Who wouldn’t want Nina Hoss at their shindig?
When Hoss’ Eileen Lovbog enters the party hosted by Hedda and George Tesman, time stops–literally. Tessa Thompson’s Hedda sees her from the dance floor and her feet lift her body from the floor and she floats towards Eileen with a difficult-to-hide enthusiasm. We feel that way too—Hoss’ presence breaking through the required stuffiness that these gatherings often require. When one flame meets another, sparks certainly can fly, and Hoss delivers one of the most invigorating, intellectually ferocious performances of the year.
I met Hoss at the Sundlun Library Salamander Middleburg at this month’s Middleburg Film Festival where she was awarded the Excellence in Acting Award, and we found a cozy corner next to a window in some high-backed leather chairs. As if I couldn’t help it, I asked Hoss if she knew that she was a gay icon.
“I feel so good about that,” Hoss says, with a huge smile. “I love hearing that.”
DaCosta’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s classic text brings the action from 1890s Norway to 1950s England, so this adaptation already brings the implication of the battle of the sexes. Hoss is the first film adaptation that switches the genders—her Eileen Lovborg changes from Eilert Lövborg—but she didn’t find herself bogged down by the changes. It injects new life and circumstance into a much-studied text. Hoss reveled in it.
“First of all, the combination of Nia’s writing with Ibsen worked so well, because she modernized it with the utmost respect for the original text,” she says. “I’ve had the text in my mind for six years, and because of that, I knew that I could rely on the style since it’s so well-constructed. You just have to make it your own. By making an Eileen out of Elert, to me, it felt so liberating, since it’s never been done–there’s no comparison. There has never been a female Lövborg, so for all of us—Tessa as Hedda and Imogen [Poots] as Thea—we’re queer. What kind of tension does that heighten or how does it make the conflict and drama even deeper? It unlocked something that I had never thought about before. I didn’t feel inhibited by anything since this material has never been done, and we could interpret it however we wanted.”
After Eileen arrives and Hedda’s feet find the ground again, Hoss’ character calls Hedda by her full, former name: Hedda Gabler. If you pay close attention, Eileen says both the first and last name throughout DaCosta’s film, and she is the only one who does so. Some might refer to Hedda by her married surname, but it’s a gentle insistance on Eileen’s part to remind Hedda of her strength and independence. It feels necessary, in Eileen’s mind.
“I’m not sure if she likes doing it, but she can’t stop doing it because she wants to show Hedda that she will never be Hedda Tesman,” she says. “In her heart, Hedda won’t be what they expect from her, so why should she try? When her husband is next to her, it’s a provocation to him, but Eileen says it mainly to remind Hedda of who she is. Trust that—live that. For me, it was more of an empowering thing. ‘I don’t fall into your construction of life that you have or this idea of something without listening to your inner feelings.’ There’s sadness in saying it, there’s that provocation, and there’s truth in it.”
The push and pull between Hedda and Eileen is evident from the party’s beginning until its wild end. We hurt the ones we love the most, because we know we can and we might be forgiven. The chemistry between Hoss and Thompson is palpable and sexy—we cannot help but become a voyeur in their dangerous game. It doesn’t matter how many times these women partner up with someone else, they always feel pulled to the other.
“I think Eileen thinks Hedda is more brilliant than herself,” Hoss says. “When you see Tessa as Hedda, she’s so striking and brilliant in so many ways. If someone is so good at manipulating, they’re very intelligent, and they have a feeling on top of it because it’s not just strategic. Eileen is trying the whole time to make Hedda understand that she could be so much more than who she is right now. Maybe Eileen is the only person who’s ever been capable of saying that to her, too. That’s why they are so deeply bound—they see the truth in each other’s being. Maybe they hurt each other so much that they don’t think they can live that. There’s also another side in Hedda who enjoys the life of having the most famous art on the wall and the great clothes. Eileen might not be able to provide that for her.”
