Alex Sarrigeorgiou first had the idea for her film “In Transit” when she was working as an artist model back in 2019. Now, the film is coming to Out on Film fourth annual Spring Mini Fest, which runs from March 17-19.
“In Transit” stars Sarrigeorgiou as Lucy, a young bartender who lives in a small town in Maine. While dealing with the aftermath of the death of her father, Lucy meets Ilse (Jennifer Ehle), a painter who has just recently moved to town looking for inspiration. When Ilse invites Lucy to come pose for her, a surprise attraction changes both women’s lives.
“In Transit” plays on March 18 at the Landmark Midtown Arts Cinema. Ahead of the screening, Rough Draft Atlanta spoke with Sarrigeorgiou about crafting “In Transit,” separating her writer-self from her actor-self, and the best and worst parts about posing for an artist. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I know you started writing “In Transit” back in 2019 or 2020, which feels like forever ago at this point. I’d love to hear from you about what it’s like to spend that long with a piece of work. How much did this change or evolve over the course of writing it?
Alex Sarrigeorgiou: I started a first draft – I’m pretty sure it was 2019, because it was pre-pandemic. It was when I was working as an art model. I kind of started to have some ideas around wanting to write something about that, and I think I probably wrote a first draft fairly quickly, and then over the next year or two would keep dipping back into that draft.
Really, when it started to take definitive shape was when our lead producer, C.C. Kellogg, came on board. That would have been in 2022 at some point. She read a draft of the script and was excited to work together to make it happen, which is amazing and rare and exciting. She was splitting her time between Brooklyn and Maine. So she sort of pitched Maine as a location for this. I’d initially written it as maybe upstate New York – nondescript, Northeast small town. She was like, what about Maine? I did a couple of trips to Maine where I would stay with her and do a little research, and hang out at the local bar, and all that stuff. I sort of fell in love with Maine as a place, and I think that’s when it became a lot more concrete and rooted in a particular community in that way.
You know, it changes a million times over. Then Jaclyn [Bethany], the director, came on board, and we did some notes with her. Then the cast comes into play. I knew I wanted to play Lucy, but who is everybody else going to be, and how does that inform who these characters are? They say that thing, where you write a movie three times – when you write it, when you shoot it, and when you edit it. Truly it’s like, 40 times [laughs]. I feel like it changes over and over and over.
When did Jaclyn come on board? How did you come across her and know she was the right person to direct?
Sarrigeorgiou: C.C., our producer, had worked with her before. She and I started thinking about who would be a good director for this, and she right away recommended Jaclyn. I think [she] had shared the script with Jacyln, just as a friend to get her thoughts on it all. So Jaclyn kind of knew about the project, and we all met and had a great meeting. It felt like we had similar visions for what the film could be.
I feel like it must be an interesting experience to have someone direct you with words that you wrote. What was that relationship like?
Sarrigeorgiou: Yeah, it’s kind of an unusual situation. People do do it, but it’s kind of a rare combination of things. For me, it had to be like – I’m going to revise the script with her to get to a shooting script that we both feel great about, and then I’m gonna just be an actor on set and forget these are my words that I wrote [laughs]. I think I did that to the best of my ability, but there were definitely moments where it’s like, a line isn’t working on the day, and you’re like, oh but I loved that line, I don’t want to lose it! So I had little moments where it would sneak through. But for the most part, I tried to just trust that it was now Jaclyn’s job to direct this, and just be there as an actor.
Something you’ve been saying in interviews that has stuck with me is about your experience posing as a model, and how when someone is studying you, they’re looking at you really intently, in some ways. But they’re also not really looking at you at all, and they’re also trying to bring something out of you that maybe isn’t there on the surface. And you just talked about going to Maine and studying people, so I wonder if that’s something you can kind of apply to your own artistic experience, whether that’s elsewhere or in writing this film?
Sarrigeorgiou: That’s a really interesting question. Hmm, what do we think about that? Because as a model, it is just such a particular, bizarre connection to form with someone. It’s like an – I feel like I’ve been saying this a lot – intimacy, but also not intimate at all. It’s an interesting thing. I mean, I always am observing people as a writer and as an actor. [Laughs] The past few months I’ve started keeping a notebook where I just creep on people and make a note [that says], “guy at the coffee shop,” and do a little doodle about how he holds himself and what his vibe is. I just find it interesting! People are so interesting in how they move in their bodies, and how they make their presence known for the world, how they present themselves to the world. So I feel like, in that way, I’m always paying attention to people around me in a way that’s probably similar to how an artist looks at someone. It’s like you’re looking for this one particular element of a person that applies to what you’re doing.
