The stars of Magic Hour, Miriam Shor and Josh Stamberg, sat down with The Direct to discuss their newest film, which just premiered at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.
Magic Hour follows Shor's Harriet Peterson, a middle-aged woman stuck in a stagnant life with an unfulfilling marriage who finds renewed purpose in her life by enrolling in film school.
However, to make it all the more complicated, she hides it from her husband (Bob, played by Stamberg) and daughter.
Magic Hour Stars on Their Character's Complicated Choices?
They Both Make Questionable Choices—But There's Reasoning To Each
- The Direct: "Miriam, at the beginning of the film, Harriet makes the choice to go to film school, but she hides it from her family. Why does she make this choice?"
Miriam Shor: Why does she hide it? It's a really good question. It's a central question. Because I think, and she even says it is the reason I didn't tell you is because somehow I knew I would fail. I knew I wouldn't be able to do it, and I couldn't come to terms with that. So, the only way I could do it was to hide that from everyone, including myself.
And so, when she thinks she does fail, ultimately, she's like, I knew it. I knew I wouldn't make it. And that's that voice on all of our heads that's like, it's never going to work. You're never going to do it. And the only way for her to shut that voice up is to keep it hidden from anyone who might elevate that voice.
- The Direct: "Josh, can you paint a picture where Bob is mentally when this is happening [and] she's [making] complicated choices?"
Josh Stamberg: Yes, in a tiny, tiny box of me. A tiny box of, how do I get what I want immediately. Although I do find the one thing that's interesting about Bob, other than just being a narcissistic jerk, is that he's having A child with someone else and has a young woman in his own home that he's supposedly helping raise and, you know, that's interesting as a choice, and I know we don't see a whole lot of that. But where is he? I think he's living in a lot of secrecy and a lot of versions of what serves Bob. You know, that's interesting.
Shor: It's interesting you say that, though, because it's really like the two of them are not at all being honest with each other about who they are. And so that's not really some people who should be together. But what happens is that when you are with the person that you want to be with. Like, Bob welcomes Harriet into his home with a lot of love. Like, he's not a jerk there...
That's actually a really beautiful thing that I love that [director Jacqueline Christy] shows, which is she's like, she keeps saying, people who are open and kind and accepting and want to create a community are the things that will lift us all up and make it better to. Make us all more able to do what we want to do.
- The Direct: "The marriage between Harriet and Bob is broken when the film starts. What do you think the two of them looked like, you know, in their heyday? And what was the straw that broke the camel's back? When did it stop?"
Miriam Shor: Yeah, I think those straws are so sneaky, and there's so many building up, and you're not even paying attention as you're raising a kid, and you're doing your thing, and then before, you know, you're buried under haystack...
And I think that she was someone who won an award when she was a student who was going to make films, and she believed in herself, and he says, 'You had this spark. What happened to it?' And she's like, 'Yeah, our Spark is gone.' He's like, 'No, my spark is still here. Yours is gone.'
And I think you know, [Bob] was a narcissist, but he did keep his spark alive. He did keep what he wanted in the forefront a little too much. Yeah, and she just let hers go and doesn't even remember when. And I think a lot of us can relate to that.
Josh Stamberg: It's tricky meeting them at the moment when they've sort of turned away from each other, or he certainly, they're not there together, and in that first scene at the dinner table, it's just sort of so evident, like the lack of connection and just the missing, all that missing turns into that big haystack, right?
But it is interesting, even with all the missing, Harriet reclaiming herself and her dreams forces Bob actually, in a weird way, to have to pay attention to it, even if it's in the shittiest way of, like you're doing, what with the money from the house? From the house? Like, are you out of your mind? But now he's paying attention, right?
Shor: I mean, I also see, when she sees her daughter give up on her dreams, that is a hard line for her. What she can't do for herself, she will and must do for her daughter. So that is a moment that's sort of eye-opening for her.
What Alternate Career Choices Would They Have Made?
If They Weren't Actors, What Would Miriam Shor and Josh Stamberg Do?
- The Direct: "Magic Hour follows Harriet Peterson, someone who gets a boost of motivation to make a big life change and pivot her entire world. In that same vein, for both of you, if you weren't actors, what career paths do you think you might have taken?"
Josh Stamberg: Honestly, what I always hope, aspirationally, is... This is going to be sort of a long-winded, annoying answer. Aspirationally. I always feel like, boy, I hope that some of the things I do land in a way that, I won't say, changes people's lives but definitely opens them up a bit.
So, I think it would be something along those lines, maybe more directly of service, if I may, of like, how am I connecting with people every day, maybe locally, maybe in a community meeting...
I'd like to believe it would be some type of version of social work or help. Now, that might be high falutin. Maybe I would just be like working at Starbucks the way I was in the beginning. But yeah, that, or maybe some form of journalism. I wish I could be more specific.
Miriam Shor: There are so many times where [it feels] so selfish to be an actor, but I think I would still be in the creative world. I just might be behind the scenes, you know, like helping to run a theater or helping in some way, just needing—because I just think about what I was drawn to when I was a kid, and you're like, Yeah, I'm gonna do this school show, even if I'm just on the crew. I just need to be in that world.
So, if I couldn't be in this world, I truly don't know, and I think that's why you would do it. If you could come up with something else that was much less dangerous. Bottom line, I think you probably would, but yeah, I think I would probably be backstage, setting up the prop table.
- The Direct: "At the end of the day, when audiences have watched [Magic Hour], what do you want them to truly take away from the story?
Miriam Shor: We just had someone say after I watched this movie, I thought, I'm gonna get my script back out and work on it. That would be, you know, just this belief that your voice doesn't matter. Don't let the outside world tell you that you can't be an artist because it's only supposed to look this one way, you know.
Or you can't be anything because it's only supposed to look this one way... There's a voice inside you that is telling you what you want to do. Like, it's okay to listen to it... That's sort of what would be nice for people to get. And kindness. And leading with kindness, that would be nice too.
Josh Stamberg: And against lots of odds, right? That's all of us. Like, how, how far are we willing to sort of go climb. You know, how many challenges are we going to take on to get to the thing that matters to us most? Right? Yeah, what Miriam said better than what I just said.
The full interview can be seen below:
Magic Hour had its world premiere on February 5th at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, but no wider release information is known yet.
Make sure to check out Miriam Shor's previous interview with The Direct, where she spoke about her time on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3!