At first, Eileen keeps a distance from Hedda, and she comments to Thea, “Stay out of the path of destruction.” Watching Hedda dismantle someone’s reputation or feelings can be a delightful sport, but you would never want to be the object of her disdain.
“I think I’ve been in the path of destruction,” she says, with a laugh. “My character speaks from experience—I have scars. I’ve watched her do it, and I’ve probably been delighted by her brilliance in doing it. None of these characters are innocent, and all of them have a certain dark side to them. Even Thea does. There’s a transactional part of her relationship with Eileen—whether she knows it from the beginning or not, that’s a different question. All of them try hard to find their own agency. In this triangle of women, they admire each other very much, but they’re also scared of each other. By Nia placing it in the 1950s, it automatically explores the societal pressure put on women back then.”
Eileen is there to court the eye of Professor Greenwood, the man who could change the course of Eileen’s literary career. It just so happens that George Tesman is the only other candidate for the job. As they saddle up close to the bar, Greenwood asks Eileen if she would like a drink. Even though she’s new the party, it’s been mentioned that Eileen struggles with her drinking, and she replies, ‘Very, very tempting, but no.’ For someone as collected, confident, and cunning, it’s a small moment of vulnerability. Does Eileen have trouble hiding this craving? And, maybe more urgently, is she afraid of her own addiction?
“Yes,” she says immediately. “It’s the first time after a month that she’s been secluded in this house with Thea’s husband, Thea, and the kids. Doing things where she’s not really taking herself out of this whole context to be able to become sober and being able to confront it. She’s ready to face it, but she’s full of fear. It’s the first night where she faces that seduction of the alcohol aghain, and I thought it was so beautiful that she shows this vulnerability. Eileen knows that everyone has seen her in that state—she’s embarrassed herself, really. She is up front about it, because she lieks the state she’s in when she’s having a drink. She wants to be strong enough to not do it.
It’s constantly present, that temptation. You can become a different person, and it helps you lose control, which is when you’re a very controlled person, something you really aspire to. It gets her, it really does.”
One of the best scenes in DaCosta’s film comes when Eileen enters a lion’s den of men. By this point, she has succumbed to having a drink or three, and these men, her colleagues, are as intrigued by her confidence as she is eager to prove that she’s one of the guys. The bodice of her dress is sheer, so she is physically exposed but they are at her mercy as Hoss walks the perimeter of the room. Eileen has everything to prove, and Hoss makes it look so easy.
“I wanted her to be really independent of the judgment of these men that she’s talking to,” she says. “That’s why they can’t get to her, and if you can’t to someone, what do you do? They engage with her. She isn’t even aware that she’s so exposed, and she doesn’t give them power of her being defeated. She turns everything that could be to her disadvantage into an advantage, and that shows how brilliant and clever she is. The end of the scene, though, it ends with someone calling her a cunt, and, to me, that’s the whole female experience in one scene. No matter how sovereign you are, at the end of the day, you can never hold the pipe. You’re dealing with a gang. That’s what’s so clever in Nia’s writing, because that’s real.”
I mentioned that it’s easy for men to gang up on an enemy when the battle lines are drawn. It’s something that remains unfortunately true to this day.
“That’s what I always find interesting,” Hoss muses. “I’m sure half of them don’t enjoy engaging that way. They all love being part of a powerful gand, but, at least there, when I looked at my fellow acting colleagues, they would always try to not look whenever the camera was not on them. It was just so touching, becausre I couldn’t care less but I did think about that. We all try to fulfill something that we think other people expect from us, and that’s why it’s so awkward and not authentic. We don’t talk about that. We don’t reveal outselves, because we’re so afraid that something bad might come out of it. We don’t ask questions and then we don’t understand things. I thought about that also for this scene, and that’s why I love it so much.”
As my time in that beautiful library with Hoss came to an end, I couldn’t help but notice how stately everything was. The dark wood, the fire in the corner. Even a film festival can make way for some mischief. Would Hoss attend the party in Hedda if she were invited?
“Oh, I would go,” she says, with no hesitation. “I would risk it.”
Hedda is streaming now on Prime Video.
