Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar, filling in for Alison Stewart. You've probably heard the phrase it takes a village to raise a child. What if village leadership was in charge of saying who could and could not have a child? That's the premise of the new sci-fi thriller. It's called The Assessment. It stars Elizabeth Olsen as Mia and Himesh Patel as Aaryan, a couple looking to become parents in a future ravaged by natural disasters which has made parts of the world uninhabitable. Fortunately for them, everyone in their society gets to live a calm life where medical treatment allows them to significantly slow the aging process, but the government maintains a very strict control of resources. This means couples who want a child must undergo a rigorous, and I'm talking rigorous, seven-day evaluation to determine who's fit to be a parent and to prevent overpopulation. The assessor stays with the couple the entire time. The assessor scrutinizes all aspects of the couple's lives. Living conditions, work, intimacy, their relationship with their own parents. It's everything. The Assessment is now playing in theaters. Actor Elizabeth Olsen, we are lucky to have her just across the table right now. She joins us to discuss. Elizabeth, welcome back to All Of It.

Elizabeth Olsen: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. I saw this movie last night. I was telling you before this interview started, I was riveted. I'm so excited to talk to you about it. I'm thinking for you, when you first joined this project, when you read that script, what felt new and interesting about the premise of The Assessment?

Elizabeth Olsen: I think it was really surprising. I really didn't have an expectation of where it was going to go. I didn't know how absurd the situations were going to be. There is something that I really found inspiring as an actor because we're in this future time, there are rules that these people live by that are different than our own. I think that always allows more play as an actor. You don't feel like you have to focus on things being hyperrealistic, and so this tone that we were looking for, which I think covers humor, thriller, absurdity, it's very uncomfortable. I think all of that was-- It was an exciting opportunity tonally. Then also, I think with things like sci-fis, you get to have a different kind of reflection on existence.

Kousha Navidar: Right. That's the point of sci-fi, kind of.

Elizabeth Olsen: Yes, it really is.

Kousha Navidar: It's that reflection. Yes.

Elizabeth Olsen: It's not like when you're watching something and you're like, "Well, that's not what our president sounds or looks like. That's not really the president." It just is this representation of another time. We can put all of our own experiences and thoughts and feelings that we think about, but that are not directly related to the rules of this world. I think it's a nicer escape for an audience. I don't think we draw any specific thesis or conclusions, but we more open up these beginnings of conversations for people to have who are watching.

Kousha Navidar: As an actor, did you-- 'Cause I hear you talk about, oh, there's this huge opportunity for play, which I'm sure is exciting for any new project. Were there any challenges that you were expecting? Like, "Oh, with this character, this is something that excites me in like a I'm going to have to work on this pretty hard kind of way?"

Elizabeth Olsen: There's always something. In a really silly way, it was, first off, swimming in open water, which I'm scared of. After I got over that, I think because of this being over seven days and there's the assessor, played so brilliantly by Alicia Vikander. At first, we're adversaries in some ways, and then alliances start to shift, and then there's this transference that happens where you believe in the game that you're playing too much.

I think always tracking that and making sure that there is something new for the arc of the characters, so that it doesn't just feel repetitive like day two, day three, but that there is still something that was forward moving from a character arc, which is hard when you're in one location sometimes. It was really a collaborative effort. Fleur Fortune, our French filmmaker, whose this is her first feature, she's a really brilliant music video director and is a very visual filmmaker. I think we all just had such a collaborative time trying to tell this story visually and through the emotional life of the characters.

Kousha Navidar: I hadn't thought about the fact that it does all take place in the house over those seven days and how, as an actor, finding the new must be-- You have to rely even much more on your partners in the scene and on your own telling your own emotional journey in the subtext.

Elizabeth Olsen: We didn't want anyone to get too comfortable with the tone. It shifts depending on the stakes shifting. It was a lot of fun, and I do think it's a great film to see in theaters because of the visual elements of the film. It's also one of those films that I think crawls beneath your skin, and it's amazing to do that, I think, in a theater, locked in.

