Exclusive interview: Writer/director Bess Wohl talks psychological horror thriller ‘Baby Ruby’

Becoming a new parent is both one of the most rewarding and terrifying things a person can do, with writer and director Bess Wohl taking the latter to seriously unsettling extremes in her feature-length directorial debut Baby Ruby.

The actress-turned-playwright leaned on her own experiences as a mother of three to tell the tale of Noémie Merlant’s Jo, an Instagram influencer with a seemingly-picturesque existence that begins to question both her parental abilities, sanity, and reality after being stretched increasingly thin on all fronts, with Kit Harington’s husband Spencer caught in the crossfire.

A completely unique genre-bending original that weaves in elements of the psychological thriller, body horror, family drama, and even absurdist comedy throughout, Wohl’s first movie is the work of a singular filmmaker that’s comfortable asking big questions and tackling timely themes in the guise of a fast-paced and frantic movie.

Ahead of Baby Ruby releasing on digital, on-demand, Blu-ray, and DVD from May 2, We Got This Covered had the chance to speak to Wahl about the project. During our deep dive, we cover everything from the influences and inspirations to the different ways the story can be interpreted by audiences, as well as potential future projects; and of course, the perils of throwing a fake baby at a car, which you can check out below.

Did you intentionally set out to make one of the most unsettling and uncomfortable movies of the year? Because there’s a lurching sense of dread right from the beginning, and it doesn’t go away at all throughout.

Bess Wohl: Well, thank you, I’m taking that as a compliment! I don’t know that I was trying to make such an unsettling and uncomfortable film, although it definitely was about something that I found really scary and unsettling and uncomfortable. So I think that’s sort of what came through onscreen.

I was trying to talk about things that I was afraid to talk about. As an artist, I always feel like if you’re playing in a universe where you feel scared, and you really maybe shouldn’t, that’s always sort of a sign to go forward. So I was sort of interested in scaring myself and and creating something that felt a little dangerous to me. And that was part of what was exciting about it.

Obviously, the film wouldn’t work as a play because a baby is one of the central characters in the story, but apart from that, what was it about this project that convinced you that you were the one who needed to direct it?

Bess Wohl: Um, it’s a great question. I think for me, partly it was that I felt like it was such a personal subject matter, I could really feel it and see it. And I sort of knew what I wanted the camera to do from from the moment I started writing it. And some of it came out of fears and fantasies that I had, in my experience of becoming a mother. And so I just felt that it was deeply connected to who I was as a person.

I couldn’t imagine… it was sort of be like handing your baby to somebody else to raise it! I couldn’t quite give this one away. And so honestly, I felt that I had to learn how to make a film in order to tell this story. Rather than feeling like, “Oh, I want to make a film, let me find a story to tell.” It was really all driven by the desire to put what had been in my mind and my heart onscreen.

The story deals with universal themes a lot of people will relate to and sympathize with, but it takes place in what’s a singular and unique film, so was it always your intent to balance the macro with the micro in terms of the overarching themes existing within a project that’s distinctly yours as a writer and director?

Bess Wohl: Yeah, I really wanted to make something that felt specific. And as you said, also universal. I mean, on the one hand, this is the story of a woman who gives birth and is completely rocked, and sort of shattered and rebuilt by the experience. But at the same time, to me, this is a story about any sort of turning point, or a transformative moment in life where you sort of are broken and have to remake yourself in some way.

Or you have to face your fears in some way that it sort of rips you apart, and puts you back together. And so to me, and it’s been gratifying to see this in the responses. This, hopefully, is something that you can relate to whether you’ve been a parent yourself, whether you’re thinking about possibly being a parent, whether you don’t want to be a parent. All of the different relationships to that experience, or whether just on a human level, just going through something that you’re afraid of, I think is something that almost everyone else planet has experienced.

There are a lot of different genre elements in play that make their presence felt in different ways depending on the scene, was that intentional on your part or did it come naturally as you began working the story into shape during the writing process?

Bess Wohl: It was really as I was working on the story that I started to think, “Oh, this might have some genre elements.” I had really conceived of the film as a drama when I started writing it, and then as I got deeper and deeper into the story, I thought, “No, no, this has horror elements. This has thriller elements. This can really go wild in the way that it comes across.”

