This is not the most flattering thumbnail.
However this was a great experience and the whole series turned out really well. Directed by Melanee Murray Hunt for Sagesse, the Invisible Bruise series explored coercive control. The many ways it can show up and the unexpected ways it can impact people.
In this short video, I play a woman who seems to be in control of everything in her life. Except she isn’t.
We shot the whole series on Zoom, if you can believe it (and I know you can) because we were in the middle of one of the periods of pandemic lockdown. But life, and creativity, and storytelling, must go on. By crafting the stories so that it was natural that they appear as online conversations, our writer/director Melanee found a really elegant solution to what might otherwise be a crippling problem. Actors want to be in the same room! We want to act WITH each other! And also, how do you show coercive control when there is this intermediary between you. Can you still be controlled when you’re not in the same physical space? Of course you can. We let ourselves be controlled in myriad ways, and coercive control relies on the emotional experience of the person receiving.
Anyway, I was pleased to be shooting in my own home, in my own closet. Sort of symbolizes the majority of the experience of the pandemic.