Well, there’s sort of an observational bent – I think Ilse says something about it when she first meets Lucy – in Lucy being a bartender. You might not think about that as observational, but you’re talking to people, noticing their different idiosyncrasies.
Sarrigeorgiou: Totally. I feel like there are certain jobs like that. Anything in the service industry – bartenders, for sure, but even, like a hairdresser, has that kind of job. You’re paying close attention to someone, and spending this intimate amount of time with them, but it’s framed in this particular way.
I know you came to writing through poetry. I’m curious, how do you think that’s shaped your style when it comes to screenwriting?
Sarrigeorgiou: For a long time, the only kind of writing I did was poetry, and I still write poetry, and I read a lot of poetry. With poetry, it’s not like, today I’m gonna sit down and I’m gonna write a poem about my grandmother. That’s not really how it works, for me at least. I’ll have an image in my head, or even words that stand out to me. Sometimes I’ll just collect interesting words, or even sit at a bar and pick up bits of conversation and then try to form a poem around them. That’s when something that’s clearly been on my mind or lurking in my subconscious shapes into a thing. And then when I’m done, I’m like, oh! That’s what that was about.
With scripts, it’s sort of similar. I don’t think I was like, I’m going to write a story about a girl who works as a bartender, you know what I mean? I start with an idea of a character, an idea of a person, an interesting visual, and then it all kind of starts to shape into a thing. Only after the script is done am I like, that’s what I was writing about.
Do you remember kind of what the inciting visual or character was for this script?
Sarrigeorgiou: It definitely started with a posing session. Both characters are looking, in a way. The artist is obviously looking at the model and trying to understand something about them. But the same is also true [for the model]. I think I was in the middle of a session, and I was like – I am staring at this lady painting me the same way she’s staring at me! I’m trying to guess what’s up with her.
I think it started with that, and then there was something about the bar. I had a bar moment, but now I can’t quite remember [laughs].
A lot of things not remembered in bars, I feel like.
Sarrigeorgiou: You know what actually really tied into this – I don’t think I’ve really mentioned this – I have a friend whose dad passed away a few years ago, and he worked at a bar his whole life. I went to the celebration of life they did, to support my friend, and I was just so struck by how clearly loved this person was, and how an entire town rolled up. I just found that really moving, and I thought about what it is to build your life around a place like that.
There’s an interesting sort of – and you’ve talked about this in interviews too – tension between this life that Lucy has that is so content and wonderful in a lot of ways, but there’s just this extra thing that meeting someone, whatever it might be, brings out.
Sarrigeorgiou: Totally. I think that in my own existential crisis, I’m always like, is it about the ambition, and the art, and the making stuff? Or is it about finding the people you love and the place you love and being content? I don’t know. And I think we as a society tend to place more value on one kind of life over another, and what is that about?
I wanted to talk a little bit about the way Lucy and Ilse’s queerness manifests. What I really like about this movie is there’s no big, loud realization. It comes about very slowly, and feels very person-specific. Could you talk a little bit about crafting that dynamic through the script?
Sarrigeorgiou: I’m queer, and I think for me, when I’m writing stuff, I’m approaching characters that are interested in each other, or falling in love with each other, or like having sex – whatever it is – in a script the same way I do as a person. I’m not, at this point in my life, with every interaction thinking about, what does this mean about my identity? I’ve kind of sorted all that stuff out. Even when I hadn’t fully, it still was like – I meet a person, and I like them, and I want to be around them. Not every choice I make is about what this means to be queer in this way. To me, it’s much more organic than that. I just don’t see that in films very often. Queer films tend to be the big love story – these are the loves of each others’ lives, and one of them will die at the end, probably. [Laughs] There is value in that, for sure. I love the movie “Carol,” it’s one of my favorite movies.
The other thing is the coming out trope. I just saw a film like that the other day. And again, there’s value in that. But I’m interested in, what are the films where it’s just a person meeting another person, and it’s not a big coming out story, and also they’re not meant to be together forever. I don’t think anyone’s watching “In Transit” thinking Lucy and Ilse belong together. No, but you’re having a meaningful connection with someone, that happens to be queer.