Kousha Navidar: Totally. Totally. The film explores a society where having children is a privilege, not a right. I want to bake that in a little bit for the audience here. How does the society these characters live in dictate the decisions they make about their partners or lifestyles in order to become parents? Can you give us that context a little bit?

Elizabeth Olsen: Sure. In this world, there's so few resources, and so these very few people get to this stage, and so they've already gone through a lot of other obstacles before this film even begins. These people are both scientists who contribute heavily to society. They do believe that because of their contribution, that they would make for great parents. It really begs the question, does that even matter? If you're going to contribute brilliantly to society, does that actually mean that you are the person who deserves to have a child?

Who does deserve to have a child? Why do people want children? It opens up all those kinds of conversations. Ultimately, what I get from it is that everyone deserves it who wants it. There's really no right or wrong reason. It doesn't have to be altruism, and it doesn't have to be a burning, selfish desire either. It doesn't have to be either of those things. It is also a conversation about parenting in that way.

Kousha Navidar: I love so much that you brought that up because it was a question I had during the movie. I don't want to give anything away here, but your character is such an interesting character study. There's all different reasons as to why want to become a mother. Your character, Mia, can you tell us a little bit about her? Why is becoming a mother important to her?

Elizabeth Olsen: I think for her, we learn quickly that she feels abandoned by her mother who left for this. We're living in this new world, and then there's a bubble that we've had to create in order for us all as society to survive, and so there's this--

Kousha Navidar: It's a literal bubble, too.

Elizabeth Olsen: A literal bubble. Then there's this old world that we don't see that we don't really know about, where her mother, based on her own opinions of politics against the state, you learn that she felt abandoned as a child by her mother. For her, I think it's really about this wanting to correct. Sometimes, we want to correct I think what maybe we feel like came before us, didn't do right. I think there's that burning drive for her.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. Another really interesting element of Mia's character that I found, at least, you touched on this. She's a scientist, does great contributions to the society she lives in, but also runs up against this real friction point and wanting to have a child and being put through this rigorous process to do so. What feelings does she have about the government's rules and the society that she lives in?

Elizabeth Olsen: I think that's what's interesting about the relationship she has with her own frustrations of being governed by a state and her also being more of this feral woman in this world. It's through this experience that I do believe she realizes that she's actually more like her mother than she ever was willing to admit and that it shouldn't just be about this obsessive control of wanting to live longer. What's the point of that if it's not about passing on something to another generation? Why are we all choosing to take up more space than we naturally are supposed to?

I think she has a big struggle within the film. Ultimately, there's a decision that is made within the film that I think surprises people.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. I want to talk about the assessor as well. We got to touch on that. Part of the requirement for becoming a parent is that couples have to first undergo and pass this initial test to prove their suitability. After that, they have to undergo the seven-day live-in evaluation by the test facilitator, who's also known as the assessor. It's awkward. Watch the movie, you'll see it's awkward. I want to listen to a clip. This is Mia and Aaryan having a conversation with their assessor, Virginia, on the first day. Here it is.

Virginia: You are reminded everything that takes place over the next seven days is highly confidential.

Mia: What are we being assessed on exactly? It's just a little opaque.

Virginia: Opaque?

Mia: Not opaque. I just mean not clear.

Virginia: That is what opaque means.

Aaryan: What Mia is trying to say--

Mia: We couldn't find any specific criteria. That's what I'm trying to say.

Virginia: The less you know in advance, the better. I want to get to know the real you.

Aaryan: Is that a good idea?

Virginia: Yes.

Aaryan: I was joking.

[laughter]

Kousha Navidar: I can feel the awkwardness just through the screen when I was watching and the tension. That was a clip from The Assessment. We're joined right now in studio by Elizabeth Olsen, who plays Mia in the movie. The movie is out. You can see it now in theaters. Listening to that clip, what stands out for you? What do you think that reflects about the story, or how are you trying to play that as an actor?

