From Embers, which stars Matthew Morrison and Kara Wang, deals with some heavy topics throughout its runtime, including alcoholism and raising a child with autism.
The movie follows Wang’s Lily Xu, who is a recently widowed single mother that has an autistic son named Kevin (played by Alexander J. Lee). While her husband’s death was ruled an accident, she started to suspect something else was at play.
Lily soon meets Matthew Morrison’s Marty Baker, a neighbor who takes a liking to her and starts to help in her daily struggles—while he himself is dealing with alcoholism behind closed doors.
The Cast of From Embers Discusses the Film’s Hard Topics
The Direct’s Russ Milheim sat down with the cast of the new film From Embers, where they talked about connecting with their characters and the hard topics at work within the story.
Matthew Morrison, who plays Marty Baker, quickly pointed to "the father-daughter bond" in the movie as being "the heart of the story:"
"For me, the father-daughter bond in this movie is the heart of the story. I feel like just being with his daughter is really grounding for him and all the struggles that he's going through. It's his North Star that keeps him trying to steer clear of all the things that he uses as a kind of numbing."
Kayla Bohan plays Chloe, the daughter of Morrison’s Marty. Morrison revealed that the two of them actually "got together and wrote a song together" before the movie started filming:
"Before we was shot anything on film, we got together and wrote a song together, and that was incredibly bonding for the two of us as music lovers... I think it really bled into our characters and the story. It's one of the things that brings people together more than anything, is music."
Bohan explained how she felt doing those deep scenes in the movie really strengthened the bond between the two of them as actors:
"Well, since we all have some like deep scenes... I think those just brought us together, because we discuss scenes like those. It's just spending time on set together and discussing how our characters work."
Morrison’s character deals with alcoholism in the movie, something the actor enjoyed exploring onscreen:
"I loved exploring the darker side of coping. How easy it is to fall into numbing, to reach for alcohol, instead of facing the shame and guilt head-on. And yeah, I felt like I got to go there. For me, this is a piece that—these parts don't really come my way that often, so it was fun for me to dive into this kind of world, this kind of character, this kind of turmoil that this guy is going through."
Bohan realized how big of an issue alcoholism is worldwide thanks to her time on the movie:
"The issue of alcohol was mentioned in this film. I realized while filming this movie that it's a serious problem worldwide, so it just stuck to me. I need to help my father in this movie with his problem and help him get better. And I just really feel like that stuck to me, and that made me become more emotional in my scenes."
Kara Wang, who plays Lily Xu, explained how excited she was to be able to take on the role because of how different it is to herself:
"I was really excited to take on the role because the character herself is actually very different from who I am as Kara. I'm single, and I don't have children, so this thought of being able to take on the role of a mother and to have a son who is on the autism spectrum and to bring authentic storytelling to that was something that was really exciting to me. One of the things that connected me to the character, though, is that Lily is very three-dimensional, very complex, and very resilient. Those were a lot of the characteristics that I was very excited to showcase and dig deep into."
"I’m a single mother, and I have twin boys with autism," Kathryn Morris, who plays Lily’s friend Angela in the movie, explained:
"I just loved the storyline of the single mother's plight with a child with autism... I'm a single mother, and I have twin boys with autism… I loved seeing a story that was being told about a single mother who, on top of it, has become a widow, and now she has so many situations... These are all on my friends, these mothers. So, I thought I just would love to be part of telling this story. Playing a character that is different. She's a bit of a childless cat lady, and she's supportive, but she's complex. She's trying to help. She doesn't always know what to do, but it was an interesting foray for me."
Wang shared how helpful Morris was in how she tackled the performance and Lily’s situation in From Embers:
"I think for me, one of the storylines that I focused a lot of my energy on was being a mother to a child with autism. Kathryn helped me so much with that. I remember having many conversations with her on set about her personal experience with her boys, what it is like to be a caretaker for these children, and how to provide the best life you can. It's very clear that everybody is just doing their best, but what is the day-to-day like?"
Wang continued, elaborating on how she did a lot of research on "other parents who have autistic children" to be able to tell this story authentically:
"We were just [talking] about her making sure her boys are ready for school every morning, and what that kind of process is, and knowing how important routine is. In the film, my babysitter keeps bailing out on me, right, and talking about how an inconsistent babysitter, inconsistent caretaker, can really be the linchpin to suddenly, your child having the whole day is just kind of off-kilter. I did a lot of research by watching videos of other parents who have autistic children, and I just wanted to make sure that there was authentic storytelling coming through when it came to that point."
Morris praised Wang for being so receptive to her advice and knowledge while pointing out that there’s something special that happens to a mother when she becomes a mother to a child with autism:
"She was so amazing at being receptive to just hearing my little two cents here and there. I just offered the information because it is actually a very intense hidden community, and literally no one knows what goes on with autistic family members. But I love the way that Kara, with all the relationships that she had with all of the people in the film, including Angela, was that she was just very matter of fact, and hey, I'm trying to do this, and I'm going to do this. There is something that happens when you become a mother of A child with autism, where you become a lioness, and she was that. So, it was important for me to represent the character that is on the periphery and doesn't always know exactly what to do. It's very representative of the way that society is."
Another heavy theme that the movie explores is grief, something that Lily is also dealing with after recently losing her husband.
Wang explained that those themes are "things that all of us have experienced in some way, shape, or form:"
"The themes of loss, grief, and love are all things that all of us have experienced in some way, shape, or form. The tragic death of my husband in the film is something that really is one of the driving forces for my character because it leads into my resilience and wanting to take care of my son, right?... I think the foundation of love and losing somebody that you love is something that I've personally experienced as well. And so to sort of delve deep into that grief, but also, having to put that to the side, because Lily doesn't even actually have time to grieve the loss of her husband, because she's trying so hard to make sure that her son can settle back into some sort of normalcy, is sort of kind of how I attacked that."
From Embers' upcoming theatrical rollout information can be found below:
- San Francisco, CA
- Date: November 8 - 14, 2024
- Location: Cinelounge
- Address: 40 Main St, Tiburon, CA 94920
- Tickets can be found here!
- New York City, NY
- Date: November 22 - 28, 2024
- Location Cinema Village
- Address: 22 E 12th St, New York, NY 10003
- Tickets can be found here!