That was really exciting to discover, because then I felt like I had an even bigger playing field and more opportunities, more fun to have with the camera, with the performances, with quoting from other movies; the movie is full of little sort of quotes and homages to other films in the genre that I love. And so, really, that came about in story.

And then the trick was on on a small budget without a lot of special effects and stunt people and all of that, to execute some of the jump-scares and some of the stranger moments, but hopefully they really come out of the reality of of life with this baby. So that was the thing that that grounded us through all of the insane things that happen in the film.

Depending on who watches the film when and why, different viewers could end up experiencing the film in different ways; whether it’s a psychological thriller, horror, character-driven drama, were you cognizant at all during the writing and shooting process that Baby Ruby would open itself up to plenty of discussion in the aftermath; or is it presumptive for a filmmaker to assume something like that?

Bess Wohl: That’s a great question. I knew myself, I knew that I personally am drawn to films that sort of straddle different genres, because I feel like life straddles a lot of genres. So to me, to make something that’s authentic, you have to have the scary, the sad, the comedic, I mean, what’s been interesting about this film is some people receive this film a really dark twisted comedy, and it does have a lot of comedic moments.

And they’re intentionally comedic. And I remember when we screened it for the first time, some of the producers were like, “What, why are people laughing at these different moments?”. Because it’s funny! And because horror and comedy exists hand-in-hand to me. I think horror and comedy in movies and things can tip one way or the other really easily. So I was really excited by that.

And I don’t think I could make a film that existed just purely in one tone, or in one genre. The blending is part of what’s exciting to me. How quickly can you make a hairpin turn, and cause the audience to rethink what they might have been watching, or keep people off balance and keep them not quite knowing how they’re supposed to be reacting?

One of the comedic elements is right near the beginning that stands out, when a baby gets thrown directly at a car window. It’s a jump-scare, but when you think about it for a couple of seconds, you realize it’s preposterous.

Bess Wohl: Yeah! And that moment was honestly one of the first moments that I discovered in the script that I just thought, you know, the moments that you kind of hang on to as you’re working through the development process that become… In a way, it’s like the equivalent of the trailer moments in your head already, the moments that are sort of going to define the film.

And definitely, for me, throwing that baby at the car was one of them from the very beginning because it felt so transgressive, and it felt like; Is it funny? Is it creepy? Is it just weird? Where does this live? It’s really a strange thing to do. And it’s funny, because we had gotten a free car from a car company.

And then when they read the script, and found out that a baby was going to be thrown at their car, they changed their minds! And we had to use one of our own cars for that scene, because it was obviously not something that anyone wanted for their own marketing!

But yeah, it felt to me like even though – and this was sort of where the sweet spot was for me – even though it’s a very out-there thing in certain ways, it was coming from a psychological truth for the character, which was ” I’m terrified of this baby, and some part of me wants to reject it and get away from it, and throw it back to where it came from.” And so that mother who throws the baby is acting out both the protagonist’s fear and maybe a little bit her desire, as she first becomes a mother.

It’s like a spin on the story that bad guys can’t use Apple products in movies; unnamed car company won’t let you throw babies at it.

Bess Wohl: That’s right. It’s the same thing!

Jo is left questioning her reality throughout the story, but is that a feeling you wanted the audience to have as well? Because it’s never really overtly signposted with 100 percent certainty what’s genuinely unfolding and what’s being fantasized?

Bess Wohl: Yeah, that was definitely intentional. We wanted to keep it ambiguous in both script and in shooting. There would have been another way to shoot this where every time you go into a dream something different happens with the camera, or there’s a certain kind of music, but we really and very intentionally did not differentiate reality from fantasy, because we wanted people to be kept guessing and just sort of turn the thing on its head over and over.

The whole end in the woods, not to spoil anything, but there’s a big ending sequence that I’ve definitely had a lot of debate with people of “was that real, was that imagined, what happened, which parts of it were real, which parts of it weren’t?” And we ended up in some confusing conversations at times. I remember one with our music supervisor, where she kept referring to a certain part of film as “is that that dream sequence?”

