to spend with her on set. It was a really really wonderful character. But it was very cold, a horrible thing to have to shoot outside in the middle of the desert in the winter. And I was also sick in the days that we were shooting in but Clara and Emma Westenberg, our director, were both so warm, welcoming and familiar. It really was the perfect environment for all of us to thrive and collaborate and so I couldn't have asked for a better experience as an actor in that role. 

It looked like a fun role to play! It sounds like everyone was on board quite early too. At what point did your husband Jake Weary come into the project? 

When we were writing these different roles, I was thinking to myself “Which one is Jake? Probably that one but maybe the other guy.” And then it was this back and forth eventually we just asked Emma to pick which one she wanted Jake to play. She was like, “Oh, it's definitely gonna be this guy.” Same with my mother in law, who's Jake's mom [Kim Zimmer], she's in the movie as well. She plays the tow truck driver. When we were writing that we were like, “This has to be a woman obviously, it'd be such a funny beat to have that be a woman character in that role,” and I thought, “that'd be really cool for my mother in law.” My mother in law's this wonderful soap opera actor who's had this beautiful long career and I also loved incorporating her in this in some way. But she auditioned for the role like everyone else and sent in a tape and the director watched it and ended up picking her. It was wonderful that we all got to be in it together as a family. 

That worked out really well and to have that family aspect run throughout the film is special. How is it working with a real life father-daughter dynamic on set? Does that feel particularly different? 

I think it does feel different. And we didn't want this to be a documentary portrayal of their relationship – it had to exist on its own. That had to become its own thing that works in the world of a feature narrative film. But we of course needed Ewan's input from the beginning, in trying to figure out which elements of their relationship we wanted to include and which we wanted to fictionalise. Getting to be on set with them was a wonderfully unique experience, because most actors have to pretend that there's something and they didn't really have to do that. They got to walk on set and, like I said, the characters aren't really real to who they are, but they are a real father and daughter, and it comes with their past and the emotions that they've had and shared over the years.

So we got to really dive into all of that right away. There was no warm up period or time where we had to try and get something out of them that wasn't there. It really allowed for this real authentic performance from both of them. And I think they played off of each other so well, and there was no point where Ewan was having to tell Clara what to do or what he wanted from it. There was never any dynamic like that, he let her do her thing. It was a really wonderful thing to witness as a producer being on set all the time, getting to see them work together was really a once in a lifetime sort of experience. It would be amazing to do something again with them – though I don't know what that would be. 

It certainly sounds easy in terms of chemistry! 

Exactly – they clearly did a lot of very heavy lifting performance work! But no, of course they did, I don't want to discredit that in any way. 

Of course, they were both fantastic. And what was it like to see someone like Ewan McGregor take on a role that you've had in your head for that amount of time? Did he do anything surprising with it? Anything you didn't expect? 

Good question. I think it was all very seamless and the way Ewan works is very collaborative. And Emma very much wants to reflect all of these different perspectives, not just from the actors, but from the crew and everyone that's involved. So it really becomes this big collaboration with everyone. And I think Ewan just seamlessly fit into that, he was never like, “Oh, it has to be this way,” or was never trying to dictate anything. It was all very organic and I don't think there was any moment where I was like, “Huh, that's an interesting choice there.” I knew him pretty well going into the film because Clara and I have been friends for so long and I've spent a lot of time with both of them. I think maybe that helps, I'd be interested to ask Emma if she had any experiences like that with either of them. 

Was there any difficulty watching it go from script to screen? There tends to be room for improvisation on set and sometimes the mood or tone on the day can change the film. 

I think it always does. And from script to filming to then editing, it's like three different films essentially. Emma put our own stamp on the script. Also, the script changed entirely from what we delivered originally because it was a very collaborative process. We wanted everyone's voice and perspective to be seen and heard, so there were a lot of things that changed. It can look one way in your head and then look completely different on screen. Emma did a very good job of encapsulating what we came up with and the feel as well as putting her own spin on it.

