Rebecca Hitch
“It was awesome,” says Laura Gordon, describing the experience of working on the female- dominated set of the upcoming Australian lm Undertow. Written and directed by Miranda Nation, the lm boasts an all-female camera crew led by acclaimed cinematographer Bonnie Elliott. “Having an all-female camera department was beautiful. We had some intimate scenes to shoot and it felt like they had my back.”
Those “intimate scenes” involved Gordon, 37, baring her body and soul as Claire, a married woman who has a stillborn baby and becomes obsessed with the woman she thinks is having an a air with her husband. In the lm’s most vulnerable moment, Gordon stares at her naked body in the bathroom mirror, inspecting the stretch marks from the pregnancy loss. “She [Claire] is looking at her body like it betrayed her; as though it was this barren enemy. Emotionally that was really intense [to film].”
Intense is the exact word we would use to describe Gordon’s performance. It’s also thing for her slew of new projects: the political drama Secret City and the thriller series Reckoning. Does she mean to seek out fervent characters? “It’s interesting because the roles are all different, but the characters all have this one moment of trauma that shapes them,” she says.
The actress, who grew up in Canberra and dreamt of being the next Gena Rowlands, is passionate about telling women’s stories. “Feminism means equality – and ensuring the female voice is heard just as much as the male voice,” Gordon explains. Say it again louder for the people in the back.
This article originally appeared in the April Issue of marie claire.
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