It’s interesting, I kept thinking about this idea of meeting someone, and it’s a “ships passing in the night” kind of dynamic, and then you realize something about yourself. And in my head, I’m like, how long would it have taken Lucy, or whoever it is in the situation, to figure this out had it not been for that person?
Sarrigeorgiou: Oh, right, very true. We talked a bit in preparing to shoot this and the onset about, has Lucy had an experience with a woman before? Has Ilse? We have loose ideas around what that stuff is. But also, in this particular instance, it’s not really about that, you know what I mean? It’s just about this one particular person, and what they’re making you realize about your life in the grand scheme of things – not just around identity.
Did you and Jennifer Ehle have rehearsal time?
Sarrigeorgiou: Kind of intentionally, Jennifer and I met in Maine ready to shoot. I think we met the day before our first shooting day together. I had been shooting with François [Arnaud, who plays Lucy’s boyfriend] for a couple days, and then Jennifer joined. So no rehearsal whatsoever, really, other than the two of us running lines, or that sort of thing. But no formal rehearsal. Jaclyn sort of did this intentionally because the characters are meeting for the first time, and are figuring out each other in real time. So there’s an interesting power dynamic in that as well, in their relationship. It was useful to bring that through withholding our meeting until it was time to shoot.
I think that would make me so nervous, but I do understand.
Sarrigeorgiou: [Laughs] Luckily, she’s a lovely human being. It was totally fine.
Especially someone like her. I’d be like, I’ve seen you in so many things!
Sarrigeorgiou: One hundred percent. I fully grew up watching her in things. It’s crazy, but also it helps in the power dynamic I was talking about, right? She’s a very established actress with incredible work behind her. And I’ve been acting for a while, but this is my first lead in a feature. What is that gonna bring up on its own, on a subconscious level, you know?
How did you find the experience of leading a feature for the first time? What challenges manifested?
Sarrigeorgiou: I think it was more like, the preparation looked different. On set, it doesn’t matter if you’re shooting one day on a thing or a few days for a short film. Whatever you’re doing, you’re just in the moment of the scene you’re doing. But in terms of preparing, I was very conscious of, okay, you’re shooting a feature – you’re shooting all out of order. The very first scene of the film that we shot was the last scene in the movie. So I think for me, I wanted to be very clear on: where is Lucy in her emotional journey in every scene, how close is she feeling with everyone in every scene, how much is she hiding in every scene, so it would be easy to track when we were on set. But then at the end of the day, you do all that, and then you roll up and you’re just in a scene. [Laughs] You kind of forget everything and then hopefully the prep did something that helps you be present in that moment.
Do you have a manner of keeping track? I’ve heard some actors keep notebooks.
Sarrigeorgiou: I just had my script in a big binder, and I had tabs – like color-coded tabs. For me, weirdly, it was organized by space. The bar versus the studio versus the home were different kinds of realms.
One of the things I really like about the film – I’ve never posed for anyone before, but I feel like the movie mirrors what that experience might be like in the silence of it all. There are these long, extended sequences, particularly before and after the posing, where it literally felt like I was watching an ASMR video – I was like, don’t fall asleep, but in the best way. When you’re writing, are you trying to bake in those silences, or those long stretches without dialogue?
Sarrigeorgiou: Honestly, it’s less of a trying to and more organic. Because, I think, I am an actor first who then started writing, when I’m writing, I’m very grounded in a character’s experience. So, I think if when I’m writing I’m thinking about what Lucy is seeing around her, and what Lucy is feeling, that kind of automatically bakes those silences in and those spaces in. I mean, the experience of posing for someone for hours on end – and also desperately trying not to fall asleep sometimes [laughs]. Like, standing in somebody’s studio and you’re like, my eyes are just fluttering shut. That was the most miserable part of that job – and I loved that job – but there’s literally nothing you can do. You can’t pinch yourself. You’re just like, okay. We’re here.
I always imagine itching.
Sarrigeorgiou: Oh God, yeah. Your butt falls asleep [laughs]. But, in the best moments, you’re just enjoying that quiet. Some days, I’d be running around frantically, and then I’d have to go pose for three hours. I was like, cool – this is my meditation time.