“The Gorge” director responds to Aubrey Plaza's use of film to process grief: 'How could I not be moved?' (exclusive)

This year's action-horror movie The Gorge received new attention thanks to an earnest, vulnerable moment with Aubrey Plaza on a recent podcast.

The Agatha All Along and Honey Don't! star appeared on Amy Poehler's Good Hang when she brought up the Miles Teller- and Anya Taylor-Joy-led film to help describe how she's feeling after the death of her husband, Jeff Baena.

Scott Derrickson, the director of The Gorge, responds to this moment in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

"I mean, how could I not be moved by that?" he says. "It was very touching. I think she was being really earnest and, of course, it makes you as a filmmaker feel good that your work is out there giving people experiences and helping them define their own feelings."

It's what all movies do inherently, Derrickson acknowledges. "I don't think it was something unique to The Gorge," he adds. "I think that she just happened to talk about it the way I've talked about movies giving clarity to my own experiences and my own feelings many times."

Still, Derrickson says he grew up watching both Plaza and Poehler on Parks and Recreation with his kids, "and still rewatches it at night often."

"I love her. I love Amy Poehler," the filmmaker comments. "It was especially nice to see that from actors that I have real personal fondness for."

The Gorge stars Teller and Taylor-Joy as two trained operatives tasked with operating the guard towers on opposite sides of a vast, mist-covered gorge filled with monsters. In talking about her grief with Poehler on Good Hang, Plaza referenced that premise.

Baena, also a writer-director who often worked with Plaza across various projects, died at the age of 47 in January. His death was ruled a suicide, according to medical examiner records reviewed at the time by EW.

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"I swear when I watched it I was like, 'That feels like what my grief is like,' or what grief could be like," the actress said of The Gorge. "At all times, there's a giant ocean of awfulness that's right there, and I can see it. Sometimes I just want to dive into it and be in it, and sometimes I look at it. Sometimes I try to get away from it. It's always there, and the monster people are trying to get me — like Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy."

The Gorge is available to watch on Apple TV+ and digital retailers.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly