Interview: Morfydd Clark on ‘Starve Acre’
Starve Acre feels like something that was not meant to be seen by the human eye. Haunting, horrifying and incredibly harrowing, the film, from director and writer Daniel Kokotajlo, is shot and edited like a horror film from the ’70s, the period in which it is set, with gritty, grainy cinematography courtesy of Adam Scarth, incredibly effective practical effects and minimalistic lighting techniques that will at once both disorient and unsettle audiences who dare give it a watch.
There’s an undercurrent of evil that pulsates underneath the rugged, naturalistic exterior of Starve Acre, one that makes it feel like a piece of cursed media or a banned video nasty despite its lack of gore and jumpscares. However, there’s also an abundance of empathy that permeates throughout the film; empathy for the characters and the tragic ordeal they’re put through, and empathy for the actors, who are tasked with exploring their characters’ heartbreaking journey. It’s what made Morfydd Clark, who stars in the film alongside Matt Smith, want to sign on for the project when Kokotajlo personally reached out to her after he seeing her acclaimed, star-making turn in 2020’s Saint Maud.
“Daniel reached out to me, and I was like, ‘Oh gosh, how exciting,'” she recalls. “I’d heard a lot about his previous film [Apostasy.] I hadn’t seen it and it’s been on my watch list for ages. I watched it and I was just like, This is amazing!’ I also felt there was such empathy for these people. I felt there was a lot of kindness coming through the screen, if that makes sense, and I think that meant that he could handle really distressing things in quite an extreme way really sensitively. I was like, This would be perfect for horror.’ Then I started reading [the script] and it was so different to his last films, and that also really excited me.”
Clark says her Welsh background also played a part in igniting her interest in the project, as both the film and the book it is based on (written by Andrew Michael Hurly) explore English folk traditions, including folkloric figures like the Green Man or Robin Goodfellow, both of who inspired the mythic figure at the heart of the story, the devious and mysterious Jack Grey. “I grew up in Wales speaking Welsh,” she says. “We love our folk stories, so I’ve always liked the idea of looking into that. I also remember thinking there was magic and fairies but I never really appreciated that was me feeling nature. That’s something I really got from the script as well.”
“I feel it’s quite interesting doing something that had this big link to tradition and folklore,” she elaborates. “But something that I find quite interesting about Britain is that we don’t have a lot of tradition around death, really. You are just left to cope with it and that’s not good for us. We need the village when people die.”
Starve Acre also delves into themes and topics that feel incredibly relevant in today’s world, as parents Juliette (Clark) and Richard (Smith) attempt to search for answers in all the wrong places after tragedy strikes, unwittingly allowing dark and sinister forces into their home in the process. “We live in a world with lots of conspiracy theories at the moment,” says Clark. “There’s this idea of, ‘No, there’s someone that’s got to be making sense of this. There’s got to be a concrete reason for why this is happening.’ And I felt that these people were searching for that, and they find a really particular, very weird cult leader to follow.”
Despite the film’s harrowing subject matter, Clark says she was able to enjoy her time on-set thanks to her co-star Smith, whom she initially met in 2022, right before the first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, in which she stars as Galadriel, made its debut. “It was just lovely working with Matt,” she gushes. “I’m very much not for suffering like your character does. I’m a wimp! That’s why I’m an actress! And so I really need to feel safe and happy when I’m not in those characters’ heads, and Matt is just so much fun. He’s very generous and very kind. I met him just before season one of The Rings of Power came out, which I was absolutely terrified about. He was like, ‘You’ll be fine! You’ll be fine! It’s quite fun, actually. You’ll enjoy Comic-Con!’ I feel very lucky to have felt so safe and happy with him, and I definitely know that that made my performance better.”
In addition to the relationship between Juliette and Richard, which is incisively explored throughout the film’s runtime, Starve Acre also depicts the bond between Juliette and her sister Harrie (Erin Richards), who makes it her mission to look after Juliette following her tragic loss. “I loved working with Erin,” says Clark. “She is wonderful. [That dynamic] was something that drew me to [the film] as well because sister relationships are so fascinating. Erin’s character is, in a lot of ways, the beating heart of it. There was something so wonderful about the vibrancy that her character brought; she was so brave. These two people have become lost in the swamp and can’t fight anymore, and she comes in ready to care and ready to be alive. I love that. And she’s also just a wonderful actress, it was great to work with another Welsh actress that’s also actually from my town. She actually grew up a few streets away! So that was great.”
Starve Acre is now playing in theaters and is also available on digital. It will be released in theaters in the UK in September.
Ahmad W.
Aspiring critic and poster designer.