Director Glendyn Ivin talks to Popcorn Podcast about his new movie Penguin Bloom, starring Naomi Watts, Jacki Weaver and Andrew Lincoln. The award-winning filmmaker shares his insights on bringing the Bloom family's heartwarming story to the screen, as well as the spontaneity (and challenges) that working with animals and children bring to a production

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GLENDYN IVIN PENGUIN BLOOM INTERVIEW

Leigh: What qualities of the Blooms did you need Naomi and Andrew particularly to bring out? They are incredible actors, Naomi Watts and Andrew Lincoln. But what did you need them to encompass particularly about Cam and Sam Bloom?

Glendyn: I guess with Cam, the thing that I wasn't aware of, although I kind of was aware… I grew up with my grandmother living in the house, and she was in a wheelchair for most of her life. My mum was a full-time carer. And that's a pretty selfless role. I've always been interested in those carer characters, I think because my mum was one of them. So, Cam, and he doesn't really present himself this way, but he is a full-time carer and incredibly generous with his time in what he has to do for Sam day-in and day-out. It's something that we were looking at in the making of the film. If a couple in that sort of relationship have an argument, they can't walk to different sides of the house, or leave the house and not come back – they need each other. Cam needs to care for Sam Bloom all day, every day, just for doing the most simplest of things. We got really into that and knowing that he is a carer and he's almost like, I wouldn't say life support, but that's sort of the role that he takes on. So no matter how frustrated or how irritated you might get with someone, you still have to turn up and help them get in and out of bed, or you have to take them to the bathroom, or help them to the shower and to get dressed. That's a totally different relationship to what most people have.

And with Sam, there was obviously a lot of physical things that we wanted to get right, like how do you transfer in and out of bed? Sam Bloom’s injury, like anyone with a spinal injury, it's very specific to them. She's injured from, as we say in the film, from the bra-strap down. She can only hold herself in certain ways; she can only do certain things. So there was a physical thing that Sam Bloom and Naomi Watts worked on. 

And then, I guess, for both of them, there was the psychological aspect of that.

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