For her latest role, Natasha Lyonne had to change how she personally processed grief.
The Golden Globe nominee recalled the questions she asked herself while playing Rachel in the upcoming Netflix drama His Three Daughters, a role created for her by writer-director Azazel Jacobs.
“We found these new, untapped depths, like a reservoir,” she explained to CBS News. “For me, the question became, why? Why am I always smoking and shutting it down and trying to self-destruct it away? What is that feeling underneath the feeling that I’m running from? And really being allowed to sit in that grief in a way was a whole new idea.”
Lyonne continued, “Grief is a crazy concept. It’s something that we don’t talk about enough. … Because it’s happening every moment. We’re grieving what happened eight minutes ago, two minutes ago. You’re in a constant state of grief.
In His Three Daughters, which premieres Sept. 6 in select theaters and Sept. 20 on Netflix, Lyonne stars alongside Elizabeth Olsen and Carrie Coon as three estranged sisters who reunite in a New York City apartment to care for their dying father (Jay O. Sanders), forcing them to confront past issues and heal together.
Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon and Natasha Lyonne in His Three Daughters (2023). (Sam Levy/Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection)
During a panel at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the film had its world premiere last September, Jacobs explained the personal inspirations for his screenplay.
“It’s really just come from my own experiences with loved ones—friends and family—passing,” he said. “And just that feeling of being stuck in a place together, dreading something but also having these turning points where you want people to be out of their pain and the different roles we try to find for ourselves during that time.”
