Interview: Christopher Abbott & Gitte Witt (The Sleepwalker)

In The Sleepwalker (Sundance Selects / limited release 11.21), filmmaker Mona Fastvold sequesters her quartet of players in mostly volatile sibling, lover and fighter pairings. Architecturally speaking, the setting is a particular one. An under repair, posh yet isolated million plus dollar refuge in the woods acts as a sort of centrifuge system for dysfunctionality. Archetypally speaking, we find the protective nurture in the sisterly bound, romantically fused couples and a testosterone-filled joust between classes in this over-reaching air/atmosphere of unconscious and subconscious behaviours.

Christopher Abbott (Martha Marcy May Marlene, Carlos Puga’s All That I Am (aka “Burma”), Josh Mond’s short film, 1009) had arrived at Sundance having just completed filming on Mond’s feature debut, James White (we briefly discuss this at the tail-end of the interview) plays Andrew, the sort of blue collar hammer and nail kind of New Englander with a pit-bull like short fuse, while Gitte Witt plays girlfriend Kaia, the film’s protagonist, distraught future aunt but at ease as the conductor leader in this cesspool symphony.

We had a brief chat about how their psychological traits were enhanced via choice in setting, garb and damaged material items, discussed the matriarchal healer character and their level-headed Norwegian traits and touched upon the construction of the film’s dynamically composed toggle-like dinner table sequence. Tomorrow: we speak to director/co-writer Mona Fastvold and co-writer/actor Brady Corbet.