03: Performing Opposite Yourself

Enzo: What was the biggest challenge in playing both Clara and Amelia?

Barbara: The mental gymnastics of constantly knowing whose point of view I was experiencing and which time period I was in! I had to keep switching between Clara and Amelia, while never losing sight of the fact that they're two branches of the same family tree with the same emotional DNA.

Thankfully, Amelia's gorgeous wig helped a lot! The moment I put it on, I felt like I was stepping into a different era.

Photo by Dan Berghofer

By the time we filmed the liminal space scene, all of the technical challenges had fallen away. I wasn't thinking about split screens, visual effects or who would eventually occupy the other side of the frame. I was simply responding to another version of myself. A woman who was somehow both my past and my future.

Enzo: It’s wonderful that we managed to get to that place. Ryan [VFX Supervisor] worked very hard to create a situation where the set didn’t have to pause for extended lengths of time, and a process that could ‘get out of the way’, as it were, to create a lot of freedom for me as a director and for the cast as performers – you in particular. Seems like that worked in the end!

Barbara:  I was lucky enough to rely on Andrea Tan who was cast as my daughter, Eliza. But because of the way we filmed the visual effects sequences, she also became my scene partner whenever we were creating Clara and Amelia together. If I was playing Clara, Andrea would change into Amelia's costume and wig so I could perform opposite "Amelia." Then we'd switch. I'd put on Amelia's wig and costume, Andrea would change into Clara's wardrobe, and suddenly I was playing opposite "Clara."

As actors, we build our performances around relationships. We instinctively ask, Who is this person to me? On Resonance, that answer kept changing while the face opposite me remained the same. One minute Andrea was my daughter Eliza, the next she was Clara and then later again, Amelia. It was a constant mental recalibration.

Photo by Dan Berghofer

Enzo: Was there a scene that affected you more than you expected on the day?

Barbara: Absolutely. One of the things I loved about your script was that, even with all the science fiction, you never lost sight of the deeply human moments. There's a scene where Clara witnesses her mother and father arguing. Her father makes the heartbreaking decision to leave, not because he doesn't love his family, but because he believes it's the only way to protect them.

As a child, Clara can't possibly understand what's happening. But I wasn't playing the scene as a child. I was playing it as a woman in her sixties who understands exactly what's being lost. Watching the dissolution of a marriage and a family from that perspective was devastating.

I remember every time we cut, there wasn't much conversation. I'd look around and see crew members quietly wiping away tears. That's one of those moments that reminds you why we do this. There were no visual effects, no technical wizardry, just actors telling the truth. It was a reminder that no matter how ambitious the filmmaking, audiences will always connect first with emotional truth.

Enzo: I remember that clearly. I was so caught up in watching what you were doing in the scene, and Paul and Lauren’s amazing performances… I remember you delivered a great take, and I felt pretty good about it. I looked up and multiple crew were crying. That certainly took me by surprise. Can you point to one thing that has been most surprising about seeing the finished film?

Barbara: How seamlessly the visual effects and the performance disappear into one another. Reading your script, I knew exactly what was supposed to be happening. The time shifts, the keys turning to sand, Clara's arm disappearing, it was all vividly there on the page. But on set, none of it actually existed.

During the time warps, I'd instinctively stumble or lose my balance, trusting that something invisible was happening around me. At the time, it felt like an enormous leap of faith. You're making emotional and physical choices with nothing tangible to respond to.

Then you see Ryan's visual effects layered into the scene, and suddenly everything clicks into place. The world you imagined in the script becomes real. Those strange little reactions - the stumble, the hesitation, the reaching for something that's vanished - suddenly make complete sense. It's as if the performance and the visual effects were always meant to exist together.

As an actor, that's incredibly satisfying. You realise you're not performing around the visual effects; you're performing with them. They're another scene partner, even if they don't arrive until months later.