Todd Haynes first received the script for his latest movie, May December , from Natalie Portman during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. With Hollywood and other industries shuttered, the director found himself drawn to the pleasurable uncertainty that the films two female protagonists relayed.

There was humor, and there was also darkness, and the way those things interwove was so masterfully done. Just when you thought you knew what you were thinking and feeling, the ground would shift, Haynes told HuffPost. Natalie and I started to talk about it, and we found so many commonalities about what attracted us to the material, from expectations about who these characters are to the judgments and moral groundings around these women.

May December, which opened in theaters last week ahead of a Dec. 1 release on Netflix , is a fictionalized take on a real-life case that ignited a tabloid frenzy in the 1990s. The film follows Elizabeth Berry (played by Portman), a television actor who is hoping to portray Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore ) in a biopic.