Eliza Scanlen Subverts The Lovelorn Cancer-Stricken Teen Narrative In ‘Babyteeth’

Eliza Scanlen already feels like such a central member of Hollywood’s up-and-comer class, that it seems impossible for her feature film debut to be opening this week. And yet a quirk of industry process has resulted in just that; after winning worldwide plaudits late in 2019 for her breakout turn as Beth in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, Scanlen’s back with the Australian indie Babyteeth, which actually premiered first at the Venice Film Festival last summer. It’s an auspicious one-two punch to begin a silver screen career, and when considered along with her strong showings in the TV miniseries Sharp Objectsand Broadway’s recent mounting of To Kill a Mockingbird, it paints the portrait of a serious artist arriving on the scene fully-formed. Few young actors get the opportunity to start at the top like this, and even fewer prove themselves capable of handling the pressures of that challenge. Scanlen has done it all with poise.

Speaking on the phone from her quarantine at her parents’ home in Sydney, Scanlen’s manner squares with the preternatural maturity suggested by her work. She’d rather talk about her process than herself, and unlike many performers at her age and professional juncture, she’s more invested in the nuts and bolts of acting than everything that comes with it. She speaks at a deliberate legato pace, not in the media-trained way of a child star, but in the thoughtful way of someone wishing to articulate themselves clearly and precisely. All signs point to an enduring thespian with a long future ahead of her, but she’s at that exciting point in her career when she’s still free to choose what that future will look like.

Scanlen got on the phone with Decider to discuss subverting the “lovelorn cancer-stricken teen” narrative in Babyteeth, the odd commonality connecting her major roles, and her upcoming flirtation with Hot Priest Robert Pattinson. Not bad for a first-timer. (Technically.)

DECIDER: So, what’s your life been like in quarantine?

ELIZA SCANLEN: It’s consisted of a lot less. I was doing To Kill a Mockingbird in New York and flew right home when Broadway shut down. I’ve been taking this time to reset, get in touch with old friends I haven’t seen in a while. The past two years, I’ve been working, so I’ve been getting used to rest. It does feel like I’ve gone into a time capsule a bit, because I’ve had so many experiences abroad, and when you’re away from those physical places, it almost feels like it never happened. To come back home to my bedroom and the house I grew up in — it feels nice, but I have to remind myself that I haven’t entered or left a dream.

Just to get things straight, did you shoot Babyteeth before Little Women?

Oh no, I shot Little Women in September of 2018, and that took me into December. Then I came home, got my wisdom teeth out, Christmas came and went, then the next day, we started rehearsals for Babyteeth to begin shooting in January.

This must have been a very intense time in your life.

It was a stressful time, yeah. I found out while shooting Little Women that I’d gotten the role in Babyteeth, and at that point I didn’t know where I was going in the world, so the idea of coming home to Australia felt good and right. But I’d been told by my dentist I had to get my wisdom teeth out ASAP, otherwise in six months, my whole mouth would be ruined. It was essential to do this right before Christmas, because that was the only free time between productions. I went from working, to having a very sore face, to working.

For Babyteeth, did you conduct any research about young cancer patients to prepare for the role? The movie’s unusual in that we don’t see your character in a hospital or at the doctor.

We spoke with a representative of CanTeen, which is an Australian support group for kids with cancer. It’s a great organization, and we reached out to them not so much to know about the intricacies of leukemia and chemotherapy, but more to know about how a young person responds emotionally to a recurrence. We were told that patients in the throes of the teenage years will act out just like any other person their age, if not more. It’s common that many young people end up taking on the role of parent, as their own parents struggle to accept the reality of losing a child and being left behind. They spoke a lot about the trauma that a lot of patients relive with the recurrence of cancer. In Milla’s case, it came first at age ten, and now again at sixteen. This has brought her parents back to the emotional state they were in when Milla was ten, and as a result, she feels a desperate desire to escape life and taste a little adulthood.

Your background is in the theatre, where character work is so central to the process of acting. Did you and Shannon [Murphy, the director of Babyteeth] have a lot of conversations to that effect, really digging into Milla’s psychology?

