Films about betrayal can often have moments when a female character is still pushed to the side. What is great about Double Life, directed by Martin Wood, is that it flips the idea of two women being ousted by the same man and makes their story a journey for them both. Sharon (Pascale Hutton) is a grieving widow who learns that her husband cheated on her with Jo (Javicia Leslie). More than that, their picture perfect life is twisted and turned and Sharon and Jo have to work together to find answers.
In talking with Pascale Hutton about her role, I asked her about bringing together the dynamic of wife and mistress with Leslie. “I loved that dynamic,” she said. “It’s very, it’s very rare, honestly. I don’t get scripts like that. I haven’t seen a lot of scripts like that where it’s two women who honestly should hate each other and despise one another. And certainly there’s that dynamic for sure between the two of them. But that they end up kind of getting past that first begrudgingly and then by choice and then they really appreciate one another, that was really exciting to me. I have never been in a movie like that. I’d never read a script like that. So that was wonderful and really exciting to share the screen with another really strong dynamic woman.”
You can see our full conversation here:
For director Martin Wood, part of the journey for him was the tension between Sharon and Jo. Sharon doesn’t know that Jo was with her husband and, in Jo’s defense, she didn’t know he was married until it was too late. But for Wood, it was about keeping that tension going throughout the film.
“You realize that the audience is so far ahead of the characters,” she said about the struggles of bringing a thriller to life. “And often, when we put movies together, when we put television shows together, you try to avoid that because you keep wanting, I want this element of surprise to be there for both the audience and the characters. And in this case, you’ve got a secret that in the first five minutes of this thing, that secret is there. And so the audience in this case, I’m not gonna stop them from knowing that. What I am gonna do is keep them on the edge of the seats wondering when it’s gonna happen. It’s not who’s the killer. It’s when is this bomb gonna drop and what’s gonna happen when it does?”
You can see our full interview here:
Double Life is an easy and fun watch and well worth it!
(featured image: Paramount Movies)