And it was like, “Well, what what are you talking about? What’s the dream sequence? What’s real?” Everyone was receiving it in their own way, which was to me truthful for the character. Again, because she doesn’t quite know. When you have a frightening intrusive thought or fantasy, it feels as real as reality. And I wanted to stay with what she was feeling, which was that she herself was unsure of what was real and what was not.

It’s a genre film in the broadest sense of the word, but a lot of what Jo experiences is as relevant now as ever in regards to the world we live in, so as oxymoronic as it sounds there’s a sort of timeless immediacy to a lot of the events in the film.

Bess Wohl: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, unfortunately a lot of the sort of social issues that the film is talking about, also are really present still, especially in America for mothers, and the film contains – I would say – psychological thriller, dark comedy, another strain is sort of social satire in a way.

Speaking of sort of the lack of maternal health care and support for new mothers in America, and of course, now we’re in a new sort of chapter with the rollback of Roe v. Wade, and abortion protections for women. So it’s definitely a huge ongoing conversation around how mothers are perceived. How in our culture, they’re both sort of idealized, and yet also I think the idealization of motherhood is part of what keeps people from taking care of mothers.

Because it’s like, this is the best thing ever. So why would we need to direct resources towards helping and caring for you? So it’s really sticky. And it’s something that is far, far, far from resolved. And it’s a conversation that I felt was important.

Working with children – especially babies – presents its own set of challenges, never mind for a first-time feature director. Were you prepared for any and all eventualities, or was it more a case of rolling with the punches on set?

Bess Wohl: Well, we were very lucky because we we met these wonderful twins, our casting director found these terrific twins who were about three months old. But because they were twins, they were smaller than three month-old babies. And their parents were lovely, and I was shocked that anyone was willing to let us shoot with their babies in the middle of a pandemic on a small movie with a first-time director, but they were really lovely to let us hire the babies and shoot with them.

And it does force you to be prepared. On a very different level, you can only have the babies for a very small amount of time, it’s like 15 minutes, and if the scene is emotionally elevated in any way, it’s 30 seconds, which is a very quick amount of time to get the baby and and get it out. And you want to obviously protect the baby’s health as the paramount mandate of the entire thing. So it just creates a certain level of rigor on set, which I actually found really useful.

We have to be incredibly focused, we have to work incredibly fast. That’s true in independent filmmaking anyway. But it just sort of heightened all of that times 1000. And then of course, in addition to being prepared and focused, you have to be super nimble because one; there’ll be a scene where you wanted the baby not crying, but the baby’s crying, or a scene where you wanted the baby to cry, but the baby’s sleeping, and you can’t do anything about it.

So, all of a sudden, it’s like, “I guess we’re doing it this way. And let’s figure out how that might fit into the story of the film.” And definitely, there’s big moments in the film where the baby was doing something different than what I expected. But again, I think that created a sort of spontaneity, that kept the film feeling very sort of alive, and to me was something that was ultimately… even though was sometimes difficult in the moment, was benefit.

You’ve said in the past the character of Jo wasn’t initially written as French, but it came to the fore when Noémie got involved in the project, but did that necessitate any major changes on your part, or was it more minor? Because it helps the whole outsider element to the story.

Bess Wohl: Yeah, it really did. To me, it wasn’t what I had imagined when I wrote it, but it made it so much better once Noémie signed on. And obviously, I knew once her name came into the conversation, that she’s an amazing actress, I had seen her work, I had always thought she was brilliant.

So I was really excited for her to be in the film. And I felt that, as you said, it just sort of lifted everything in this really great way. Suddenly, she’s even more of an outsider, she can comment on maternal care and motherhood in America in a way that is sort of organic to the film, because she’s like, “What, what is going on here? I didn’t realize it was like this in this country.”

And also, that question often happens in a horror film of like, “Where’s this character’s friends? And why is no one checking in on them?” was less of a question with her being away from her home country.

And so I found it to open this whole new arena of possibility that also answered a lot of questions that audiences might have had, and in a really seamless way. And also, her character is this influencer/fashionista, and French women are just sort of generally very effortlessly fashionable and beautiful. So she nailed all of that. And she’s an amazing actress. So it was very, very lucky to have her.

