Tim Roth and Trine Dyrholm hit the festival circuit this month with Désirée Nosbusch’s emotionally raw drama Poison , in which they co-star as an ex-couple who meet up years after the death of their young son which drove them apart.
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The feature, which world premieres at Germany’s Munich Film Festival on July 5 and then heads to Ireland’s Galway Film Festival, is adapted from Dutch writer Lot Vekemans’ award-winning 2010 play.
It unfolds against the backdrop of the cemetery where the son is buried, with the reunion sparked by a letter notifying the ex-partners that their son’s grave is being moved due to building work.
When Roth and Dyrholm agreed to take on the roles, neither had an inkling of the personal events that would lend an extra emotional layer to the shoot.
Having signed for the film, Roth learned of son Cormac Roth’s diagnosis with stage 3 germ cell cancer in November 2021, just months before filming was due to take place in the Netherlands and Luxembourg in early 2022.
The L.A.-based Reservoir Dogs and Rob Roy Oscar nominee decided to maintain his commitment to the film.
“I talked to Cormac about it,” says Roth. “It felt like it was an important piece to do, and these things can help you in a way, although nothing prepares you.”
“It felt very positive at that time… to be working on something so emotive and also going through such an emotionally difficult time… we still had hope that we wouldn’t lose him,” he continues.
Cormac Roth died a few months after the shoot in October 2022 at the age of 25.
Roth credits director Nosbusch and cinematographer Judith Kaufmann ( The Teacher’s Room ) as well as the mainly female crew with creating a safe place for him during his time on the set.
“It was a very, very, very difficult time in our lives as a family, but I was in very good hands with the director and DP,” he says.
“I do remember that the crew was predominantly female,” he continues.
“I know it’s changing but it was still incredibly unusual. I only noticed about a week-and-a-half in, I was so bogged down in the subject, I suddenly looked up and went, ‘Wow, look at this’. It wasn’t just the subject that was special but also the production.”
The Luxembourg leg of the shoot was in a real-life cemetery.
“Burials were taking place and they’d be bringing caskets in while we were filming. Sometimes we had to stop when services were going on,” recalls Roth.
The actor also points to Dyrholm’s support.
“She’s very funny. Honestly, it was sometimes very hard, but I think her humor helped me through some tough days.”
The Danish Margrete: Queen of the North and Queen of Hearts star says she has a strong sense of privacy and was careful to give Roth space.
“We were very close during the shoot. I let him know I was there if he wanted to share something and if he didn’t that was fine, but for all of us it was a very special shoot because we were working with very emotional material,” she says.
Dyrholm notes that it was important for her that their performances were not tied only to their personal connection to the storyline.
“I try not to bring too much private stuff into the room. Even if something resonates personally, you still need to transform it into something universal,” she says.
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Dryholm was initially drawn to the production by the original play and the challenge of bringing it to the big screen.
“Aside from being moved by the work, I was interested in the process of putting grief into words and talking about emotions in a cinematic way. I’m not used to playing a character who actually talks about how they feel.”
Poison is the theatrical feature directorial credit of Luxembourgish actress Nosbusch, whose more than 75 credits include Bad Banks , Sisi and the recent German hit thriller Süsser Rausch .
Nosbusch is also producing under the banner of Deal Productions, her Luxembourg-based joint venture with Alexandra Hoesdorff. U.S. sales company Hyde Park International handles international sales.
Roth, who has a long history of working on first films, kicking off with Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs , says the fact it was a feature directorial debut was one of the aspects that drew him to the project.
“I love to see what new directors have got up their sleeves, what their preferences are, where their ideas come from. There’s a fresh energy that floods a first-time directing experience, and I love being part of that… There’s a rawness to it that can be a bit of a blessing. There’s no sense of the old timer in it,” he says.
“There was also the complicated subject, which became more complicated for me as it went on, but nevertheless was a fascinating story to tell about this particular couple, in this particular time, as they re-valuate their past and their relationship,” he adds.
Roth and Dyrholm spent two weeks rehearsing, learning the lengthy dialogue and talking through the dynamics of their characters.
“I always do my homework,” says the actress. “We talked about the text, about the characters, about their perceptions of what happened. She has her story. He has his. When I get to the point of shooting a scene, I like to then let go, with this feeling of let’s see what happens.”
“You have the text and you have to be open for something to happen to. You don’t know what will happen in the moment. That what it’s about being an actor, we are creating moments. And then these moments hopefully resonate with the audience.”
She acknowledges that the character of Edith is very different from the domineering women she is best known for in films such as Margrete: Queen of the North and Queen of Hearts .
“She tries to be strong in her grief but in the process, pushes away her partner and finds herself in a corner dealing with it on her own,” says Dyrholm. “I find the story very beautiful. It’s about dealing with the life that you have, and what happens to you in life, and then for Edith, it’s about daring to share her inner world.”
Seen most recently seen in Swedish director Magnus von Horn’s Cannes Palme d’Or contender The Girl With The Needle and sexual assault drama The Birthday Girl , Dyrholm has just wrapped Jeanette Nordahl’s Beginnings .
She is now gearing up for the summertime shoot in Iceland of Benedikt Erlingsson’s mini series The Danish Woman and has recently signed up for mini-series Dependency about Danish poet and author Tove Ditlevsen.
Roth’s other upcoming credits include Roel Reiné’s thriller Classified and John Maclean’s Tornado and he was recently announced for the role of Henry Kissenger in Jeff Stanzler’s Kissenger Takes Paris , which is expected to shoot next year.
“I’ve always felt that there are jobs that you do to pay the rent and keep the lights on, and then there are the ones that you do for your own sanity and love,” he says of his decision to sign up for a smaller, independent European movie like Poison .
“I’ve constantly kept that going through it all. Reservoir Dogs was a super low budget with a first-time director. I don’t feel like I’ve operated in the movie star thing in any way. Films like Poison are home for me, the films I do with Michel Franco are home.”
Kissenger Takes Paris will reunite Roth with Stanzler, who directed him in his first U.S.-shot role in the 1991 drama Jumpin’ at The Boneyard.
“I wasn’t very good in it, but it was with Alexis Arquette, which was wonderful, and Danitra Vance,” he says. “We did that up in New York in the Bronx. I came down to L.A., hoping to leave and then Reservoir Dogs came along.”
Roth, who has since worked with Tarantino on Pulp Fiction , The Hateful Eight a nd Once Upon In Hollywood , although his scenes in the latter were cut, says he hopes to reunite with the director on set in the future but has no idea when that might be.
“What happens is you’ve got his number and those of a couple of his people, if the phone blinks, you pick up and you find out what’s going on,” he says. “It’s just that as far as the gang is concerned, you know, his weird characters that he’s affiliated with.”
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