THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY

Margaret Qualley shot to fame with Netflix’s Maid and has been racking up an impressive body of work with an enviable list of auteurs. But despite her star rising, she continues to choose complex, challenging material over cookie-cutter roles. Total Film catches up with her ahead of the release of Claire Denis’ STARS AT NOON, a sweat-drenched, politically charged thriller that’s anything but conventional.

- ANN LEE

Honestly, like, who would have thought?’ Fast-rising star Margaret Qualley is laughing about those crazy coincidences that life can sometimes surprise you with. Filming Claire Denis’ sultry romance Stars at Noon, she ended up back in Panama, a land she first got to know when she was 14 after her father relocated to the Central American country. She revisited all her regular haunts. ‘We ended up shooting in a lot of them, which was really bizarre and felt meant-to-be.’

It’s not destiny but pure chance that brings Qualley’s Trish - a freelance journalist stranded in Nicaragua during the pandemic and selling sex to get by - together with mysterious businessman Daniel (Conversations with Friends’ Joe Alwyn). The couple embark on a heady, intense love affair after he solicits her services one night, with political intrigue casting a heavy pall over their blossoming relationship.

Qualley has been steadily building a filmography defined by auteur-led choices, so it’s no surprise she jumped at the chance to work with Denis, the director of Beau Travail, High Life and Both Sides of the Blade. ‘I’m a huge fan of hers,’ she tells TF over Zoom, describing the opportunity as an ‘honour’. The atmospheric drama is crafted in the French auteur’s singular vision as Denis touches on recurring themes that have haunted her work: sexuality, alienation and colonialism, all brought to the forefront with an evocative sensuality and a dreamy languor.