Elizabeth Olsen: Aaryan and Mia are coming from different places, I think, entering. They've done all of this work knowing that they're going to have to present themselves as a united front. They've done all their homework. They're straight-A students, and yet at the same time, their world is being invaded by a woman who is rude and cold, but yet they need her to like them, and they need to impress her. That is how they begin. That is our day one of The Assessment. It just goes on a rollercoaster after that.

Kousha Navidar: A piece that sticks out to me listening to that and having watched it is also this element of what must be going through Mia's mind in the sense of there's the natural fears of parenting, like am I good enough, prepared enough, whatever, to be a parent? Then there's also this overlay of who is this person in my house getting to determine if I am good enough or whatever? As an actor, as an artist, going to approach this, two very heavy feelings to feel at the same time. How did you think about that when you were playing this?

Elizabeth Olsen: I think with Mia, the thing that Fleur Fortune, our director, really wanted to capture with her is that she's more connected to nature than other people in this world. That is also her job. Her job is more or less a biologist and trying to conserve plants and use them for as much food as we can milk out of them, basically, in a world where there's no more forests left. How do you bring that into a woman who is also then being severely assessed by someone who works for the state, and there's a part of her that rather be this feral animal, but she's being forced to have these polite restrictions, and that's very challenging for her.

Kousha Navidar: It was the holding it in of it all and trying to put on a front.

Elizabeth Olsen: Yes. Those start to fizzle as her patience is more challenged as the film goes on because the assessor's a very manipulative person.

[laughter]

Kousha Navidar: Alicia Vikander plays Virginia, who's the assessor in the film. It was another fantastic performance there as well, especially your exchanges, so varied and deep. How did a particular choice that she made help you in moments where your character was supposed to feel unnerved or like she had to try to hold it all in?

Elizabeth Olsen: I think with Alicia, I think the things that were most surprising is us trying to find where these women find that they are more alike than they realized. That was something that she had brought up. It is on the page, but it's also not always on the page. At what point do they start to see themselves in one another and feel like they are both-- Victims is the word I wouldn't like to use, but it's the idea of them they are just victims to this world that they cannot control and that they're being controlled by.

They both have similar desires, and they sense that in one another without ever having to communicate it. I think that was a really interesting part to create more depth between our characters instead of them just being adversaries.

Kousha Navidar: Yes, victims, pawns, maybe--

Elizabeth Olsen: Yes, pawns.

Kousha Navidar: Yeah. It's interesting because a lot of the places where that relationship shows up, of the similarity, it starts as part of The Assessment. Virginia acting like a child, playing with things she shouldn't be and throwing tantrums. Over time, that evolves. I'm not going to say how, but seeing your exchanges reminded me of exercises you do in acting school-

Elizabeth Olsen: Yes.

[laughter]

Kousha Navidar: -where you learn about improv and inhabiting different ages. You're playing someone who's not an actor, essentially doing improv on screen. How did you approach that?

Elizabeth Olsen: That's so funny you said that 'cause someone had asked, was it weird interacting with Alicia pretending to be a child? I said, strangely, no because in acting school, you're pretending to be a child and an 85-year-old at the age of 19. There is something that was that already allowed for an imaginative play because of just the situation that we were put in. That's something that's so fun to me is when you actually get to play in this imaginative space. I really loved getting caught up and thinking, well, maybe she is my child.

Kousha Navidar: Is that part of what you mentioned before about some of it being on the page and some of it not being on the page? Were there discoveries that you made while you two were working together?

Elizabeth Olsen: Yes, always. There are also some funny things that we got to improvise that were maybe written as almost montage moments. There's a moment that I think a lot of parents can relate to when there's this big, almost Ikea-like dome that they have to build together before sunrise. That was an entirely improvised sequence that Himesh and I just got to figure out. This couple who respects each other immensely, at what point does passive aggressiveness nights [chuckles] turn just outward aggression within those frustrations of those exhausted nights?

