EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — The new HBO Max drama Locked Down focuses on what everyone around the world is experiencing.
Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor star in the story of a couple during the pandemic, quarantined, and scheming a plot to do something radical.
We talk to the stars about their new pandemic-driven film and how it made them feel for everyone going through the same experiences as their characters.
5 Things You Need to Know:
- The story follows an estranged couple who are ready to break up but must stay together in a London apartment during the pandemic. Their jobs force them to do something radical.
- It was written, financed, and filmed in only 18 days entirely during the pandemic. Due to the limited resources and short production window, the order of several scenes needed to be adjusted, forcing Hathaway and Ejiofor to tape their un-memorized lines around set. Hathaway said she has a lot of empathy for everyone going through this struggle. "One of the things this year did for me and this film did for me was appreciate and really take stock of how I was living my life, and it made me want to be gentler to myself and made me want to be gentler to other people, and listen more deeply and give people more space to be going through more things that I might be able to imagine," she said.
- Hathaway is the recipient of many awards, including an Oscar, a Primetime Emmy, and a Golden Globe. Her Oscar and Globe were both won for her role in Les Misérables. She's also starred in The Princess Diaries, Brokeback Mountain, The Devil Wears Prada, Bride Wars, Valentine's Day, and Love & Other Drugs. She played Selina Kyle in the final installment or the Dark Knight trilogy, while also starring in The Intern and Ocean's 8.
- Hathaway was very expressive and passionate about the pandemic. "As awful as this year has been, [it] has meant my life has improved because I do feel, despite not able to be with people, I’m so hungry for connection that I’ve become more sensitive to it, and that has been a positive development in my life."
- Ejiofor, a British-Nigerian actor and filmmaker, was cast by Steven Spielberg to play a supporting role in the film Amistad in 1997. He then portrayed the character Okwe in Dirty Pretty Things and starred in 12 Years a Slave, where he recieved both an Oscar and Globe nomination. He was also in The Martian, Doctor Strange, and voiced Scar in the 2019 remake of The Lion King. He hopes Locked Down will help people going through a hard time during the pandemic. "It was that hope with something like this does that it would hold a mirror on this circumstance and reflect in these characters who are going through elements of what we all are experiencing."