For this pivotal scene in The Madison, director and cinematographer Christina Alexandra Voros was required to submerge Michelle Pfeiffer and Rebecca Spence within the frigid waters of a Montana creek in October: “I can still recall the feeling in the pit of my stomach, waking up that morning going, ‘I don’t know how I asked this of them,’ ” she recollects. Earlier than anyone else was on set, Voros waded into the river “with my jeans rolled up, counting how many seconds it was going to take for my legs to get numb so I could understand what I was about to ask of these two actresses,” she says. For Pfeiffer, they had been taking pictures two scenes’ value of footage in sooner or later. To reduce time spent within the water, every shot was fastidiously deliberate. The digital camera operators labored in an “almost military-style formation, moving from point A to point B, so we could make it as efficient as possible,” explains Voros.
Pfeiffer’s character, Stacy Clyburn, is mourning the demise of her husband and his brother and on this scene is comforted by her greatest pal, Liliana (Spence). Capturing the emotionality of the second was paramount, and an particularly unbelievable feat, contemplating Pfeiffer and her scene accomplice had by no means met earlier than taking pictures. “They just had this wonderful warmth and this deep sense of history in a friendship that was absolutely magical to watch,” says Voros. “Michelle’s character, the last thing she is thinking about is the temperature of the water.”
This story first appeared in a June stand-alone problem of The Hollywood Reporter journal. To obtain the journal, click here to subscribe.