I wanted most to understand Shannon’s vision for the film, especially the complexities of mood in her work, the way it can go from funny to uncomfortable to devastating in the space of three moments. I wanted to know how she’d find a tone in which all these qualities could be expressed, and how I could fit into it. We also spoke a lot about cancer and the reaction to it as themes permeating the film from chapter to chapter, the common thread connecting these interactions. You learn to let go, to celebrate your life, to find a way to cope. You deal with grief, whether that’s through taking drugs or a different kind of self-medication. All four main character self-medicate, in their own way. These were the deeper conversations we had early on, in rehearsal. Shannon understands that I come at the task of creating a character like a writer, lots of thinking-through. We even made a private Instagram page for Milla, and every day in rehearsal, I’d post a video of me dancing to a different song. That helped me get into Milla’s essence. She uses dance as a form of self-expression, in a way that her playing music can’t always give her. That’s how she taps into her physicality, and that’s how I did, too.

What were you like at age sixteen? Did you share any commonalities with Milla?

Playing this character, I had to incorporate my… weirdness? Everyone’s a bit weird, but in order for Milla to seem truthful, I had to bring some part of myself. I remember vividly in the audition room, I came in thinking I’d figured Milla out. I thought she was intentionally quirky, and I thought that I knew how this film would look. I had the idea of a meet-cute film, the 500 Days of Summer of Australia. That wasn’t Shannon’s vision at all. She took me out of the room and said to me, ‘Just be yourself. Don’t put on a voice. Don’t go too far beyond your own physicality. Show me how you’re you. I can tell you’re weird, and that’s what I want to see.’ She stripped everything away for me. The more I let go of my acting tendencies, the more real Milla became.

Between this one, Little Women, and Sharp Objects, three of the big roles in your relatively brief career have involved various ailments. Have you given much thought to what’s up with all the sickly young women?

I have thought about it, and I’ll say, I hope this isn’t a passion that I will continue to follow. Nobody wants to be typecast as sickly. I’m ready to be healthy! But I’m lucky that each of these characters were incredibly fascinating, and their illnesses were more than plot devices. They’re the heart of the film. Their sickness doesn’t define them. It’s been a weird run, though. This is called Babyteeth, teeth were important in Sharp Objects, I got my teeth out around this same time. Something’s in the air.

I’m curious about Antonio Campos’ new movie The Devil All the Time, in which you’re part of a large ensemble cast. I’ve heard it’s episodic — who’d you share your scenes with, and can you tell us anything about them?

I worked predominantly with Rob Pattinson and Tom Holland. In the film, I play the orphaned sister of Arvin, that’s Tom. My character falls in love with the new preacher in town, who’s played by Rob. I think that’s about all I ought to say, though that’s plenty.

With lots of new offers presumably coming your way after the year you’ve had, what makes a role jump out at you?

That always changes. At the moment, I think I’m looking for something that’s far, far separated from myself. Physically demanding roles are the scariest, and it’s weird — I found Sharp Objects incredibly hard, because not only was I acting, but roller skating on top of that. I look back on that experience and still feel how difficult it was! I had to spend a lot of time roller skating to prepare, which was much more work than I assumed it would be. I want the athlete’s experience, where I dedicate myself physically every day to something. It would be reductive to say that I play a ‘funny’ role, so I’ll say instead that I’d like to play a role that’s more ‘lively,’ or maybe ‘erratic.’

In the course of my research, I delved into the Little Women online fandom, which goes deep. To what extent are you plugged in to all this?

I’m aware that there’s a big following, but I only have one form of social media, and that’s Instagram. I stay off Twitter, and I think that’s where a lot of it is. I get tagged in a lot of things on Instagram, but I never look. I’m terrible at social media. That’s probably a good thing. It’s good for my health. But it’s wonderful to see the fan art! That, I like.

Charles Bramesco (@intothecrevassse) is a film and television critic living in Brooklyn. In addition to Decider, his work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Newsweek, Nylon, Vulture, The A.V. Club, Vox, and plenty of other semi-reputable publications. His favorite film is Boogie Nights.

Where to stream Babyteeth