In the Envelope: The Actor’s Podcast features in-depth conversations with today’s most noteworthy actors and creators. Join host and senior editor Vinnie Mancuso for this guide to living the creative life from those who are doing it every day.
As far-left revolutionary Perfidia Beverly Hills, Teyana Taylor runs away (figuratively and literally) with the first act of Paul Thomas Anderson’s incendiary “One Battle After Another.” Her performance is so electric that when Perfidia leaves the film altogether—and the story jumps ahead 16 years to pick up the pieces with her daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti), and former lover, Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio)—Taylor’s presence still haunts the narrative like a ghost. That’s why it hits such an emotional chord when Anderson brings things back around with a third-act letter, delivered only in voiceover, from Perfidia to Willa.
“We filmed another scene that would have potentially been shown at the end, which we wound up not using because we wanted to leave it open-ended,” Taylor reveals on the latest episode of In the Envelope: The Actor’s Podcast. “We found a room. It was just me, [Anderson], and our sound guy. We sat there, and we did that letter in one take.”
Taylor details the emotional process, which came amid the final days of shooting and the film’s first AD Adam Somner’s fight with cancer. “We were losing Adam, and that was a lot,” she says. “We cried, all three of us. Our guy holding the boom mic in tears, [Anderson] in tears, me in tears. I’m actually happy it wasn’t on camera because the ugly crying I was doing… So what you hear is real tears and real emotions.”
The actor, who has already scored Golden Globe and Critics Choice nods for the role, also felt a personal connection to the material. “As a parent, I read that note and [imagined] I had to go 16 years without my child—16 years wondering if she’s happy, 16 years wondering if she got love, 16 years wondering if she’s gonna try and change the world like we tried,” she says. “Then seeing Paul crying made me even more emotional, understanding that we’ve been pushing through this movie and we’re losing someone so special. I think that was the humanity of it all. I do wish we would have captured that moment, but all we got is that voiceover.”
On this episode, Taylor dives even deeper into the “One Battle After Another” shoot, reveals the most surreal person she’s talked to during the awards campaign, shares the philosophies that have kept her creative for decades, and much more.
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