Her work is very colourful and dynamic and I think that was an important reason why we chose her. We didn't want it to be this dark, moody indie film drama where there's a lot of emotions all the time and had to be dimensional and show the different parts of life because life isn't all just one thing even in sadness – there's joy and weirdness, and laughter and we wanted to have all of that in there. I think our cinematographer, Chris Ripley, did a really good job. He just adds this beautiful, dreamy landscape that I think lends itself perfectly to the film. 

I feel there must be a lot of trust involved in selecting a director that you feel can deliver your vision. Were you ever tempted to dip your toe into directing this yourself? 

I started doing a lot more writing since this film. And I really love the process and the autonomy that it gives you and fully diving into something creatively and then concocting something new. But then I really love the collaborative aspect of filmmaking and hearing what someone else's take is on this one thing, I'm not confident enough at all to be like, “Oh, yeah, my vision, my singular, like ultra vision is going to carry this thing to the end.” I really lean on my collaborators to help me tell the story and I think it needs to be fed other perspectives. You need to put your full trust into these people and that's why we did have a – not a vetting process – but we looked at different directors and wanted to make sure that who we went with was going to really understand this and portray this in the right way.

Emma is a longtime friend, and collaborator of mine, but we all felt that Emma was the best choice for this film. I'm very happy that we did get to work with her but there's an editor involved, and we got to have Autumn [Dea]. We got to have her perspective in that part of the filmmaking process and again, it's a different movie that you get in the editing room. Then you get what we see now. There's many different voices along the way and I really, really love that part of filmmaking. I don't think I could direct – maybe I don't want to say never – but I don't think I could do both the directing and the writing and all of the producing and the acting. I want to pick maybe two or three, but not all! 

I was going to say, it sounded like you had a lot on your plate already! Over the years there have been many road trip type films. What makes this one particularly unique in your mind? 

I think what what makes this unique as a whole is the real father and daughter dynamic. That's really what makes it and we've talked a lot in the development part of the film about Paper Moon which is another film, maybe the only film which is also a road trip that I can think of that has an actual father and daughter dynamic. That film was a huge inspiration for us.

We also wanted to take the film out of the car. The car is such a confined space, and a lot of the more dramatic moments happen in that confined space. You really get to be with these two characters, but we also wanted to take it out of that environment and place it in the real world and in this world that we created, and have them interact with other characters and make it more dynamic in that way.

I think between the real father and daughter as our main actors and also Emma's perspective of this film, which is not a classic indie drama, she adds a different layer that is colourful and a little dreamlike. She manages to give it a different feel and a different tone and that is quite unexpected. I felt that was important, otherwise it made the film quite heavy in subject matter. 

A highlight of the film, which is obviously where the title came from, was the brilliant sing-song in the car to Bleeding Love by Leona Lewis, which I really loved. Could you talk me through how that came about? 

We knew the song was coming and up until I think, maybe a couple of days out of shooting it. We were like “Guys, we have got to pick the song.” We knew there had to be one to bond them that is nostalgic and it had to ideally be a song that is  true to the both of them,  that they knew very well and that they had an emotional connection over. We narrowed the list down to [a song by] Eminem, Bleeding Love and maybe Africa by Toto or something – those were the three options. And then we went with Bleeding Love, which subsequently became our title much later on.

But yeah, the song was important. It was great. The song is actually in there twice. Someone covered it later on as well, which was a nice way of bringing it back in. The song is so nostalgic to Clara and I and to Emma as well. I was wondering if people in the US would know it, because Leona Lewis is obviously from the UK from X Factor, so it was huge for us growing up, but I'm glad to hear now that it's also bled over into the US at that point. 

I couldn't imagine anyone not knowing the genius of Leona Lewis! 

Exactly! And I just heard that she wants to watch the film, so that's a little pinch me moment. Like, forget about everything else, getting to work with Ewan McGregor, whatever – but the fact that Leona wants to see the film is huge! 

Bleeding Love can be found on demand now.