Sound of My Voice (Dir. Zal Batmanglij)

“I watched a lot of documentaries of cult leaders. A lot of cult leaders are ex-actors or failed preachers, which is interesting. But I think nothing really prepared me for when we were on set shooting the day that there’s the group apple eating scene. I didn’t realize how intense it was going to be to have to hold everybody’s focus. It was a very difficult moment, and in that moment, you really have to become the cult leader and after 20 takes of the same thing, still hold everybody’s attention, hold the other actors’ attention because they were getting bored. They’d been shooting for six hours, the camera’s not on them, how do you still keep the energy up? I was like wow, this is what a cult leader has to be able to do, hold people’s attention and still have a gravitas. That was very hard. I don’t know that I achieved that, but I tried.”

- Brit Marling