The character of Spencer – in different hands – could have potentially been somewhere between an archetype and a villain, but he’s a fully-realized figure despite largely existing on the fringes of Jo’s story, so was there a lot of collaboration between you three on how to create those performances, and that chemistry?

Bess Wohl: Yeah, it’s really amazing. It’s kind of a testament to those two actors. Because I remember the first day I saw them together on set, we shot the scenes in the doctor’s office, the pediatricians office, that was our first day. And from that very first day, I just was like, “Oh, I believe that there are a couple.” I don’t know how they’re doing this, this is the magic of acting, but I buy it.

As you know, if you don’t have that, you’re kind of stuck as a director, and you never quite know until you start. Noémie works extremely physically, she likes to do a lot of movement exercises. She’s a movement coach named that she works with. And she gets into it through these organic embodied exercises. So she actually asked Kit before we started shooting, whether he would like roll around on the floor with her and do these movement exercises with her. And we did it, and I was there too. And it was led over Zoom by her coach from France.

And I think that really helped them immediately be comfortable with each other, because they had rolled around and done these improvs where they were fighting over this pillow that was supposed to be the baby. And it was all nonverbal, but it really kind of loosened them up with each other. So by the time we shot, they were very comfortable with each other, and Kit really protected his character.

He’s such a great actor. He’s such a great collaborator, and he himself had a four month-old baby when we shot. So he was very able to put himself right there in the exhaustion and the sleeplessness, and also really identify very deeply with the way that character might be feeling sort of afraid of his wife, and also empathic towards his wife, and sort of useless but wanting to do something, and all of push/pulls of what he experienced with new fatherhood, he brought with him into the film. And it just made the the performance incredibly truthful and beautiful.

Sound design is one of the most important and notable recurring aspects that enhances the film, was that something you were heavily involved and invested in when it’s not something you get a chance to play around with all that often on the stage?

Bess Wohl: Yes! I loved working on the sound! I’m obsessed with sound in general. One of my earliest plays was a play that takes place mostly in silence, and the play relies very heavily on theater sound design, but you’re right; sound design in a theater is not nearly as impactful most of the time as sound design in a sort of Dolby Surround Sound, or with your headphones on as you’re watching.

You know, it’s just really amazing what you can do with sound, and I loved mixing the sound for this. I worked with someone named Lewis Goldstein in New York, and we just had so much fun with the soundscape. From the beginning, I said, Ruby’s character, the baby character is going to be created through sound.

How she’s crying, when she’s crying, is she crying or not? What does the cry sound like? We’re basically creating a whole other strain of storytelling through the sound, and how we portray her crying, and then also through the sounds that Jo is hearing or not hearing. And so it really it just added so much more once we brought that in. And it was a particular obsession of mine.

You wrote 2068: The Going-Away Party for Extrapolations which was brought to life by some Oscar winners and movie stars, is sci-fi a genre you’d be interested in returning to again as well as taking on a larger project that would allow you to direct a cast like that on a bigger canvas than something like Baby Ruby?

Bess Wohl: I mean, I’m not going to say no to that! Definitely. Yeah, I mean, even more than than them being huge stars; Marion Cotillard, Tobey Maguire, Forest Whitaker, Eiza Gonzalez, they’re all really beautiful actors, Hari Nef is in it, and it’s just wonderful. So the thing that I look is just somebody who’s a really committed beautiful actor, and I’ve been really lucky this year to get to work with a bunch of them. I mean, those are just totally incredible talents. And that’s what’s fun about it.

If there’s such a thing as dream project – as in you could make anything you want without restrictions and you can start tomorrow – what would it be, and why would it be that?

Bess Wohl: Oh, gosh, that is really hard! Because there’s there’s a bunch that I’m sort circling right now, in terms of movies that I’m thinking about and wanting to do. I’m working on thriller kind of film in the spirit of Baby Ruby that I’m really excited about. That’s a bit of a riff on a haunted house film. I’m pretty excited about that one. I’ve got books in the back of my head. I’ve got I’ve got all kinds of things that I’m excited about. Yeah, I don’t know! I feel like I’ve got like too many things in my head to even pick one probably!

Baby Ruby releases on digital, on-demand, Blu-ray, and DVD from tomorrow, May 2.