Jane Levy on filming her abortion scene in A Little Prayer

In Angus MacLachlan’s new film A Little Prayer, Jane Levy’s character makes the difficult decision to have an abortion, which shocks her small-town community and the in-laws she lives with. But shooting the scene carried a lot of additional emotional baggage beyond the script.

Levy said at IndieWire Studios in Sundance, presented by Dropbox, that right before they started shooting the scene in “A Little Prayer,” in which her character visits a doctor to get pills, a production assistant announced to the room that the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. , which overturned the landmark abortion rights decision Roe v. Wade, had just gone into effect.

“Everyone on set was incredibly moved and angry and upset and shocked,” MacLachlan said.

“I’m not sure I can fully explain my feelings, but it was like there was deep sorrow and anger,” Levy added. “Even after that day, I felt very grateful to be an artist and find the catharsis and do something with these feelings to make this film.”

“A Little Prayer,” the latest film from “Junebug” writer MacLachlan, follows the relationship between a wife (Levy) and her father-in-law (David Strathairn) in a small North Carolina town when the father-in-law discovers that his son’s affair there is The film tackles everything from PTSD to alcoholism to the quiet family secrets that complicate our lives in unexpected ways. But Levy hopes the film’s themes of abortion speak universally.

“The presentation of abortion in our story is that people have them. They are in the south, in California. Conservatives have them, liberals have them. Those with children have it, and those who want children have it,” Levy said. “I think art is meant to expand our minds, and in this case I think it makes a lot of sense, even if it’s very sad.”

Levy was joined at Sundance’s IndieWire Studios by director-writer MacLachlan and stars Celia Weston, Anna Camp and Will Pullen.

“A Little Prayer” had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Sony Pictures Classics bought it out of the festival for theatrical release.

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