There are moments like that, and then there are moments that were more about trying to find these almost secrets that we feel like could have just made the relationships a little bit deeper.

Kousha Navidar: Seeing the whole process reminded me of a very twisted and messed-up version of an adoption interview. Not to say that this is what adoption interviews are like, but people come into your home and they evaluate you, right?

Elizabeth Olsen: Yes.

Kousha Navidar: Did that come into play at all in the conversations? Did you talk to families that had gone through a similar thing?

Elizabeth Olsen: I hadn't, but I have done in the past, but not for this film. It really is this idea of you are selling yourself as someone who should be allowed to have this thing, this child. You are also saying, "I am the best person for this." That's a hard thing to do. It's also a hard thing to do when you know you have limited resources and you're also saying, "I deserve the resources that others don't." I think that kind of reflects how complicated it can be for people who have any kind of obstacles or challenges going through having a child in this world, whether it's adoption or whether it's through assisted help, through IVF or what have you.

Kousha Navidar: To your point, before it brings up such an important perspective, I think the film showcases questions of who deserves, who doesn't. Can you answer that? As I was watching it, part of this film as well is worth mentioning is that it's set in a future where people don't age. I was watching it, I was asking myself how much of my own freedom I'd be willing to give up to stop aging. I think I land somewhere between I won't give up anything, and maybe, okay, I'll give up cheese. I think that's somewhere where I land. Were there any questions this movie brought up that you found yourself asking for your own life?

Elizabeth Olsen: I really believe that we are grains of sand and the history of this planet as humans. I believe we are not supposed to take up more space than what our time is naturally allowed. I think a lot about the transhumanist movement, and it's something that I don't think is natural. This is my personal opinion. It has nothing to do with the film, but there's a narcissism, really, of wanting to say, "Well, I want to live till I'm 150 years old because I can then do so many more things.

It's really, we're here because we then pass down something to the next people who inhabit the earth. What we pass down is what the whole purpose, I think, of this whole experience is of our existence. It isn't about us.

Kousha Navidar: It's about the narrative that we help create.

Elizabeth Olsen: Yes, it's about the narrative we help create. It's about the stories we pass on, and it's about the world we leave behind. I thought about that a lot while making this film because these people are taking up so much space, so much so that the government has to regulate population control with this assessment.

Kousha Navidar: I'm looking at the clock. This is a heavy question that probably you would need a PhD in philosophy even begin to talk about this, but to thinking about that and doing this movie, what do you think it says? The film says that we need as people to feel human. I think that's an important question that comes from there.

Elizabeth Olsen: Yes. That is a great question. The interesting thing is I don't necessarily think that it's having children. I don't think that's the answer. I think it has something to do with primal functioning rights that I think-- I think the thing that I think about a lot is the things that are privileges that we assume are our natural freedoms. If you wake up and you're born in a different place, those privileges are privileges. They're not natural freedoms. It made me think a lot about that. I guess that's what it feels like to be human is to be able to have your own agency and will and be able to make the choices that you want to make in order to live the life that you have the freedom to.

Kousha Navidar: Which is so interesting because this movie talks a lot about the goal being children. The premise is that it's revoking the freedom. It's very interesting.

Elizabeth Olsen: It really is about revoking the freedom. That's what I see it as, and that kind of control.

Kousha Navidar: This has been such a fascinating conversation for a movie that I personally very much enjoyed. We've been talking about The Assessment, it's now playing in theaters. We've been lucky to be joined by Elizabeth Olsen, who plays Mia. You can go out and see it now in theaters. Elizabeth, thanks for making this and thanks for hanging out with us. Really appreciate it.

Elizabeth Olsen: Thank you so much for having me.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely.